An email tete’-a-tete’ between myself and some family members.
I received an email that began as a forward from someone else regarding Barak Obama emaciating the military and turning America into a third-rate nation. My reply to that email and the devolving, or evolving, rhetoric which ensued between myself and a few family members ended up escalating to phone calls, hysteria, and attempted shaming. Who those family members are shall remain for only them to know, but I can assure you that despite the abundant information I have posted regarding my philosophy and opinions, it is obvious nobody took the time to understand my position, but rather to spout rhetoric, hyperbole, and emotion. So it begins…..
—– Original Message —–
See url below.
c-
You all HAVE to see this! God help us all if this idiot gets elected.
~Geoff
Please send this to everyone you know TODAY as it will be pulled off the air soon. Here Obama reveals his true intentions to make the US a third rate nation – vulnerable to attack by every rogue nation on the earth.
This is an uninterrupted 51-second video of Obama speaking; he’s telling us exactly what he will do to the military…watch it before this too is removed off the web site.
Pass it on…the USA needs a Wake-up call.
http://www.macsmind.com/wordpress/2008/02/27/obama-plans-to-disarm-america
This is absolutely shocking & reprehensible. He plans to unilaterally disarm our nation.The question is… for what? And more specifically, for whom ?!!!!!!!!
MY REPLY
First, America is already a third-rate nation as evidenced by our academic ineptitude compared to other nations, our being the world’s largest importer of consumer goods, and our largely illiterate middle class. We are just a more polished turd.
Second, America has done much to create, fund, arm, and inspire many of the rogue nations that now, allegedly “threaten” us.
Third, America is one of the largest arms dealers in the world who spreads the potential threat around to justify our “alleged” need for a stronger, more imperialistic military.
Fourth, the military has already exceeded its Constitutional purpose and is essentially a mercenary force used in the pursuit of subduing the labor, resources, and economies of other nations at the behest of salivating corporate benefactors who exist by way of incestuous relations with that (not yours, mine, or anybody’s but their own) government, called the United States.
The present political doctrine under which this government now operates implies all humanity is vile, corrupt, and violent; so it is by way of the God-given mandate of an artificial entity called government acting under the tacit, ignorant direction of the voluntarily enslaved inhabitants thereof to kill everybody who does not parrot the same fallacious reasoning.
I agree with one of the responders on the YouTube site who thinks Obama won’t live through his term. IF, there is not another “terrorist” attack that causes martial law to be imposed, thereby suspending all Constitutional government, including elections, then Obama will be elected president with Vice-Hillary. He will be assassinated some time thereafter, which will result in the closest thing to civil war or more aptly class/race war, compounded with unaffordable gas prices (courtesy Bush-driven third-world instability), soaring food prices and shortages (courtesy the worthless federal script called “Dollars” and our anti-humanitarian, oppressive, brutal, and weapons-dealing misanthropic brethren, China, no longer supporting our debt by buying worthless T-bills for corporate favoritism). Look then for the beloved military to trample posse comitatus and assume the role of your new keepers. Soon thereafter, the NAFTA umbilical highway giving birth to the malformed commercial body consisting of Mexico, U.S., and Canada, will pump commercial blood through the paved veins traversing formerly sovereign states and essentially dissolve America into a giant hemispherical-commercial behemoth.
Look for the total devaluation of the funny-money currency called Federal Reserve Notes and the new fiat savior for all your materialistic needs, the Amero, to be introduced as a move towards a one world government takes one small step for man, and one giant leap for corporate-kind.
Ask yourselves this, for those of the armchair Christian persuasion, who would Jesus nuke?
Since I am not a United States Citizen, don’t vote, am not a member of a political body, am not complicit in lending my energy, labor, or consent to violence, ignorance, or fear (long-hand for government) then I will sit on the sidelines and watch the dissolution of another failed fallacy and contrivance of man and his ongoing pursuit to control, enslave, and rule over his fellow-man.
My hands and conscience are clean. Since people are averse to reason and instead opt for the fat, dumb, happy, hedonistic life purchased with the sweat of others, and who believe that man can make the life their Creator has provided anything other than it is, sometimes hard, sometimes frightening, sometimes ugly, but at all times theirs, then let them suffer under the hand of man to whom they’ve made themselves beholden.
I apologize, not for the rant, but for the length (I could have been more concise), but as long as people look to institutions that foment lies, violence, and fear, they will get what they deserve; viz., lied to, beaten, and frightened.
I apparently do not believe in God, for God has no flag, no army, has no political opposition, requires me not to surrender any of my rights or liberties in order to protect me, demands no allegiance, and fears no other aggressing god coming to harm me. What I believe in, I do not know, because if this is a nation of God-fearing, righteous, moral people then they sure have a way of resorting to immoral and unrighteous actions for securing their liberties, viz., persisting to vote for men who will kill as their proxy. My conscience won’t allow it.
