With all the labels going around today, I thought I’d get ahead of the game and select my own.  The ones being thrown at me are not only wrong, but pretty stupid.  Socialists calling me a Nazi, hate groups calling me racist because I don’t support their cause and pretty much anyone that calls me narrow minded because I disagree with them.  They try to define me.  Seriously, how can an opinion be wrong?  Like most people, I don’t fit into your nice, neat, narrow categories.

I deny the collective, Orwellian Truth Speak.  I deny responsibility for anyone or everyone’s happiness.  I can’t even make myself happy most days, it’s insane to expect me to appease anyone else.  I don’t accept responsibility for other peoples children.  They’re not mine, I didn’t make them and don’t want them.  No, I am not worried about the parents responsibilities in caring for their progeny.  Hazing is not a criminal act, it is a right of passage, a memorable step in someones life.  No, hazing should not be taken to the point on injury or death and when it does, the culprits should be punished.

The right to choose anything private is just that, PRIVATE!  Abortion is only a sin if it goes against your religion and then only for you.  No one else has a right to demand control over so private a choice.  Who you have sex with, marry, want to change into is up to you.  If a gay couple decides to marry and adopt a child from a young woman who knows she can’t provide for the baby, is it really my concern?  Does anyone really think that a couple who struggled so hard to determine who they are is going to force a life choice on a child?

I apologize for the rant. Stupid pisses me off.

Before I joined the Army, the only positive role model I had was my great grandfather.  He lived his beliefs.  He was also a product of his times.  Turn of the century America was still racially biased, women were supposed to be subservient to the men in their lives. (Of course, try to tell Ol’ Mam’mie that and she’d whip your butt.)  He worked for everything he ever had.  Refused to take or ask for hand-outs.  Grandpa would go hungry to make sure everyone else ate.  He also didn’t approve of everyone, their opinions, new trends, or politicians. The last was probably hardest for him. He also treated every person he met with respect, regardless of their wealth, station, race or political opinion.

So, I’m going with retro.  An updated version of Grandpa.  I wasn’t raised to treat people different because of race, religion, education, or social standing.  Everyone starts with respect.  It’s up to you to lose it.  I will continue to judge people by what they do.  I will meet my obligations as I see them, not those assigned to me by others.  I don’t care about your religion, sexual preference, marital status, or race.  The Constitution and laws of the nation don’t promise equality, just equal opportunity.

I’m going to skip the Members Only jacket.  Leathers and motorcycles iare more my style.