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The 9-1-1 Phone Tree

Doug Watt
@DougWatt
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The 9-1-1 Phone Tree is an old sarcastic parody from an anonymous street cop. As an old former street cop who received an education on the streets that I could not, nor could I ever, receive from a college education I found it amusing.

As one Notre Dame professor put it, "Sociology is the slut of the sciences." I didn't attend Notre Dame, but as Joseph Wambaugh stated in one of his police novels, "Father Flannigan of Boys Town was wrong, there is such a thing as a bad boy." Mr. Wambaugh should know because he climbed the ladder in the LAPD and left as a member of the varsity in policing, a homicide detective.

A call is made to 9-1-1 and the caller hears the following:

Please listen carefully as our selections have changed. Press 1 if you want us to raise your children for you. Press 2 if your neighbor's dog is barking. Press 2 again if you have not contacted your neighbor about their barking dog. Press 2 one more time if you don't know your neighbor's name.

You get the idea. Let's move back to Press 1. I came across an interesting video on the Catholic Vote website that may deserve a Press 1.

This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.

Discussion (3)

  • Nohaaj@Nohaaj

    That is a great video, and better message. As he noted probably too late for thousands of entitled mental toddlers currently protesting rioting at all the Ivies. Hopefully it reaches a few young parents while they can still rein in their youngins.

    That is really cool about Russell Brand too. I read about his Baptism last week. He was definitely red pilled during the covid lockdowns.

  • E. Kent Golding@EKentGolding
    Maybe as a separate post, but I would like to see the whole phone tree. FYI, my wife pressed two, and the kind person at the end of the line actually talked her into calling the neighbor. She had called the general, not emergency number .
  • Old Bathos@OldBathos

    I knew an old priest who was extremely well-versed in moral theology and advanced notions about such things, having studied in Rome. He told me that while all that was good stuff, his personal moral compass was still whether what he was about to do would be something that his parents and siblings would approve of. That was his eternal reference point.

    We have too many parents who feel compelled to "support" whatever the kids do as if the possibility of disagreement was too terrible to contemplate. I love you but what you are doing is really wrong and stupid is a forbidden utterance.

    Mark Twain had that great joke about how at age 16 he regarded his father as the stupidest man in the world but when he was 21, he was amazed how how much the old man had learned in the interim. Good parenting is about holding onto good values so that there is someone and someplace to which the kids can return when they figure it out.