BTW, this is not an attack or commentary on anybody’s beliefs or character, in particular, but rather a retrospective commentary on where I have come from and now find myself; especially when confronted with messages containing alarmist messages about preserving an institution designed to kill without question and an industry designed to facilitate the means and wherewithal to do it more efficiently and impersonally.
Every war should be fought with spoons and only by the political leaders of those warring nations. Let them invest themselves in wrenching the life from their enemy while the people live their lives peaceably and prosperously. Good riddance!
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 1
Thanks for that happy pick-me-up, Miss Sunshine! When our enemies do away with their weapons and arm up with spoons, then and only then will I be in favor of disarming (but only after we stockpile a poop-load of forks) Peace out.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 2
“Peace-out”…what kind of leftist talk is that? John McCain would disown you!
MY REPLY
How do you define a “enemy”? Is it an individual who wishes to harm or kill you? Your nation abounds with such beings. Is it another body of people who seek to harm or kill you? Again, look to your legislatures, police, prison systems (notwithstanding contrived justifications as “breaking the law”, of which there is no such transgression absent a articulable and obvious threat to individual life or property). Or, are enemies actually other governments that take exception with our government for the crimes it has perpetrated abroad for its own purposes? I have yet to hear of a war fought by nations of peoples against other nations of peoples where government was not involved. My enemies are within arm’s reach; not living in some far off land seething over our pop-driven, corporate-branded, politically-infested, techno-violent-prurient culture. I think many count themselves lucky to not be so superficial. How do you reconcile fearing what you define as an “enemy” when your government courts, fraternizes, incites, and copulates with? So, again I ask, define this “enemy”.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 1
En-e-my – noun – 1. Crazy towel heads who fly planes into our buildings and the countries who harbor and support said crazy towel heads. 2. Rosie O’Donnell
MY REPLY
Crazy towel-heads were Saudi. Some of the alleged “towel-heads” who flew planes so expertly into someone’s buildings are still alive (they were not YOUR buildings). Crazy towel-head Bin Laden had no direct involvement with the Sept. 11 attacks (Google FBI making such statement). Rosie O’Donnel is a CIA operative. Enemy = U.S.A. – U.S.A. – U.S.A……
Abolish the U.S. government and see what happens. I would rather be honestly invaded by enemies without than to be sold into subjugation by the enemies within. The worst thing that can happen is you will die. Just refuse to follow the orders of a taser-packin’ so-called “officer” and you’ll meet the same fate, but it will be within departmental policy so you have no reason to complain.
Remember, we are free………….so long as we obey.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 3
I’m no war monger. But if wars were never fought, we wouldn’t have western civilization as you know it. You wouldn’t be living in a free country (I know you don’t think America is one, but try living in North Korea), and you wouldn’t have the luxury of going for your bike rides (you’d likely be too malnourished to do so), and probably wouldn’t have the computer you’re using, which came about from the entrepreneurial spirit born of a free market, capitalistic society.
Wars were fought in biblical times, and God was often credited with helping one nation conquer another. Obama wants to sit down for a tea talk with a nut that denies the Holocaust and wants to wipe Isreal off the face of the globe. But why should that surprise anyone? He’s good buddies with a couple that bombed our pentagon and sent pipe bombs to police stations.
I ask this question seriously… if America is the rotten, corrupt, imperialistic behemoth you feel it is, why don’t you move to a “better” country void of all the evils we possess? Not that I want you to leave, but the question begs to be asked, based on how you feel.
MY REPLY
First, you can’t say with certainty that what we have can be attributable to the capricious taking of life, both guilty and innocent, if one is to accept the flawed reasoning that man is capable of making such determinations. What other people define as free does not necessarily comport with what I determine freedom to be for me. I am not bound to accept what other people define or determine to be acceptable or preferable. Political relativism does not make a free country out of that which someone else perceives as a threat to liberty. Bike rides, corpulence, and materialism does not define a free nation, or a free man. Those things cannot also be proven to derive from a free-market or capitalistic society since there is abundant evidence that shows we have a “relatively free market” and “quasi-capitalistic” society. If something is relatively or quasi then it is not absolutely, which means there is control being exercised by arbitrary power not of the society itself.
