I was raised in New York in the son of very Liberal parents. My father, educated at Harvard, my mother without a concern for her personal safety, the dogs or the marauding gangs of klansman marched in Birmingham, and Selma AL in the early 60′s. My oldest brother is currently on the staff at UC Berkeley, and has been published several times. My next brother also an educator, and a writer. So you begin to see how my views in life may have been shaped as I grew into adolescence. When I was a small child, Nixon was on the verge of impeachment, Viet Nam was still fresh in everybody’s mind, and there was a tangible distrust of the government across the board.
One of the things my parents always taught me, and I naturally grew to assume that this was part of being a true Liberal, was tolerance. Tolerance for race, creed, political opinions, personal opinions whatever. I may not agree with everybody but damn it this was America, we were a free people, and everyone has rights. We do hold these truths to be self evident.
Now it took me growing up, joining the Marine Corps, travelling to a few dozen places to include a few different combat zones, to see that not everybody thinks like we do. Some of the things that I took for granted just weren’t the case all across the globe. Not everybody can just get up and publically make any political statement they want to without a good possibility of reprisal. In a lot of countries, people are told to shut the “F” up and do what they are told or someone may show up in their homes that night and do harm to them and their loved ones. In other words people, there is alot of brutality in the world. Backpacking through France and Spain and cruising the Euro-rail on summer break does not open your eyes to this, and doesn’t mean you’re necessarily well travelled and a citizen of the globe. These are the things that I would have never had any visibility into in my world growing up. Like everybody else I knew, I just figured the establishment was all bad. This realization began to endear me to my government, our constitution … our way of life. Perhaps I was becoming a bit more conservative.
I also came to realize that from a social perspective, there are untold numbers in this country that have spent generations in receipt of some form of welfare. That this wasn’t the intent for these types of programs, and to continue in the current fashion spends unimaginable amounts of money, the majority of which is sustained by the working class. Maybe some things need to be looked at in detail and restructured, again maybe I am becoming more Conservative.
I also know that war sometimes happens. It is very dark and destructive. It is a time when people can demonstrate the worst in humanity … but also the very best. We were attacked flat out. It really doesn’t get any more simple than that. We had to respond. How some of my own friends back east can protest the war when they themselves spent days sucking down the dust that covered the city back in September of 01 baffles me to this day. Maybe someone actually needs to breach our shores and come into their homes before they feel the need to do something about it. I think I am becoming more Conservative.
Back to tolerance. There are serious problems that we all face today. There is no time for partisanship. We must have answers. All of the vitriol and all of the rhetoric alone between the people of this country … and the political machine is inhibiting our progress. The powers that be need to take a break from the plethora of agendas they all have, quit pandering to whoever has the deepest pockets, and address the issues we all have to contend with. We must have dialogue, we must listen to one another. We have to curtail the poison that spews forth from the mouths of both our people and our politicians. In other words we must be tolerant of each other, and communicate with one another. Its how problems get solved.
Just me talking here
Mgunns sends
