More On Twenty Years Ago.

Like I said, I researched the topic of driving in Michigan and driving rights here and driving rights in the US in general around 2004, when all that nonsense with my car began. Began like I said for no legitimate reason then, it must have had something to do with my suicide attempt in April. My suicide attempt that was brought on by years of threats and psychological abuse by things like what happened at Oakwood Hospital in 1989 and Dearborn with that coffee-pouring incident in 2001. I always knew that I was very good driver, better than most even. People like me should never have their right to drive questioned in any way. And yet they did, and suddenly around 2005 like I said. I also knew that people with epilepsy can drive in Michigan if they are seizure free for at least a year. I was thinking at the time maybe that wasn't such a good idea. If a person could have a sudden, unexpected seizure, should they be driving at all? Or I was thinking then, as I was thinking when I started driving around 1989, about people who are illiterate. I certainly don't have that problem. But I knew they could drive, and I recently read that would never be a reason alone to deny someone a license in the US. And some people who are illiterate are good drivers with good insurance. Most road signs are pretty obvious what they mean. The symbols on them and even words that you can recognize make it clear what they are. But what about a road sign that says "bridge out in three miles, take second exit on the left"? With a sign like that it is very important that you know its exact meaning. And like I said, though I don't know my exact IQ or grade level, I certainly am at a normal reading and other level. I can read roads signs a paragraph long in a glance. And yet the police started telling me then I looked to mentally handicapped to be driving. Which in itself is ridiculous, because I read that the mentally handicapped in Michigan can drive. They have the same rights that everyone does until the opposite is proven. So why do the police think they are above the law and can ignore that rule? Plus most of the people in Detroit really have no business driving at all. Most don't have insurance. Many have suspended licenses. And many really don't obey any of the rules or laws of the road, unlike me. Shouldn't the police be fighting all the crime there is in Detroit and Michigan before they start following some private agenda to go after an innocent person like me?

Like I said, the issue of justice suddenly started coming up in the media and other places around this time, as if not by accident. And the issue of driving and the rights of certain groups to drive too. When the 2004 Al Pacino movie The Merchant of Venice came out in 2004 it almost seemed like it was no accident. Our probate lawyer Karl Schettenhelm told me he really liked the play's message and heartily endorsed my studying it. In addition to the fact he wanted me to see its message of mercy, I later found that it was also because he seemed to feel I should show mercy to people to the degree that they could just walk all over me. Like at the Detroit Public Library Redford Branch around then. They had a policy at the library at the time that you could get ten copies off the internet for free, but no more than that. There was this blonde haired librarian there then who was very obnoxious with me. I did nothing wrong, but she would give me dirty looks and go out of her way to be rude to me when I was there. And one time I was getting copies off the internet. And she asked me if I got more than ten. I told her not really because most of the copies that I got were ruined and blank paper even. Oh no she said, that still counts as a copy. I told Mr. Schettehelm about her and the unequal way she treated me in general when I was there. I said maybe I should file a discrimination report, because her behavior by then was really beginning to cross the line. And Mr. Schettenhelm said no. He said discriminations claims of that kind are never successful. As a lawyer he could tell me that. Plus he told me when you file a discrimination complaint like that, then people you don't know will start following you around. It's clear what Mr. Schettenhelm's views were of me and my rights. But that movie the Merchant of Venice was interesting, as was the play. The message of the play was of mercy. But not mercy to those who take advantage of it. Or who use the mercy or fair treatment they get from the justice system to violate the rights of others. On the subject of misusing the justice system against someone and misusing legal authority in general that way, the duke says to Shylock "How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend’ring none?" Meaning if you mistreat people that way and the justice system has been lenient to you up till then, that could suddenly change. Especially how that quote actually has an ironic meaning foreshadowing the end of that court room scene in the play. As does the irony of the warning Portia gives Shylock when she tells him that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy and that same prayer teaches us all to render the deeds of mercy. Meaning if you are misusing the very flawed, very human justice system to settle some personal matter you may find yourself at the mercy of it, as Shylock does at the end of that scene again. And how the word mercy takes on a double meaning for Shylock in both of those quotes.