Wars have been initiated by religion, government, and other contrivances used by men to control other men. Just because anecdotal hearsay claims to derive justification for exercising violence over others as coming from God, doesn’t make it so. Don’t impugn Obama for choosing to engage in a dialogue over arbitrary violence. This “nut” may deny the holocaust, but other nuts in this government deny the true reasons for many of the military pursuits that have died the rivers and land red with blood (Gulf of Tonkin, sinking of the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, Project Northwoods, Korean War, Gulf War….etc…). So what if someone wants to wipe Israel off the face of the globe. When did we conscript our children to fight for Israel. Maybe Israel has its own sins to account for.
There is no conclusive proof (notwithstanding fabricated and convenient proof by way of government controlled propaganda outlets) that this “nut” had anything to do with THEIR pentagon or police stations.
My feelings about “America” being, or more aptly representing a rotten, corrupt, imperialistic, behemoth causes no harm, nor has any impact upon anybody unless they allow them to. America is a fantasy and construct. It does not exist. It is what those who acknowledge it say it is. I have a right to live anywhere on this planet I choose and to criticize anything I see fit. I don’t live in America. Others may attempt to bind me to that notion, but their reality is not necessarily mine. America is a bastardization of corrupt political power and pervasive ignorance. America will soon be an amalgamation of political/corporate entities comprised of Mexico and Canada. There is nothing you can do about that. Is America an amorphous abstraction subject to the manipulative hands of usurpers who define it for all to be forced to swallow? I do not agree or accept what others define America to be. It is tired, lazy, ignorant, violent, corrupt, and greedy. I choose to not be a part of that reality. Amazingly enough, even after I remove myself from that fantasy, I still persist by the grace of my Creator.
I will live where I choose by whatever rules I deem fit for my happiness and security. Being amongst evil does nothing to me. I have already moved out of “this country” since a country is all make believe anyway. I am perfectly capable of living my life without submitting myself to the evil ways of other men who don’t serve to protect me in anyway not already provided by myself (don’t deviate to arguments about paved roads, water, sewer….etc.; not the sole domain of governments or “countries”). I have discovered too many lies, deaths, and injustices that originate with the power of government. It is something I can just accept as being a requisite for a moral or happy life. Life, men, and this world being what it is; I am perfectly capable and ready to act according to the dictates of my conscience and suffer whatever earthly consequences may attach. Since all men have free-will, and are accountable for their actions in this temporary life, I refuse to act negligently or under the direction of others who have no investment in my spirituality; and will therefore act accordingly and disavow all which is incongruous with my understanding and reason.
There is no spoon.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 3
“There is no conclusive proof (notwithstanding fabricated and convenient proof by way of government controlled propaganda outlets) that this “nut” had anything to do with THEIR pentagon or police stations” …..
The “nut”, being William Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground, and a friend of Barack Hussein Obama’s, ADMITTED to bombing a New York police stations, the Capitol Building, and the Pentagon. Barack Obama launched his Illinois senate campaign at his house. ‘Government controlled propaganda’ has nothing to do with it. Tell me who your friends are….
And stop with the “I don’t live in America” philosophical stuff. The point I was making about “why not leave?” is just that — if this place is so corrupt, evil, etc., why choose to live here? It must be because it is better than anyplace else in the world. No intelligent, rational person would choose to live in a horrible place when they had a world of other options. You wax ad nauseum about every possible thing you perceive to be wrong with America. There must be more things you like about it than you dislike, or else you wouldn’t be here. That’s all I’m saying.
By the way, name for me one country, just one, that has done as much to help other countries in need, as this one. Just do so without listing a litany of all the wrongs you think we’ve done. I dare you. Name one country that has given more time, blood and money than America, to help other countries. I won’t hold my breath….
MY REPLY
Regardless, I have seen pictures of Donald Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein as well. How is Obama any different? That proves nothing other than those serving this government cannot be trusted.
Why should I dispense with the “philosophical stuff” as you put it? Am I required to buy into everyone else’s perpetual hearsay? The point I was making is that there is no place that is evil, it is evil people in those places. I can live anywhere and not be affected by anyone else’s actions, unless directly acted upon me; and even then those only affect my body. I live here for convenience and out of custom and habit. It is a choice. There are things about this land that I love. There are things about people that I love and hate. Intellectual laziness and moral apathy are amongst the things I hate. Philosophy is a critical search for the truth. If you listen to other people without critical inspection or discovery then you never find the truth. Why should people just accept something because it is better than an alternative when it could be better; or more precisely said, the people could be better. Countries don’t help other countries. People help other people. You are saying that criminals who live in America and rape, kill, and pay taxes are just as deserving a pat on the back because the taxes paid go to help other countries, therefore bestowing them with some of the philanthropic credit. If not, then how can anybody who does not directly contribute to the betterment of the human condition claim their superior morality merely by way of their residing on the land called a place that has other people acting in its name with the resources of its people?
