Sometimes it's easy to worry about stuff. I'm an American, so that means I'm supposed to be most worried about crime. (For the record, I'm not worried about crime, but most Americans are.)
The fact that so many US citizens are so terrified of crime is one of the chief reasons that so many Americans have guns. They want to protect themselves from crime, but the truth is that they're much more likely to hurt themselves or one of their loved ones with their own guns than they are to protect themselves from a random criminal.
One of the biggest reasons I'm not afraid of crime is that I don't live in the US anymore, which at least keeps me from worrying so much about being randomly shot. I'm also not afraid of crime because I know that statistically, the chance of me being the victim of a serious crime is exceedingly, exceedingly small. That's the case in the US, and that's the case here in Thailand.
Another reason I'm not afraid of being the victim of a crime is that criminals, in general, are really stupid. I've been watching a lot of true crime shows on YouTube lately. One of the biggest lessons you learn from watching crime shows like 40 Hours and Dateline is that most people who commit crimes are probably not going win any Nobel Prizes, be in Mensa or even qualify for a grade-school spelling bee.
Another TV show that demonstrates how imbecilic criminals are is Banged up Abroad on the National Geographic channel. Those are some stupid people on that show. Most of the criminals on Banged up Abroad are would-be drug smugglers who end up in prison in someplace like Columbia or Peru or something. And they're stupid.
They're stupid because they transported drugs. They're stupid because they trusted somebody they didn't know. More than likely they're stupid because they were partaking of just the same kind of substances that they were transporting.
Every day you see stories on the news about stupid criminals, many of whom are drug smugglers. Some are murderers. Some run gambling dens. They're all stupid.
So, of all the things there are to worry about, I've moved criminals way down the list. From now on I'm going to be only afraid of things that can really hurt me.
Like spiders and clowns.
Sean Vale
Editor
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