Does It Ever Bother You?

A few things bug me about a local square dance club. I wonder if those same things also bug you.

First, how did a band of thugs end up running a square dance club which was started, promoted, built and grown by someone else? How did known swindlers end up with their own club?

The shocking truth: they just outright bald-face STOLE the club (along with thousands of dollars). Ed Wedig and his Bandits were entrusted with running the club whenever the founders were out of town. Instead of running the club, they outright stole it. It's a simple plot. Gain someone's trust. Wait until they go out of town, then rob them.

Outright theft bothers me. Does it bug you at all? If so, what do you plan to do about the fact that someone outright stole a square dance club (and thousands of dollars), then lied their ass off about it, and now they want you to pretend the cheating swindling lowdown robbery never happened and/or the victims deserve to be robbed?

Under what set of sick and twisted values does someone deserve to get robbed? That philosophy is extremely bothersome.

Other things are amiss as well. It takes 8 people (okay, 9 counting the caller) to square dance. Apparently nine people in your community are completely okay with robbery, theft, cheating, swindling, etc. Does that sad fact bother you? Would you have ever guessed that an outright robbing crook could find nine cronies to support and endorse theft, robbery, lying, cheating and swindling?

If you go to the stolen club then you are in that bad square of robber-supporters.

Other things bother me. Let's suppose that you owe someone thousands of dollars. Instead of paying it back, you decide to steal the money and also steal their square dance club right out from under everyone's nose, then lie like crazy to cover up your crime. Let's suppose that you really did all those things. In other words, let's suppose that you are Ed Wedig.

Okay, what's your next move? What do you do with your freshly-stolen club and the thousands of dollars in robbery loot which you stole?

Your next move is to find a caller who will knowingly accept stolen robbery loot to call for your stolen club. Surely you face an obstacle. What caller on this planet is immoral and lowdown enough to knowingly accept stolen robbery loot to call for a stolen club run by robbing cheating lying slanderous swindlers?

The sad answer is "every caller they ever asked".  Not one caller refused to help robbers spend loot. You'll find more restraint at a shark feeding frenzy. Most callers rushed back repeatedly to grab more loot, scooping up the spoils of robbery as fast and as often as possible.

Do you find it shocking that every caller will gladly help rob a professional colleague? Do you find it amazing that, in the realm of square dancing, the term "friendship" is as flimsy as a puff of smoke?

Do you find it dismaying that if you ever happen to get robbed, your only choice is to just silently take it like a man, elseways the robbers will smear your name all over the world?

Yes indeed, something's not quite right at one of the square dance clubs. Does this bother you in any way? If so, what do you intend to do about it?

Here's how you can help solve the problem: stop supporting the robbers! In an ideal world, we'd all persuade the cheating lying swindling robbers to give back the thousands of dollars they stole, but let's be real. We will never see such a rosy outcome from this mess. All we can hope for is a realistic compromise.

The only practical solution, i.e. the only way you can help, is to recognize that there are honest dances in the area. (I say this knowing that almost every dancer and caller in the area has already participated, in some way, in the robbery). It might actually be impossible to find a completely honest dance. But surely you can find a dance which is more honest than the totally immoral corrupt swindled robbed cheated club which is operated today by a crime ring.

Here's how you can make things better. Every time you're tempted to support the crooks, DON'T. Instead, find an honest dance (if you can) and support that event instead.