Show me how a country can do anything when it is not an animate thing, but merely a name for a political society of individuals who have differing opinions, beliefs, philosophies, and morals. It is insane to assign human attributes to an artificial entity. If people have it within their power to charge government to do for them then the people have the power to do it themselves. I can name probably a dozen countries that have not contributed to so many deaths as the United States. I can name over a hundred that have not used nuclear weapons against civilian populations. I can name over a hundred that has a lower percentage of its population incarcerated for non-violent offenses. It is more honest to address the inequities and injustices than to keep repeating pleasant platitudes in denial. Why the tenacious clinging to something not of your doing? Why fervently defend something that grabs the glory and goodness resulting from the actions of people, and use it as a justification for its own power? Why choose to serve a man-made fiction that causes much harm, and some good, but would be best if abolished and left to the whim of society? God can’t, or won’t, stop poverty, killing, or inequality so what makes people think government is the answer to society’s problems? It is up to each individual to reason and understand for themselves. As long as people adopt government as their conscience and artificial reason we will continue to live, and suffer, accordingly.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 3
Exactly, it is the people of a country that is either good or bad. And people are the government. It is our government that has more often gone to the defense and aid of other countries’ people, often times without any benefit whatsoever, and often to our own human and economical detriment.
>”I can name over a hundred (countries) that have not used nuclear weapons against civilian populations” <… What ?! Heck, name more than 10 countries that even HAVE nuclear weapons capabilities. That’s like me saying I can name a hundred countries that chose not to put a man on the moon. We used them to end a war and save hundreds of thousands of lives. Do you seriously think that would be the basis for Iran or Iraq?
How is Obama different from Rumsfeld? Well, for starters, Saddam Hussein had not bombed our own government at the time, and then said he wish he had done more.
You defend your continual habitation of America on grounds of convenience, custom, and habit, but those are weak excuses for continuing to dwell in a land whose people, through their government, as you would say, support evil acts, and are too stupid to elect the libertarian party to head the executive branch of government, as you would like to see done. What I suspect by your actions, or inaction, is that you ultimately see more redeemable qualities in our country than bad. If not, your high sense of morality and ideals would compel you to forsake convenience and habit in exchange for a country whose people do not elect corrupt people to act on their behalf. I think the answer is that you deep down know, just like the thousands who try to gain access to America every year, that there is not a better place in the world to live. If this were not the case, you would not betray your ideals and stay here.
MY REPLY
“Exactly, it is the people of a country that is either good or bad.” – – No. It is people. Period. There is no difference between a moral American and a moral Frenchman. If you were blindfolded and transported to another country where the surroundings resembled where you live in America and you were told that outside aggressors were coming to invade your country you would probably, hopefully, fight to defend it. In doing so you would believe you were defending your home in America, but were in reality in a rural part of communist China. You would then be fighting for a plot of soil you, in your mind, believed to be your beloved America, but was in reality the soil of a communist nation. Countries are fictions. There is nothing more just or moral about this part of the northern hemisphere than any place else on the globe.
“And people are the government.” – – No. People are not the government. Government is a fiction. People create it. People cannot create people. The government is a role which is populated by actors appointed by a largely ignorant consenting governed. How can a living thing become a fictitious inanimate entity? Government can be abolished and created with the stroke of a pen. Try doing that with flesh and blood. The government is supposed to be “of the people”, meaning deriving from the will of the free inhabitants thereof, but it is not the people. When the actors who execute their roles in government retire to their abodes they cease to be those actors and become people again. A mayor is not a mayor when he is at his fireside. A president is not a president when he is with family. Only when serving in the role defined are they those actors.
“It is our government that has more often gone to the defense and aid of other countries’ people, often times without any benefit whatsoever, and often to our own human and economical detriment.” – – Whose government? Surely not yours or mine. What makes it yours? Did you draft the documents that breathe life into it? Did you negotiate the treaties with other nations that become the law of the land? Did you personally elect those who sit in legislative control over your life and everybody else’s? Just because you are allowed to mosey to the polling place and punch a card or touch a screen does not make this government accountable to you or anybody else. Try removing those in government who pass legislation that contradicts your conscience. Try withholding your money (FRN’s) from a government that gives it to other governments that engage in atrocities. Try exercising your prerogative to reign in an out of control servant and you will quickly see just how accountable your government is. That statement is another platitude parroted by the ignorant to quell their insecurities about being kept in a gilded cage.
“What ?! Heck, name more than 10 countries that even HAVE nuclear weapons capabilities. That’s like me saying I can name a hundred countries that chose not to put a man on the moon. We used them to end a war and save hundreds of thousands of lives. Do you seriously think that would be the basis for Iran or Iraq?” – – Numerical semantics notwithstanding, we are the only nuclear power who used that weapon on civilians to end a war we helped instigate. If the ends justify the means then we are justified in nuking any nation that the government deems a threat. More political paranoia and delusion.
