In the current hyper polarized environment we all find ourselves inhabiting it is very hard to figure out where I can fit in with our current 2 party political system:
I love our country. I’m proud to be American. If I’m traveling overseas and someone asks where I’m from I say the USA, or Missouri. I would never dream of saying Canada to “feel safer”. I don’t disagree that the US has tons of problems, every single country has problems. Every society that has ever existed has problems.
I love civil liberties and freedom to be yourself. I hate racists, and people who try to force their way of life on other people (but I hate it both ways equally) I don’t agree with people who try and tell other people that they can’t marry the person they love, or they can’t do whatever they want with their own body. And I dislike people who tell other people that they can’t enjoy masculine activities like hunting, or fighting, or playing sports, or simply being a white man. I dislike people who generically vilify white people.
I love Hockey, Baseball, Golf, and I enjoy casually watching the UFC. Violence is not inherently bad when both parties agree to it (IE within the rules of a sport). Trying to smash out violence and masculine behavior from all boys is just another form of forcing people to live the way you want them too.
I hate people who treat women poorly, who take advantage of a drunk girl at a party, or put a girl down for the way she looks, or pay a women less for doing the same job as a man. These ideas and people all need to be eliminated from our society. Well the people can be allowed to change before we eliminate them haha
I like people who try and bring everyone around them up. Who compliment people when they work hard. Who don’t spend much, if any, time complaining or worrying about how other people live.
I like people who work hard and who don’t cast the blame towards “the system” or towards other people to explain their lack of a good life. Life is hard, we all individually have so much control over the good and bad in our own lives, and that is very scary for all of us.
I don’t like people who refuse to acknowledge that minorities get the shaft and they have to work even harder to succeed. This is not right, this needs to change. I don’t know how this can change. I don’t know how to walk the line of encouraging others to take ownership of their lives and go out and get whatever it is they want, while also acknowledging if they are a minority it will be harder for them. I feel that the current discourse is drifting farther and farther away from personal responsibility and into asking the government or someone else to provide for everyone. If you are born poor and a minority there is no doubt it will be harder for you to succeed. But many people have done it, there are examples out there for you. It’s not fair at all, many times in our lives we will come across things that are not fair, or rules that are not fair. There is only one thing to do, figure out a way around, over, under or above whatever the obstacle is. Keep pushing, keep moving forward. We can all make our own lives, and the lives of everyone we love better every day. We don’t need help from anyone else (although if help ever does come that would be a great bonus!)
I hate the idea of socialism. The government does not do very many things well, and I don’t want them to be in charge of more things. I would prefer they be in charge of less. A perfect example is the police.
I don’t hate the police, but I don’t think our current system is good and it should be completely rebuilt. Cops should not aimlessly wander around the streets harassing minorities. We should end the war on drugs. We should have community organized policing. We should have many different types of cops with different specialties instead of only 1 type that carry 1 tool (guns) and are forced to use it to try and solve a wide range of issues.
We should stop trying to abolish the 2nd amendment, people have a right to have guns to protect ourselves from our own government. In the age of Donald Trump its not too far fetched to see that even us here in the US we are not all that far away from a dictator being able to throw our 200 year old government aside.
That is just a few thoughts that came into my head and I needed to get them down so that they are out and gone from my head but not lost. I might come back and add more to this later.