We are often told that we must respect others, and that is true...until they begin to disrespect us. Certainly everyone deserves a certain amount of respect; no person, no matter how vile, deserves to be raped, for example, nor do I know of anyone who deserves to be tortured. Even absolute scoundrels deserve a basic amount of human decency. But, in many instances, we have gone far beyond that, providing those who have received good fortune by pure chance, not by "hard work", as they often incorrectly call it, with blind worship and adulation. While it is true that the Teslas and the Joe Manchins and the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Ted Sarandoses and the Kayne Wests of the world have achieved goals in life, it is also true that, in order to accomplish those goals, they all were mean, nasty, cunning, cold, snobbish, and awful to achieve those goals. Not one of the people I have listed above have done anything good for humanity, not one thing. Tesla was recently ordered to pay money to his black employees for obviously racist comments; he also spreads conspiracy theories on his Twitter page on a regular basis. Joe Manchin just saw to it that big oil will continue to pollute the environment, while also helping republicans deny poor black people the right to vote and supporting the Texas abortion ban, all of which he is proud of by the way. Instead of owning up to his mistakes, Zuckerberg went full coward and changed the name of his company to avoid accountability for the teenagers whose lives he helped ruin or, in some cases, end (not to mention how he propelled obscure right wing extremists to fame and fortune on his little metaverse). Apart from ritualistically promoting anti-LGBTQIA stances on his platform, Ted Sarandos (CEO of Netflix) is also at the center of the Hollywood union strike because he has refused to pay tech crews, designers and assistants a fair wage, even though he made a huge fortune during the pandemic. Kayne West loves to waste money on cheeseburgers at McDonald's so he has none left over to pay his workers; the billionaire has failed to pay his employees on multiple occasions, but perhaps the most egregious of these was his "Sunday Service" venture, where he pretended to walk on water and to be a Christian before failing to pay 1,000 workers. Had Kayne read the bible he loves to wave in other people's faces, he may have noted at least one of the 100 verses that strictly forbid the wealthy from not paying their workers: "Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." (Romans 13:7) Kayne was also a big ho for Trump, even going so far as to run a fake campaign to take away votes from Joe Biden. These people are the scum of the earth and, if you are like most people, you want to be like them. You respect their success because they gained wealth by harming others. You respect their callousness, not their creativity. Many people wish they could be like Joe Manchin, not because Joe Manchin is a good person, but because he sips sweet tea on a yacht while denying your black friends the right to vote. People secretly want to be that ruthless, that heartless, that careless because that is what it takes to be rich and famous. Life would be a whole lot easier if you were Mark Zuckerberg and could just allow the deaths of innocent children to roll off your shoulders while you rake in another few million. One quick glimpse into the minds of people and you will find that they reserve their respect for villains, thieves and murderers. And so of course I do not respect the worshipers of thieves; I give them only the most basic form of respect for their constitutionally protected freedoms, nothing more. Thieves do not deserve my respect; they are the dirt between the crevices of my boots: filthy, diseased and utterly useless. I reserve my respect for those who lift us up, not hold us down.