Serious post is Serious

TUNES: My Chemical Romance, Welcome to the Black Parade

MOOD: Contemplative.

I think I'll apologize up front for a very, very serious post. So, sorry (your mileage may vary).

So, we've recently been reading a book about the Vietnam War by a Minnesotan author named Tim O'Brien.

It's kind of strange to say, but it's made me think about real life more than most books I've read have. More than '1984' and 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Animal Farm.' I mean, it made me think about myself, and how I apply to life.

One of the questions Mr. Szoka asked us one morning (I have English Honors in the morning) was if we would hop the border (to Canada, obviously) or go to war if we were drafted. It was about fifty-fifty.

I was one of the people who would have fled. I would never participate in a pointless war. Or any war. This decision came both with just personal opinion, and intimate knowledge that, when exposed to the right elements, any decent human being can become a monster.

"Battle not with Monsters, lest ye become a Monster, and if you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche, everyone.

Then, there are the obvious reasons that I WOULDN'T get drafted. Y'know, the main one being that I'm female (at the moment, that's the big one), to top that one off, I have flat feet, am a pacifist, and have about eight trillion medical problems. I don't think any military branch would touch me -- let alone the U.S. Army.

Branching back on to the 'what would I do' thing, here was Tim's response to why he would STAY:

"You owe it to your country, they provide you . . . blah blah blah . . ."

I don't pay taxes. I owe the government nothing until I start paying them and then getting a tax return. Gimme some free higher education and lower poverty rates and I'll think about it. Maybe.

It's a free country for a reason. I can have my opinion that the Government shouldn't be doing something, and if I'm against it (like I am with the pledge of allegiance), I shouldn't have to do it (which I don't).

(Liberty and Justice for all my butt. Women and homosexuals are still pretty much getting the shaft.)

(This could have been prevented if the founding fathers had had a sassy gay friend.)

I seriously have not willingly said the Pledge of Allegiance since seventh grade. Four years. And people still ask me 'WHY?'

I think I'm going to end now because my train of thought has wandered back to it's usual path -- which is cupcakes.