“How is Obama different from Rumsfeld? Well, for starters, Saddam Hussein had not bombed our own government at the time, and then said he wish he had done more.” – – No. Saddam gassed his own people with weapons provided by the United States with the knowing that he was going to use them on the Kurds. It was done under the pretense that he would use them on Iran, which whom he was warring, but his ire turned to the Kurds as well, and our government said that as long as he didn’t use them on domestic populations it was alright. However, he didn’t deem the Kurds to be part of his domestic population.
“You defend your continual habitation of America on grounds of convenience, custom, and habit, but those are weak excuses for continuing to dwell in a land whose people, through their government, as you would say, support evil acts, and are too stupid to elect the libertarian party to head the executive branch of government, as you would like to see done.” – – My reasons for doing anything are my reasons and not subject to outside interpretation. Where I dwell, and amongst whom I dwell, are of no consequence to my actions, conscience, or morals. I don’t hold people out to be stupid for not voting libertarian, but I do hold people out as ignorant for continuing to vote; believing that government and politics is the answer to any of society’s problems.
“What I suspect by your actions, or inaction, is that you ultimately see more redeemable qualities in our country than bad.” – – No. I see opportunities with like-minded people, of which there is an abundance, and a land where I will live under my own terms and use what my Creator has provided; damn any man or entity who tries to compel my obedience or allegiance in contradiction to my free will.
“If not, your high sense of morality and ideals would compel you to forsake convenience and habit in exchange for a country whose people do not elect corrupt people to act on their behalf.” – – Maybe your sense of morality and ideals would compel such actions, but I don’t believe anyone has been imbued with the authority or insight to gauge my actions as predicated by an erroneous interpretation of my ideals. I have as much a right to live where I choose as any man. I have as much a right to identify, address, and communicate my feelings about what I perceive the world to be as experienced through the filter of my reason and understanding. I do not encumber myself with the failings and inequities of others who choose not to invest themselves in the consequences of their lives. Entrusting other men with decisions of life and death that require your tacit or overt consent to facilitate is not a patriotic or moral act. It is an abdication of responsibility that assigns as much culpability upon the governed as it does the despot.
“I think the answer is that you deep down know, just like the thousands who try to gain access to America every year, that there is not a better place in the world to live. If this were not the case, you would not betray your ideals and stay here.” – – There are plenty of places in the world that are better to live, depending on how you critique and differentiate what is better for whom. If you mean politically, then you can’t speak for me. There are realities which preclude me from uprooting my life and abandoning my responsibilities in favor of a geographic Xanadu. It is my relationships with people and financial considerations which induce me to remain here. Should the benefits become outweighed by the negative I can assure you I would leave in a heartbeat. It is also my prerogative to live my life on my terms; even in defiance of those who may seek to compel my obedience and allegiance, and reach out to others who can recognize the collective abandonment of individual responsibility and the trend towards collectivism, imperialism, corporatism, and institutionalized tyranny. Deep down I know what I have come to learn, not what I have been provided. My ideals compel me to be defiant, disobedient, and moral, contrary to the whim and pressure of the man-made malignancy called government. I do not favor, respect, obey, worship, or respect man-made institutions.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 3
I think at this point we’re both merely restating what we’ve already said for the most part. So let’s agree to disagree. Good duel. In closing, let me just say, you must have graduated at the top of your class at the Sanford Brown Speed-typing University.
MY REPLY
Alrighty then. I don’t expect to change your mind. I have changed my own mind over the years through philosophical inquiries concerning my life, past, present, and future. You do make some valid points, or rather touch on some valid concerns, but you have to seriously ask yourself, how much of your reasoning derives from within as opposed to being a reflection of the reality you have been presented with by others? Once you abandon everything you think you believe or have been taught and adopt truth as you come to understand and critically experience if for yourself, your perspective, like mine, may change. The world is not what it is. Nature is what it is. The world is what mankind makes it and people can lend themselves to acting upon fear and ignorance or upon knowledge and peace. If death is the worst thing we face then we’ll all be there someday. Why spend the divine capital of life on the Ponzi schemes put before you by usurpers, tyrants, fear mongerers, and despots?
Anyway, truce!
REPLY FROM FAMILY FRIEND
Wow..! you guy’s have alot of time on your hands to try to persuade one another.. In the end of it all…is one going to agree with the other??? hmmmm!! entertaining it is…however, I do enjoy the rhetoric……please keep up the good work….I have to know “who gets the last word”???
