So, here's my first kind of post resembling a blog since I used LiveJournal back before 2004 (and once or twice in 2007, I think). I'd been toying with the idea of having a blog to post my middle of the road (and therefore controversial to all sorts of people) rants about various topics. I actually started it today because everything I typed up under this paragraph I had typed in facebook and went "...That's kind of a really long post for facebook, even for me...maybe I'll start a blog real quick", and so here I am, and here it is:
Controversial rant for the day:
I don't know that I've actually posted a status with any of this sentiment before, but I know I've posted about it on people's walls who have posted a particular picture in the past.
I've not seen American Sniper, for a couple of reasons not relevant to this post, and I probably won't. For those on the right reading this, I don't necessarily think that he is a monster. For those on the left reading this, I don't necessarily hail him as a hero. From what I can tell, he did his duty as a soldier, and he did it astoundingly well. Apparently he has also said things about either the enemy, or the people of the nations the enemy(ies) is(are) from that people would label as, at the very least, not very nice, if not racist. So we have a nice spectrum that goes from hero-worshipping to the various things people might accuse those on the left of being, and everything in between. He could be a hero, that's fine.
Let me be just left of center and point out something that drives me absolutely crazy and is one of my biggest pet peeves, though. No, I am not in the military and, save a draft happening, never will be. I am a civilian who will never understand the first thing about what it is really like to be deployed. For what it's worth, I understand that. But I -hate-, HATE it, when people get mad at other people for speaking out against soldiers/war. It typically goes something like this, someone contemptuously points out that soldiers live and die protecting our freedom to say such things. There's an article going viral about a marine veteran responding to Michael Moore's comments about snipers. In it there are comments like this:
"pray for Michael Moore to one day understand that his liberty to attack snipers like Chris Kyle is only possible because of these brave patriots.”
and
"A lot of good guys and a lot of my friends died for his right to freedom of speech. . ."
...THEN DON'T BE MAD WHEN HE USES IT! Michael Moore, or anyone else, may very well understand that people die for his right to say what he does, that doesn't mean he has to love soldiers. Soldiers die for our right to love them, and to hate them, and to get mad at someone for verbally despising soldiers, -even if it is those very soldiers who afford him that right-, that seems so incredibly hypocritical to me. "I gave you free speech, you better not say anything bad about me"...what??
So, look, if you vehemently disagree with me but are actually still reading this, I'm not inherently trying to defend Michael Moore or anyone else attacking the legacy of Chris Kyle. What I -am- defending is the more broad idea that you can't play the "I protect your right to say anything you want" and then get mad when "anything you want" happens to be terrible horrible things (whether perceived to be such, or actually to be such) about you and the very job you do in defending that right. Yeah, that might seem counter intuitive, but you certainly don't live and die only protecting those who love what you are doing, you are even protecting the pissants like Moore or like me. For anyone reading this who is frustrated with my response and is also religious, another analogy. Christ died for everyone, he died so that all men might be saved, even the ones who absolutely despise him, and he still loves each and every one of them. We are taught to love everyone. Love our enemy, whether we perceive our enemy to be some foreign power with whom we are at war, or some domestic entity we morally oppose.
-Casey
