Political

Is it just America? (Copied from a discussion forum I’m on)

I’m not sure if this counts as a political thread, but I’m putting it here to be safe..

In the thread about fact checking, I said: “I try not to waste my time with that stuff, but sometimes I can’t stop myself. Often when I fact check and then point it out to them. they’re like ‘Ha! Snopes! Snopes is always wrong!’

When you snope on liberals, they claim Snopes caters to conservatives. When you snope on conservatives, they claim Snopes caters to liberals.

I did manage to convince a cousin that Heineken was not sponsoring the dog fight and we can drink Heineken without feeling guilty.”

Marty responded with: “And there is the core of what’s most wrong with America today. Liberals blame conservatives and vice-versa. As a result very little good can actually get done. If Donald wanted to really MAGA he’d try and stop the constant blame game. But I think it is all he knows and while he is President it will only get more partisan.”

As you know, Marty is a Canadian, but he’s talking about the United States, which implies that Marty doesn’t feel these issues exist in Canada, or at least not on the same level as they do in the United States.

Now, I’m not arguing with Marty about that, because it has been my understanding that Canada doesn’t have an ongoing clash between liberals and conservatives the way we do, neither does the United Kingdom, Ireland or several other countries.

But I wonder, how is it different? Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom have right wingers and left wingers. A cousin of mine who relocated to England a few years ago when she married a Brit told me that in politics over there, most people take one side or the other, that it’s pretty much a two-party system just as it is over here. I believe Canada is about the same. I’m not too sure about Ireland, though.

Do your conservatives and liberals just mingle better than ours do? Are your disagreements not as strong as ours are? Are you better at compromising?

Or is it really not that much different?

Political

More Darkness

Democrats see Republicans as bullies, but don’t acknowledge that Democrats are bullies too. Republicans see Democrats as crybabies, but don’t acknowledge that Republicans are crybabies too.

Both parties have pros and cons. Neither is better than the other. If things keep going the way they’ve been, both parties will shoulder the blame for the death of America.

Political

The Darkness

These are dark days. Everyday, I see how the darkness is spreading and becoming more firm, solidifying. Yet, I’ve been mostly silent about it.

It’s not that I don’t care and it’s not that I’m ignoring it. It’s just that I don’t know what I can say that hasn’t already been said a million times, that hasn’t already been heard by everyone a million times.

There’s nothing I can say that’s going to change anyone’s mind. If you agree with me on an issue, it’s because you were always in agreement with me. If you disagree with me on an issue, you’ll never agree with me.

I could participate in the constant sharing of memes and articles on social media and insert messages like “See! See! Look stupids! Proof that you’re wrong!” But what good does that do when the only people who take your post seriously are the people who are already on your side.

To stop the darkness, you need to take real action. The word wars on social media will accomplish nothing.

Misc, Political

George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush. I was twelve when he became President. I remember sending him a letter about my desire to join the military when I turned eighteen and asking if he could do something to change the rules that prevent deaf and hard of hearing people from serving.

I received a reply sometime later with an autographed picture of George Bush and Dan Quayle. The reply said something about congress needing to vote on it and all that, and there were a few words of encouragement, though it was really just a form letter put together by someone on the White House staff. I don’t know if Bush ever actually saw my letter.

I believe he was a good man.

Political

Politics

Discussing politics is dangerous. There’s two different ideas that I’m struggling with. One is “If you keep quiet about political issues, then you’re part of the problem.” The other is, “Don’t talk politics if you don’t want your friends to feel alienated.”

There are a number of political arguments that I wish I hadn’t had. They got very heated and bridges were burned. I don’t like losing friends, no matter how different our politics are.

Sometimes I think the smartest friends I have are the ones who race cars. They say nothing about politics. I’m sure they have political leanings, but I don’t know what they are. All they talk about is their race cars.

