Camel’s Back Crack
Breaking the curse of being a good person
Once in another life, I was an enthusiastic recruit standing in line in the chow hall during basic training at Lackland Air Force Base. One of the training instructors came up to me, bent down, and whispered in my ear: “If you don’t wipe that smile off your face I’m gonna yank it off and shove it up your ass!”
He stood back up and burst out laughing at my shocked expression. He was joined in merriment by several other instructors. None of these guys were my own flight’s training instructors, who were tough and demanding, but never cruel or nasty. These guys were not content with tormenting their own flights but sought more gratification by gathering together in the chow hall to pick out more “red meat” among other trainees.
My shock was shattering. It was my first experience of anyone speaking like that to anyone, especially for no reason other than the pleasure of humiliating them. As a military child, I had lived in many places and met many different people, but never anyone who genuinely didn’t mean well.
Everyone I knew may have come from different cultures, races, and even continents, but we all had one thing in common — we were all basically good people.
The “Good People Club”
All of us raised in the Good People Club internalize its basic rules. We are considerate of others. We value fairness, honesty, and integrity. We show compassion, contribute our share, and help those in need. We obey the law and are good citizens. We are filled with goodwill. And despite our flaws and failures, we mean well.
But there are other rules — in an unchallenged ideology surrounding us from all corners of the club.
They assert that we, the Good People of the world, are highly privileged to have been raised in loving homes and communities that instilled in us good values. Those outside our club — the bad people — are victims of bad upbringing and loveless childhoods. This is why they are filled with selfishness, entitlement, resentment, and malice. It’s why they enjoy inflicting pain and humiliation on others. It’s why they don’t mean well.
The extremists among us maintain the simplistic notion that all these bad people can be “cured” by love. As members of the Good People Club, we must show them that love and thus “rescue” them. They even believe this could lead to abolishing prisons.
The more mainstream view is that while we may not be able to save these people from themselves, we must nevertheless be responsible for them. We must model correct behavior to them, never stooping to their level to respond in kind when they act out or bully us. We must always be the better person — who responds with love and maintains decorum. We must clean up their messes because they don’t know how to. We must always include them in every gathering, no matter how disruptive they are or how much they hurt others because we are inclusive.
They are beneath us. They don’t understand anything. We have to care for them no matter what they do because it is our duty as privileged and enlightened Good People.
The weight of the world
The Air Force was crawling with people who didn’t mean well. I left after my first enlistment, thinking it must be the only place where bullies and villains of every stripe ran rampant. I would later learn otherwise — that this is just the reality of the entire adult world.
Bullies are everywhere, destroying careers, reputations, dreams, and families. Nobody ever does anything to them. In families, they operate alone or with a single ally. In the workplace, they form gangs. Either way, they almost always win.
The only sanction levied on this behavior is upon us, the victims if we ever “lower ourselves” to defend ourselves or fight back. If we ever even say a harsh word to these goons we will have violated the Good People Club’s code of conduct. We will have lowered ourselves to their level and broken decorum. Even worse, we will have failed in our duty to the civilized world.
According to the Good People Club’s beliefs, we are the only ones upholding civilization. If we descend into the practices of the bad people, civilization will collapse back to a hunter-gatherer stone age and humanity will regress to cave-dwelling Neanderthals! Maintaining civilization is our responsibility and ours alone.
So when your rude Aunt publically asks you and your spouse why you still haven’t produced any grandchildren, reminding you loudly how you aren’t getting any younger, you are obliged to smile and take it. Because if you speak up and put her in her place, you will have violated the code. You will be regarded as the villain for breaking decorum and making her uncomfortable. Ditto for your racist grandfather, who insults your Mexican sister-in-law on every occasion. You must invite him to everything, otherwise, you violate the rule of inclusion. Only his feelings matter.
You, however, are enlightened, so you don’t matter. You must uphold the code, maintain decorum, save civilization, endure all abuse, and never expect anything but spit as a thank you. Now get to work — you’ve got a mess to clean up.
A national plague
In 2016 the bad people united and went national. They had become so bold in exploiting our code of etiquette at the personal and workplace level, that a great leader took them on to practice their malice on the national stage. MAGA was born.
The elites and the media blamed us, for choosing “division” instead of “building bridges” to try to “understand” them. Our institutions and political leadership dove butt first into the cover of the Good People Code with a big show of decorum, turning a blind eye to MAGA’s blatant law-breaking and insurrection and pretending that everything was normal.
Eventually, on 5 November 2024, the MAGAs won Washington again. After removing the gallows from the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021, our leaders and institutions maintained the facade that MAGA and its representatives were a legitimate political party. The Justice Department dithered and bent over backward to follow every law and rule to the letter, unwilling to offend them with the slightest appearance of bias.
Because only they mattered — more than saving our democracy and republic, they had to be satisfied. And as for us? We just needed to suck it up and get to work. There were going to be a lot of messes that needed cleaning up.
But for the first time, ever, it didn’t go that way.
A giant cracking sound
It happened immediately. With no forethought or advance coordination, we started cutting ourselves loose from all the MAGAs in our lives. The stories were everywhere. Divorce lawyers were swamped. Parents cut off their MAGA kids' college tuition. MAGA relatives were either disinvited from Thanksgiving gatherings or other family members boycotted the event. Small businesses were boycotted as customers discovered their MAGA ties. People cut ties with MAGA friends and family members.
The elites and certain old-school enforcers among us were aghast. But we were just getting started. As MAGAs learned the policy consequences of their votes, they regretted them. FAFO became our comic relief. We stopped holding back, openly mocking their vileness and stupidity from the rooftops.
It felt like a dam bursting. It still does.
We have been lied to for decades. Yes, they do know better. No, we don’t have to rescue them. No, we don’t have to take care of them and clean up their messes. Yes, we can and should defend ourselves from them. No, we have not been maintaining civilization; we have just been enabling the predators among us by offering ourselves as prey. No, they are not the only ones whose feelings matter.
We matter. And we are done.
