March 19, 2003
So you say you don't want war?
The anti-war protesters: what are they for?
This comes close to my general feeling about the naivete expressed by many people that want to call themselves 'opposed' to war.
I'm as opposed to shooting or otherwise being shot at as anyone else. But at the same time I'm not unwilling to shoot the bastard hell bent on destroying the freedom I enjoy. Pacifist I'm not but nor am I anything resembling a warmonger.
Folks, wake up. The world's a shitty place.
Ask yourselves, how much do you enjoy your culture? How did it get that way? It won't take long before you find out how horribly your government or ancestors treated somebody to make it that way. What's to be done? What's important and to whom? What part of your culture depends on the well-being of others? How can you balance between the demands your culture presents and the costs incurred? Or is that too complex a question? Would you rather just compartmentalize it into nice bite-sized tidbits like 'being green' or 'liberal' or 'anti-war'?
What do you stand for? What do those things do for your community? Right now, today?
One thing that's changing, over time, is the slow process of recognizing larger communties. On one level, the important one, we're all responsible to our neighbors. Would that most people practiced this. A little goes a long way and starting at home is often the best course. But instead a whole bunch of hypocrites run around claiming all sorts of moral high ground while doing next to nothing to change things. Done anything to improve the lot of your neighbors lately? Do you even know who they are? How much me first pervades your existence?
Me, I don't want a war. But neither do I want to see the continued march of religious intolerance and dictatorship walking all over those who can't vote for their own improvement.
I'm all for people being able to follow a faith but please, wasn't the first round of Crusades bad enough?
Ah well, it's all well and good to stand up for something at a fashionable protest but not it if really cuts into your lifestyle, right?