Please don’t be mad at me, after all….I’m sure others think the same. Not trying to instigate what-so-ever…you both have good things to say…I do evjoy the read…
Your FRIEND Mike
MY REPLY
Hey Mike, thanks for the input. Gary and I have called a truce, or at least détente’. Apparently, there were some on the CC list who had much to say, just not the fortitude to say it to those for whom it was intended. So, in order to spare some the pain of having to endure a debate, we have decided to cease with rhetorical hostilities, for the time-being. I actually raised the ire of some who took exception with my challenge to belief systems based on country, politics, religion….etc. Of course, the knee-jerk response from such people is “If you don’t love this country then why don’t you leave?” I have yet to find a way to emotionally attach myself to a un-natural thing called a country. I don’t know if I am supposed to love the grass, dirt, buildings, air, people, politicians….. It is very unclear to me. If it means that I am supposed to conform my mind to accept the constructs, realities, fantasies, and superstitions of others then I am afraid that is not possible.
You have to ask yourself, at what point do you find yourself in this country, and when does a love for it attach? Is it after the first date; during heavy petting, or after intercourse (where the govt. has its way with you)? I believe it is when other people create that reality and conscript your mind in adopting it; lest one be ostracized by their ignorant peers. Do you think Helen Keller believed herself to be in America, or just a woman trying to interpret a natural world with the senses provided her by her Creator? I posit this; that there is much we have come to believe, not by experience or investigation, but by hearsay and custom. Children are among the most intellectually honest creatures because they can directly challenge commands for obedience by asking, “why?” Many people cannot reason, even to themselves, “why” we do what we do, believe what we believe, obey what we are commanded….etc. I don’t want to face my mortality having to reconcile why I lived and acted under the direction and demands of others, and not under the dictates of my own conscience which my Creator has provided.
Think about it. Take it easy home boy.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 4
WHEN A SOLDIER COMES HOME…..
When a soldier comes home, he finds it hard to listen to his son whine about being bored.
…to keep a straight face when people complain about potholes.
…to be tolerant of people who complain about the hassle of getting ready for work.
….to be understanding when a co-worker complains about a bad night’s sleep.
…..to be silent when people pray to God for a new car.
….to control his panic when his wife tells him he needs to drive slower.
….to be compassionate when a businessman expresses a fear of flying.
…..to keep from laughing when anxious parents say
they’re afraid to send their kids off to summer camp.
…..to keep from ridiculing someone who complains about hot weather.
…..to control his frustration when a colleague gripes about his coffee being cold.
…..to remain calm when his daughter complains about having to walk the dog.
….to be civil to people who complain about their jobs.
….to just walk away when someone says they only get two weeks of vacation a year.
…. to be forgiving when someone says how hard it is to have a new baby in the house.
The only thing harder than being a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine….
…is loving one.
MY REPLY
When a man realizes he has made a terrible mistake…..
He will scour the internet for a friendly country to provide him political asylum when he decides to stop killing for other men.
The magnitude of his destruction will resonate in his conscience, calling himself a “destroyer”.
He will deny the insanity of his surroundings and pretend that the world he has conscripted himself to is “acceptable”.
He will appear outwardly at peace, while seeing the faces and smelling the scorched flesh of his victims in his sleep.
He will pray to his God for the strength to do all those things he knows God would not allow him to do.
He will view the world through the spectrums provided by instruments of death, and in doing so view all of humanity as a threat to his power.
He will even fail to recognize the consequences of his actions when they strike his own companions.
He will don the costumes of his earthly creator, adopt its reasoning, assimilate into its culture, and act upon its command like a mass-produced automaton.
He will, with arrogance and threats, present himself before the vanquished inhabitants and assert his mechanized and amoral superiority.
He will feign compassion, contrive empathy, and project concern for others, not all, but will never realize such emotions, honestly evoked, have been suppressed and erased from his psyche.
Will stand vigilant over stark, desolate, and ruined lands without a modicum of understanding or comprehension, but merely because he was so ordered.
Will battle, with futility, his assailing conscience and rue the day when he will be held to account for his actions.
Will deny his own reason, and instead use levity to desensitize himself to the horrors he embraces.
Will forsake his own to be able to serve other men.
Will stand surrounded with the trappings of insanity, mired in denial, and turn his anger for himself against others.
May ultimately substitute a piece of cloth, pomp, and glory for his earthly presence so that his loved ones can seek protection, guidance, and joy from insulting, inanimate objects.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 3
Mark, how can you purport to know how these brave soldiers will be judged?
“He will feign compassion, contrive empathy, and project concern for others”… ?? You know for a fact the soldiers do this? So all these guys are “phoneys”?..
