Chicken Soup with the Kyle Maynard Defense...

Kyle Maynard is a man who was born with no arms or legs. His website promotes his accomplishments as a motivational speaker, athlete, and author of the New York Times bestseller, "No Excuses." At the bottom of his "bio" is the following statement:

HBO Real Sports corespondent, Bernie Goldberg, summed it up best when he said, “Kyle’s taken away the right to complain from the rest of us.”

The misspelling of the word "correspondent" is theirs, not mine.

Bernie Goldberg's observation is one of the social forces that allow serious societal problems to persist and fester. It's called the Kyle Maynard Defense and it's a familiar experience for many Americans.

If you're a relatively low status individual in your community and you complain about a problem that's being caused by the behavior of a relatively high status individual (bullying for example...or being raped by gridiron heroes), a relatively common method of brushing you off is to site an individual who suffers from a problem that is much worse. The logic behind this sort of brush off is simple. As long as someone in the world suffers from a problem that's worse than your problem, then you don't have a problem and you're just being a crybaby.

The basic flaw in the Kyle Maynard Defense is obvious. Medical Science isn't even close to developing a method of growing human limbs. Kyle Maynard has every right to complain, but complaining serves no purpose because no power on Earth can solve Mr. Maynard's problem. In contrast, communities could easily address behavioral problems like bullying and rape. They just don't want to because it would require them to place the safety of low status individuals ahead of the petty desires of high status individuals. And they're not above employing the Kyle Maynard Defense (and other, similar put downs) in a futile effort to hide their depraved indifference.

Tomorrow's terrorists learn a lot about right and wrong from the communities they grow up in.

Perhaps your community is nursing a viper in its belly right now.