WHAT ARE I?
I have been involved in a Facebook argument of Biblical proportions…only because I am having such a flood of emotions. Just a small argument, not Biblical at all I guess, although one of my protagonists might wish that a Biblical flood would wash me away. He is so far right I can see left from where he is and it causes me to question my own political position. I no longer know what I am. I used to know. Now I am at a loss. Sixty-five and I don’t know what I are! I need a tag. NO! Not a skin tag. I need a political tag. I used to say that I was a moderate but I just don’t know. Just an average, middle of the road kind of Joe who voted with his heart and not a party. I have voted in eleven presidential elections, five times Republican, five times Democrat and once I threw my vote away and wrote in Alfred E. Newman. Now I feel I need a tag. Libtard, right wing storm trooper. I just don’t know. “They gotta name for the winners in the world. I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide. Call me Deacon Blues.” Naaa. It’s a good Steely Dan tune but it just doesn’t work BECAUSE I AM NOT A LOSER…maybe.
Okay, let’s try to figure it out. Y’all will help right? So let’s begin. Shall we? I believe that our borders should be defended. Both of them in fact, although not many Canucks seem to be headed south. Was that a derogatory term and should I care in this too PC world? We should not let illegals come in. Deport any immigrants who are criminals. Have a program that fine upstanding citizens-to-be can complete. According to the Facebook posts I’ve seen there may be two of them. When newly created legals complete a twenty-year citizenship program, give them the “brass ring” because they will have earned it…and that includes those anchor babies, too. “No speaky English, no gitty the brass ring!” That makes me a conservative, right? I will go further to say that we should limit the number of legal aliens entering the country. We just have too many people speaking with accents. Right wing storm trooper?
Okay the truth is I do believe we need to defend our borders but how do we fund it? How do we patrol it? Jobs for unemployed veterans? I want vets to have jobs. They deserve them and should be sent to the head of the employment line. How do we pay for an expanded border patrol and the cost of deporting twelve million illegal aliens? Oh, we save it on benefits that we are giving them I guess. Are we going to build Trump’s beautiful tall wall and use my Social Security check to pay for it? ENTITLEMENT? I HAVE SPENT FIFTY YEARS PAYING INTO IT. HOW IS IT AN ENTITLEMENT? No one seems to have an answer for how we are going to pay for the wall. Trump, the self-proclaimed front runner, has said he has a plan but I’m still waiting for him to get back to me on it. Better yet, won’t that wall ruin the view? Oh, Trump did say it would be beautiful. Geeez, what are I?
Guarding our borders includes protecting our shores, doesn’t it? Again I am all for protecting our shores from far, far away. A strong military is what we need. According to The Donald, we must have the most feared military in the world. Didn’t the Kaiser and then Hitler want that, too? “Over there, Over there” …wrong war. We really don’t have any cute Afghanistan ditties to sing. The songs about Afghanistan tend to be dark. According to South Carolina’s “setting son” Lindsay Graham, “We must put more boots on the ground if we want to win.” I agree…if Afghanistan can be won. That’s liberal isn’t it? But what about those twenty thousand boots that represent ten thousand troops? Are the American people going to allow an escalation in the war? I haven’t heard that term since Vietnam because it is a bad word. Libtard I are?
No problem. Pull all our troops out and NUKE THEM. They are just a bunch of “towel heads” and “goat f@#kers.” Turn the whole place into a shiny glass parking lot. While you are at it, take care of those two “I” places that no one can keep straight or find on a map. Sorry, my desire to have a right wing storm trooper tag just went away. I actually saw that sentiment in print. Aside from the lack of humanity, do you really think Putin and his minions are going to allow us to play with nukes in his backyard? Oh, now what are I? Smart I would think.
Another massacre has started the debate on gun control again. Can we not let the bodies cool before we have knee-jerk reactions? Can we not wait to spread rumor until the authorities have a chance to sort things out? Within two hours I heard from the right that the shooter was a Muslim and from the left that he had ties to the IRA. Personally, I think he was a green-skinned illegal alien from a planet in the Luhman binary star system. What he was, was a disturbed young man who killed nine innocent people and not a green-skinned, Muslim radical of Irish decent. My conservative side agrees with leaving the Second Amendment alone. My liberal side whispers that if he had only a knife or a rock we wouldn’t be talking about nine dead. My rational side believes that no one is coming for our guns. Is it too liberal to agree with the recent Winthrop Poll? I found it surprising that South Carolinians agreed with background checks and to extend, if necessary, the present three-day waiting period before taking the gun home. Most agreed with closing some of the gaps with gun shows. I guess my most liberal thought on gun control is that if you need to hunt with an assault rifle, you probably ought to spend that money buying meat rather than hunting for it. Else you will be picking bullets out of its hide all day long!
So, what are I? I don’t think I have figured it out yet. Maybe I should just be like the Popeye of old without the forearms. “I yam what I yam!” I don’t know what I yam either and don’t know how to write the cute little chuckle Popeye had after he said it. To be honest, after the nine deaths in Oregon, I don’t feel like chuckling at all. Maybe what I are is a realist.