Regardless of whether or not you believe we should be there, or whether you think what we’re doing there is moral or legal, our men in women in uniform overthrew a brutal dictator who butchered, gassed, raped, and cut the tongues out of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, sometimes feeding them through wood chippers, and buried them in mass graves. Our troops have now built schools, infrastructure, and hospitals. They’re not over there targeting innocent civilians as Saddam did. They’re going after terrorists and insurgents who would like to see the Baathist government restored, which was responsible for all the aforementioned atrocities. Based on a humanitarian level alone, I think God will more likely judge our troops very mercifully, and look upon them with favor. They’re looking after our brothers and sisters, as God commanded us to do.
MY REPLY
If people want to engage in assigning human attributes to an institution, the military, and to a make-believe role designed to OBEY other men without question, soldiers, then I will make such judgments upon those artificial contrivances. However, if a human being does some good, regardless of what type of costume they are wearing or what they may call themselves, then I will interpret that within the realm of human deeds. No, soldiers will not be judged, people will be judged. God did not create soldiers. Governments create soldiers. And like slaves, some both voluntarily and involuntarily, are bound to serve earthly masters until the time they come to understand they are not serving their Creator. The taking of lives, regardless of the number of smiles, hugs, and joy, is not justified. Who is anyone to decide that the lives not taken are any more viable than the lives lost?
I made my statements based on conversations I have had with people in the military who regret and are ashamed of what they’ve done. I can justify killing anyone if I can find a few to say, “But he is a swell guy”? And despite what governments do their people, remember, our government has much blood on its hands for being a willing accomplice in much of the horror and the atrocities. Men who follow other men are not absolved of the consequences for their actions because it was their “job” or “duty”. And like many who are now turning to suicide, drugs, alcohol, and other behavioral forms of self-punishment, some are coming to wrestle with the significance of their moral abdication to evil, power-hungry men.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 4
Mark,
I’ve spent the last hour being pissed off at you, and then I got to thinking that I am in fact the one I need to be pissed off at. I should not have thought for one minute that you would be sensitive to anyone’s experience but your own. I basically opened Dan and thousands of other people who, believed in the principles of this country, that allow you the right to express your opinions. The insults and degradation, that you have seen fit to impose on a group of people, who sacrificed, and provided you with the privilege to express your views. I am also extremely sorry for providing you with a forum, to express your opinions to friends and family who also will be upset.
I am sorry I have passed on the e-mail that started this, I will in fact make sure that your e-mail address is deleted from my contacts, and hope you will do the same with mine and Dan’s.
I am sorry that I chose to include your Mom and Dad in this, I would hope they would not share your opinion, but if they do there are people who died so that they could. I did not want to hurt their feelings.
One last thing you have really got to get over the idea that God needs you as a mouth piece, their are people who do a much better job of spreading His word.
MY REPLY
I did not avoid you. I was in a meeting when the phone rang. I also felt it best not to exacerbate the situation and put myself in a position of engaging in an emotionally charged debate, or argument, where things that were not meant were said. I owe apologies to nobody, because I insulted nobody. If I express an opinion about an institution that does nothing to another human being, unless they consider themselves a product of that institution, then they make themselves the object of my commentary. This government, the military, or any other thing has given me nothing. Everything I have comes from my Creator. I owe nothing to anybody. I choose to not serve anybody. I did not target Dan, or anybody else, with my comments. I am not responsible for the way Dan feels in response to my opinions. I am under no obligation to curb my tongue because someone might be offended. I am not ashamed of my opinions because I believe I have the interests of humanity, peace, and justice at heart. There are alternatives to what people choose to construct their particular realities. I find nothing noble or honorable in following other men, despite what one’s intentions may be. If people are that righteous and just then they would take the initiative upon themselves to stand defiant against tyranny.
Nobody has died for me. Nobody has died for my rights. Nobody has died for my freedom. They have died for other men who told them they were dying for these things, but nothing they have done has resulted in a free world or country. Sure, Dan may have pulled his buddies out of a bombed building in a foreign land, but why should people accept an armed military presence in their land? We were the outsiders. It is not a justification, it is a possible explanation. If I stand in the middle of the highway in hopes of trying to stop speeding because my friends were killed in a traffic accident caused by speeders and I am killed by a bus, it is the bus which is at fault or me for putting myself in that situation? My Creator has provided me with everything and I refuse to submit to any notion that I owe anybody anything.
