I like what this guy says
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Link to video
I know some here would disagree with me (I'm looking at you, jon) but I like and agree with what this guy says.
I consider myself a realist. I believe war (and genocide, too) are part of human nature.
I'm not a "give peace a chance" type of person.
Still, (and I've told this story many times over the years) I've been a consciencious objector since the Vietnam war.
I understood what was happening. I saw relatively graphic reports about it on television as did everyone.
I had an uncle (a mechanical engineer who succeeded and excelled in high school, his undergraduate degree in chemistry at FSU, his masters degree at UNC, Chapel Hill, and in his career, eventually moving into management (the point being he had a very "Spock-like" personality) who talked with me about the war almost as if he were talking to an adult.
The focus of our talks was the draft, the war, what I thought about the war, and specifically what I would do if I faced with the draft.
He was never faced with the draft. I wouldn't have been either. So our talks were hypothetical thought exercises and this was his way of teaching me.
I truly did put myself in that hypothetical position though, decided I was strongly against the Vietnam war (including of course its expansion into Cambodia), and that I wouldn't allow myself to be drafted and be complicit in it.
Then I turned 6 and the war ended. Lol.
I also had a relative on my father's side of the family (my favorite aunt's cousin) who happened to eventually become the head of the ACLU in Arkansas when Clinton was governor.
She would visit our house when I was growing up and talked about politics every time.
She and I didn't talk. She did tell me to tell the government I was gay as a sort of counterpart to my uncle who made it a point not to tell me what my position on the war and draft should be.
She was an unusual and glamorous person to me. I still have many memories of her visiting our house and at holiday dinners.
She didn't come to see my father, her cousin. She came to see my mother.
She later got divorced and shocked the family by coming out. The truth is she was in love with my mother in a respectful, platonic way, but I digress.
The point of this rambling is I have made up my own mind about current events and politics (and everything else) since an early age.
Another way to describe my personality is I must have been born with this independent streak. I've always either intuitively knew what I believed or if not have claimed the final edit of anything I've written.
I know it almost certainly won't happen but I wish we in this online community could have our own opinions on current events and politics and that each person's opinions could be accepted as what they are without rancour.
Even though that ship sailed before I got here, and even though internecine conflict has always been a feature of this online community, I have one regret.
I regret that I engaged in flame wars with abandon. I played my part, but in a different universe, I would have known how to say what I wanted to say without acting like a hypocrite and disrespecting others.
If you're made it this far, thank you.