RE: Noteworthy News
September 16, 2024 at 7:52 pm
(This post was last modified: September 16, 2024 at 7:59 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(September 16, 2024 at 5:20 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote:
To follow on: I started as a Libertarian. I caught a bad case of Ayn Rand in college and went with that for, I dunno, about ten years, until I realized that those ideas actually hurt real human beings in real life. I still clung to, and do to this day, the idea that that our government has abused every power we've ever given it, and many we didn't but they claimed anyway.
Once that happened, I sort migrated to centrist Republican, a sort-of Howard-Baker-I've made-my-peace-with Social-Security guy. I would vote for the occasional Democrat. But I voted Lib presidential from 1988 to 2000.
Desert Storm was a turning point for me, as I saw that what I saw as service and thanks to our country was actually a bit of being treated as a mercenary under lawful colors. That only increased my distrust of our government, and at the same time helped me see how that same government was very happy to have warm bodies filling billets. "Freedom" my ass, that was about $1.50/gal for gas. So I decided that hey, trying to be a working musician was better.
I still distrust our government, no matter who's in charge, but the whole Tea Party morphing into MAGAts thing never was alluring, because the not-so-subtle racism was aimed at folks like my son and his mom, amongst others. My sister married a black man when I was fifteen; I gave her away at her wedding because my dad, a racist, refused to. Not sure how Vance can suck Trump's cock and still look at his wife with a straight face, but hey, that's compartmentalization. I don't compartmentalize. I'm a gestalt thinker.
i started out hating government, but grew to understand its necessity, even as I grew to understand its lurking danger. That whole "power corrupts" thing, y'know? I just had to learn a lot. Who knows? I'm a white male. If I were 20 years old right now, I'd probably be just as ignorant and vulnerable as I was then.