First time caller, long time listener. I just got done reading a diary by Dartagnan and I just started having all these conversations in my head. All the things that I think and try to understand and all of the sudden I felt like I needed to talk to this community.
I’ll start with I was raised in Texas. You’re welcome to your imagery of red necks and pickup trucks but truthfully if you didn’t know any better you could be anywhere. Yes, I had cowboy boots and in fact I still wear them, but for the most part I was raised in urban Texas far from it’s beautiful rural landscapes. My point with this is I was raised conservative. It’s one of those things that I’m not even sure I was completely aware of until later in life. For me it was always anything that seemed different must be wrong, weak or better to be left alone.
I was and am extremely patriotic. I believe that this country is for all its problems one of the best countries in the world to live. I believe that because the words of our Constitution tell me so. I believe that because liberty must be fought for and protected. Even if your liberty pisses the hell out of me. I’ll step in front of a truck before I’ll let someone else say that you can’t say it. For me it’s like my third rail, that’s how deep it goes. For me, anything that starts even singeing the corners of the Bill of Rights sends me into a tizzy. I become inarticulate and angry that anyone in this country could even remotely think that limiting the freedoms our country was founded upon is a good idea. And yet I was raised conservative. Phrases like “we’re the government, we’re here to help” were thrown around as insults.
I left Texas. Not because I didn’t love her but because it was time. I got a job in California and another chapter in my life began.
I’m writing this because I know that I am not the only liberal raised conservatively that still struggles with what it is to be a liberal and what it was to be a conservative. It’s like fighting a constant pull back to an ideology you know longer agree with but whose arguments and points you can argue vehemently.
I am not a snowflake. You can call me one, I really don’t care. You know why? Because I know that if you have enough snowflakes you create avalanches. And guess what, you can’t stop an avalanche.
I believe in good government but I do not believe the government will ever have all the answers. But I think it’s our job to make it better and to truly create a system that is for the people and by the people.
I believe everyone should be able to make money but money as an indicator of success is caustic. I no longer believe that private companies can be trusted to do what they know is right. It’s changing but for the most part corporate America has proven the dollar is their only moral compass.
I am not a pacifist. I don’t believe that if you punch me in the face I’m not going to punch you back. It’s that simple. I don’t however believe that this means we should focus our vast financial resources on creating better and more innovative ways to kill each other while our own citizenry starves.
I do not believe you need an uzi, AK-47, or an AR-15 to hunt deer. Nor does you whipping out a 9mm at Starbucks protect anyone. You want to carry a gun for a living, there are plenty of departments for that. You want to carry a gun to hunt and protect our natural habitats, then please do so. If more people were shepherds of our common soils there would be less arguments of whether or not us dumping coal into our few remaining pieces of land was a good idea.
I am angry but I can live with losing. I can. I think we all can. But the way I feel right now isn’t about losing. It’s about for the first time in my life, I truly believe that my country is in trouble. No, I’m not talking The Walking Dead kind of trouble but this is a good time to think about that emergency kit you’ve been putting off for the last three years. I’m talking about watching history unfold. I won’t make any comparisons to post World War I Germany as I don’t think as a country we are anywhere near the devastation that country suffered as a result of WWI, but the foundation of a demagogy remains the same.
It angers me that the Republican party has mutated into a party that Darth Vadar could lead without raising any eyebrows. They have become a shill for deep pockets and self interest. They are a disgrace from which they sprang. How can other conservatives remain silent is beyond me. Screw party lines. If OUR country is in danger do we stand together or not. I’m not asking for you to AGREE with me but I am asking you to STAND with me.
Stand with me and protect what we both love.
So I came here. To write and pontificate and begin my manifesto. I may not agree with everyone here but I’m glad that here we can at least have the discussion. That we are have varying levels of belief that we must take care of each other. That’s what this is really all about isn’t it? Race. Civil Rights. Income equality. Gender inequality. Gay Rights. Transgender Rights. Healthcare. The Environment. They all boil down to one thing, right? That we must take care of each other. And a transgression against my neighbor is a transgression against me.
#RESIST
Thanks for listening.