Lindsay and Legality

Ah, them bad girls. Can’t live with them...

So now we get into the whole Lindsay thing and, given what just happened with Paris, you would really think this poor girl would have some kind of Clue, but she obviously doesn’t quite get it.

And while FOX tends to be pretty harsh on celebrities, Trace Gallagher had a clinical psychologist on earlier and they both made some pretty good points. Trace said he doesn’t feel sorry for her because she has been given pretty much every entitlement imaginable and screws it up every chance she gets. He also said that he isn’t so sure she’s addicted to substances, but definitely addicted to partying, in general. I agree with both these points completely.

But then he brought up that Magic Number argument which is a total straw man argument, saying that now she is 21, so she has to take responsibility for her own actions, and we can’t blame the parents. And I completely disagree.

She may be 21 years old physically (and, man, is she!), but that says nothing about her mental or emotional maturity - and those are the things in question here! People do not magically “grow up” at 18 or 21 or 17 or 4; those are just numbers, y’all. Look at Scott Baio!

It really does come back to her parents to some degree because neither of those party animals ever bothered to teach my future ex-girlfriend how to handle herself responsibly, nor much at all about life in general. In Lindsay’s mind, she’s always “on.” No matter where she is, she is surrounded by cameras, talked about by others, gawked at, marveled over, asked for her autograph; she is not a real person in her own head; Lindsay Lohan is a construct inside which this troubled young woman is trapped. And if that sounds like a bunch of psychobabble to you, then you’re just compassionless and wrong. And I don’t even want to hear about how you acted at 21 or what you felt at 21 or anything else; you are not Lindsay Lohan and you have not lived her life, so you don’t matter in this situation. That is just another Americanism where certain, morally superior, people try to completely occlude the Individual by subjecting him to the Collective.

I can tell you that by 21, I had seen and experienced things no 21 year-old should have had to see or experience, but when I hear about things like this, I don’t compare my experiences to theirs anymore than I do anyone else’s. One of the other news stories today had to do with a young mother who was playfully driving through puddles on the street to splash the children, then hydroplaned into the group of kids, killing a toddler. Some may say, “That was incredibly stupid and reckless!” but it’s really no different from letting the kids ride in the back of the pick-up or on the tractor or a zillion other things that don’t seem all that dangerous - and generally, really aren’t - until they become so. I'd like to think I would never do something like this, and I generally would not, but I won't judge the woman "stupid" or "reckless" or anything else, because I can see as how someone might not really think much about something so seemingly innocent, even if it seems "common sense" to me and/or others.

And Lindsay Lohan simply isn’t prepared, mentally or emotionally, to deal with these things in a mature manner. She just... isn’t. She’s led an incredibly sheltered life, surrounded by useless people like her parents, who are so incredibly self-involved that when she turned 21, they all but turned her out - they just waved her goodbye and never looked back.

I am of the mind that we, as a society, now have to take responsibility for Lindsay Lohan’s emotional and mental well-being and it is quite obvious that she is not in the right frame of mind, no matter her age. Only after we have empowered her with the information and stability every living American deserves can expect her to be able to make the right decisions and hold her responsible when she doesn't.

I am willing to do my part: I will let her live with me and even share my bed. Look, it’s a small apartment and she needs the humility. This is a selfless act on my part, but I am willing to go the distance for betterment of all. And that, I think, proves how serious I am about this whole thing.