On the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the U.S. military, I was in Logan. I know, big surprise I’m usually not in the country for these things. Since the beginning of the war there had been a small band of mostly high school students who supported peace that would gather outside the tabernacle and hold signs. When the anniversary rolled around a bit of a celebration of peace was organized and that small band of die-hards was accompanied through the streets of Logan by close to a hundred people, possibly more. I was one of those people.
We closed Sunrise Cyclery for the duration of the celebration. I was the only employee on duty that day and took the advantage to go support peace.
The majority of people just drove by and ignored us, some honked in support and some made crude gestures and screamed profanities. One person actually went so far as to make his own sign and get his girlfriend to stand kiddy corner to where we were and scream at us. His screams were mostly about treason and how if we didn’t like what was going on we should move to another country.
You’re right, nothing particular exciting about this exchange, except that now the cards have fallen in the other court.
I have for most of my life been a bit of an extremist. I find it impossible to not take an argument to its logical conclusion and therefore easily find the moral disconnects of modern politics.
Hence, when I’ve been asked numerous, multiple numerouses why I don’t move to another country if I don’t like it here, only to have those same people complaining about their state just eight months later, I must cry hypocrisy. You see you can’t have it both ways. Those who were telling me I had to leave the country because I disagreed with Bush are now telling me that Obama is Satan in underpants and a cape and that he must be withdrawn, or else…
In just eight months…
This seems a bit too much for me so I would like to juxtapose certain ideas that don’t jive here in modern America.
It is apparently ok to spend trillions of dollars to destroy a nation, and in the same token it is damnation for us all if we spend money to help the poor or better our cities. And don’t forget Bush started the bail outs…
Likewise, the government shall in no way intrude upon our rights to own guns and kill whatever we please, but must be allowed into our bodies, minds and homes to dictate moral decisions.
It is a must to follow the administration blindly without questioning unconstitutional policies when the president is a Republican, but elect a Democrat and it is your moral obligation to do everything you can to pull him down.
You must be able to praise Jesus in one breath and then spell out the benefits of capitalism, a system built entirely on greed.
You must call Obama a Socialist but claim that Jesus was not and that it is your moral obligation to not give money to the poor. Read that article and see if what he claims jives with what you were taught in Sunday School. Also notice he fells to comment on anything in Acts.
You must turn the other cheek unless of course you are talking about the nation and then you must bomb the hell out of them, even nuke them all if necessary. And if you are talking about liberals, kill them all and let God sort them out.
You must believe in free markets, absolutely, except for that little part about the free motion of labor.
You must be super pissed about health care reform because it would mean single payer universal insurance, even when that idea was never on the table. And of course you can’t wonder why we, the supposed wealthiest country in the world, are unable to provide health insurance for our citizens while every other industrialized and many not so industrialized nations can. Let’s not forget that in a democracy the majority wins, and they did.
See I’ve found that people get hot and excited about topics that they don’t fully understand and they allow one sided arguments about lies and who is controlling who (technically if the government is for us, by us, there is no “them” just us.) impede their ability to think logically. Maybe if we could get the media to shut up for a second and let true public debate come in to play we might actually make some progress in this world. But of course, those who have the most to lose from progress are also those who scream the loudest when it’s proposed and they happen to own all media.
May we all somehow get our heads out of our asses…
Peace. Love. and Revolution.
Most of us think the same way. You said it out loud and very well.