I also do not purport to be a mouthpiece for God. Other people adorn themselves with righteousness, morality, and justice, claiming such is the mandate of God, but the things they do under those pretenses is a result of men following other men as opposed to their conscience. I merely point out the lunacy of serving two masters; one, a fallible, conniving, power-hungry, controlling, manipulative creature, man; and one a divine purveyor of conscience, reason, nature, and justice, God. There is no logical justification for engaging in acts commanded by the one, and justified by the other. People, not institutions, governments, or associations, are responsible for their own morality and spirituality. Once one becomes a member of anything else they surrender a piece of their morality and conscience in favor of adopting a collective consciousness that has been manipulated for the purposes of control and conformity.
I don’t get upset when you wave the flag, impugn my reasoning, favor idolatry (worshiping man-made institutions), or send me your opinion in email. I used to be in such a place, and after abolishing virtually everything I was taught or told to believe or accept, and questioned everything on its merits, I realized I did not need to believe in such things to live my life in a way that makes me ultimately accountable and responsible for my actions. I have looked inside and found many unpleasant things that have been tossed onto the trash heap. I have contemplated the time where I will be drawing my last breath and will not suffer anguish or regret in having to reconcile my having transgressed upon others by adopting the will of people who could not provide me with one more heartbeat with which to beg for mercy. I will live, and die, on my own terms, at my own peril, and under the restrictions and liberties provided me by way of my birth and through my Creator, to whom I am solely and ultimately accountable. Nothing else in this world can move me or compel me in any way not of my own volition. I am in a different place than you, and many, and I will not apologize or be humbled for having not intentionally caused harm to anyone, or for speaking a message that fosters peace, reason, and conscience.
I love you. I would prefer you to understand me, but that is not a requisite.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 4
GrandioseIndividuals with grandiose delusional disorder have an over-inflated sense of self-worth. Their delusions center on their own importance, such as believing that they have done or created something of extreme value or have a “special mission.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 4
What are Delusions of Grandeur?
In the vernacular, the term usually describes people who are disliked dictators of countries, prominent businessmen, or celebrities, since they are often prone to being selfish and egotistical. However, this sort of popular attention downplays the seriousness of an actual medical diagnosis where symptoms are common in mentally ill persons.
Also generally known as megalomania, delusions of grandeur is a term familiar to psychological discourse. They are known as the manifestations of a psychopathological condition in which a person has delusional fantasies of power, wealth, and omnipotence, thus the term delusions of grandeur. Individuals may also bear an obsession with grandiose or extravagant things or actions. Despite evidence to the contrary, they may still be convinced of these false impressions.
In clinical terms, delusions of grandeur are real delusional symptoms, which are irrational and inappropriate beliefs. Often found in patients with varying degrees of either dementia, psychotic or depressive disorders, they firmly possess unrealistic beliefs that may eventually harm them physically, mentally, or emotionally.
Drug intoxication and drug addiction may also contribute to episodes of delusions of grandeur, especially when subject to the influence of marijuana or speed. This is dangerous because users who are high may believe they have powers that will enable them to perform dangerous feats that any normal human being would not succeed in doing, like flying off tall buildings or stopping an oncoming train with one hand. Delusions of grandeur could actually result in serious injuries or even death.
Like other clinical terms such as “anti-social” or “mentally retarded,” the term “delusions of grandeur” is often used non-technically and incorrectly. While this behavior may downplay the negative social connotations of the phrase, it may mask situations in which actual delusions of grandeur bear an actual psychopathological threat to a person’s health.
REPLY FROM FAMILY MEMBER NUMBER 5
pat, sometimes people forget to read the bible and learn what war is all about. it is a spiritual warfare that tears humanity apart. the ugliest war ever fought was on the cross! as you know the Good Guy won. because God is a Holy God and can not even look at anything that is unholy. God only brings goodness to things even things the prince of darkness does to destroy us. because of evil we have illness, wars, murders, rapes, children killing children and slave trade of young girls for the lusty deranged pleasure seeker. Christ died for all of us sinners, including mark , so that we can go to the perfect place when we go home to heaven, see you there one day, love and blessimgs carole
SUMMARY
Finally, after deciding to pursue pointless arguments with people who do not listen, I decided to let it go. I received a phone call one evening from the husband of one of the family members who had served in the military and was supposedly in Beirut when the Marine barracks were bombed. He said he had to pull his buddies bodies from the rubble; which I touched on in one of the emails. He asked to be removed from my email list, which he was not on, but merely a recipient by way of my replying to all. I said no problem to that request, and he went on to say that he respected my right to say what I want (gee, thanks) and that he fought to give me the privileges I enjoy. What! I could tell he had been drinking and I thought it best not to provoke an obvious emotionally charged issue, so I let it go. As I have said, nobody; soldier, police, politician,…. gives me ANY rights. I was born with all my rights. Again, it was a dead end to argue with such emotion and the rest is history.
MarcMkKoy.com 