Football, NFL, Political, Sports

About the meme I keep seeing on Facebook

Given how many unarmed people are killed by police, I can’t believe you would say “Kaepernick is crying wolf.”  I’m not saying the police are all bad, but they’re human like the rest of us and they have fuck ups. Colin Kaepernick wants something done about it. Why in the hell is that so offensive to people?

Glen Coffee and Colin Kaepernick are two completely different circumstances and there is no comparison here. It’s ridiculous comparing Kaepernick to veterans.

I wonder how Coffee feels about people using him to discredit Kaepernick. We don’t know which side of this controversy he’s on, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in agreement with Kaepernick, as many, many veterans are.

Misc, Political

Armed citizen saves lives

I’ve been saying it for a long time. Armed citizens can make a difference in these situations. Last time I got into a discussion on the subject, someone said she doesn’t think more people should be armed. It didn’t cross my mind at the time, but I want to say that I’m not calling for more people to be armed in public. I just want the people who are already licensed to carry to be allowed to carry.

The story.

Misc, Political

On This Day, I Write….

I wrote this a couple days ago and posted it, but then took it down. Haven’t felt very confident in the last week. Well, here it is again, with some edits:

I was born in March 1977. That makes me an 80’s kid. I wasn’t officially a teenager until 1990. I could be wrong, but it’s my belief that most children of the 80’s grew up hearing about the Vietnam War. It wasn’t something that was taught in school. We heard about the war because our parents talked about it, often among themselves or with friends and relatives while the kids were playing in the background.

Uncle Gary served with the Navy in Vietnam. He was in the Army too, before his Naval career, but I don’t think the Army sent him to Vietnam.. While in the Navy, he was stationed in  Da Nang–I think it was Da Nang, anyway– where he built bridges. I always saw Gary as a sort of legend, probably because he was my mom’s brother and I heard a lot about him. I didn’t hear about any action that he might have seen, but I remember Mom talking about the letters he’d sent home.

There’s this story that I haven’t forgotten. When my mom was a kid, she was sitting on the porch outside the house her family was living in. A man in uniform showed up. Mom thought he was a police officer and told him her parents were in the house. The man went in and everyone started hugging him..

That was Gary, home after his tour in Vietnam.

The last time I saw Gary alive was when he was moving out of the building where we each had an apartment. He saluted me, I returned the salute. I think he knew how much of a military-wannabe I was and how much I looked up to him.. He died shortly after he left. I think it was a stroke. 2001 or 2002..

Gary had PTSD. I heard that he only talked about the war when he was drunk. In the last couple  years of his life, he’d had a serious case of what looked like Parkinson’s disease. He could barely talk and his hands were always shaking. When we were living in the same building, I visited him a lot. We’d drink beer and watch TV.

Memorial Day isn’t so much about those who served. That’s what Veteran’s Day is for. Memorial Day is for those who died while serving the country. But I think on Memorial Day, we tend to think of everyone we know who served whether they died in war or not, perhaps because they were all willing to make the sacrifice. They all joined, knowing they could be sent to war.

I remember seeing a Memorial Day parade (It might have been a Veteran’s Day parade, but I feel more strongly that it was a Memorial Day parade.) that one of my dad’s cousins was marching in. Dale, like Uncle Gary, had been in the Navy and served in Vietnam. That was probably in the late-eighties when I saw that parade. At the time, I didn’t fully understand and was probably more fascinated by the fact that Dale was a Vietnam vet.

But now I think Dale and the guys he was marching with were marching to honor those like a cousin of my mom’s who died in Vietnam, a boyfriend of one of my aunt’s who died in Vietnam, and all those who gave their lives in Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War and any other war, no matter how big or small, that America had fought.

No matter what your political leanings are, or if you agree or not with one conflict or another that America is or has been involved in, you should acknowledge that without people willing to join the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard our nation would not survive.

Political

Just another observation

A  lot of people who say they  will stand up against Nazis  are often expressing the same views that Nazis do.  I wonder if they really know what a Nazi is and what it means to be a Nazi. It seems that they would carry out the same acts as Nazis, as long as they’re not calling themselves Nazis.