RE: Why Atheism Replaces Religion In Developed Countries
August 8, 2011 at 7:27 am
(This post was last modified: August 8, 2011 at 7:37 am by Anymouse.)
(August 6, 2011 at 10:49 am)Salty Amy Wrote: Wow Anymouse! Thank you for taking the time to write this, right now I'm in no condition to answer this as you deserve, but I will soon. I just have to say that although I hate the US foreign policy (more on that latter) and wars in general I have the upmost respect and admiration for veterans and for those who died in battle.
That's all for now.
I'll be back.
Please hurry back, Miss Salty.
Having been on the business end of US foreign policy (my father, mother, sister, and I were all in the military), I am not real fond of it either. None of us were able to complete our service (my father killed-in-action, my mother kicked out for pregnancy with me, my sister under don't ask don't tell, and me for epilepsy and being crazy).
Rather than having respect because my father died in Vietnam (well, actually Cambodia, and before our country was legally allowed to be fighting there), or because I am a veteran (or because I am a disabled veteran), I would rather have your respect because you feel I deserve it.
There are those here in my new village of 140 that see my Department of Defense base sticker on my car, and talk about things like "respect" for my service, or "honor," or other such things. I would rather earn their respect for being a person worthy of their respect, not because I was in the military seventeen years (more than all my family's service put together).
No one says, "Wow, you edit Romance novels now? I have to respect that, it is such dangerous and tedious work." (Tedious yes, dangerous, well, if you ever had to tell an author their baby [their novel] was stillborn or has birth defects, you'd find it dangerous, too.) Even our town librarians do not respect my editing "trashy" Romance novels: I gave them one (signed) to put up on the shelves and they refused.
No one "shows me respect" because I play hammered dulcimer well, or because of my calligraphy and illumination, why for being in the military? Even when I was in the military I wanted respect for who I was, not what I did.
(My ex-wife is another matter.)
James.
"Be ye not lost amongst Precept of Order." - Book of Uterus, 1:5, "Principia Discordia, or How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her."
