Beyond Politics or Religion

I am told when taking the MBTI test, that I am INFJ. As such I tend to be intuitive, introverted, idealist, and future minded. There are many versions of the test found online, but few stray from the boundaries established by the creators of the exam. I mention this to offer an idea of what kind of person I am. I don't live thinking, oh, since I am an INFJ I better do or not do this this. It simply offers a way to add context to all of my instincts and thought.

I have been sent numerous questions over the bare week at best of sharing this blog with others. My outlook here is to be open and perhaps help others enjoy what I write elsewhere by knowing me. So, here are a few of my answers to questions.

"When relaxing, what adult beverage and snack do you most enjoy and do you smoke? After all I saw you in a photo smoking a big one."

I have smoked cigars in the past. That might be true, but I never smoke a ton of them. I found I enjoyed the experience but I am also aware that my health is not so great that I am immune from side effects and direct effects from non-serious behaviors. As such, I am not having more of them. I have enjoyed Stoli on the rocks, Irish Whiskey, and Grainbelt Premium Beer. As I'm dealing with substantial health issues, the meds I take might interact with alcohol. I will never be dead from personal use of meds interaction. I can't say the physicians will always be in agreement on what I take. There might perhaps be an accident, knowing that people I once knew died of med interactions.

 "Why do you live in Minnesota if you hate cold weather and snow?"

My reason for loving Minnesota comes down to the populace, ideals, beauty and hope. For a place with such cold, to live here, I think the people are warm, bright and overall kind and creative. I don't really have a thyroid that works, so it might feel colder to me than others.

"Who would you vote for in 2028? And please be serious..." 

Winona LaDuke, Tulsi Gabbard, Jon Fetterman, Jesse Ventura, a reanimated Ross Perot. And those are serious choices, if I were to vote in 2028. I doubt I'll vote. I mentioned them in an article about 8 years ago too, and my views have not changed. (All but Fetterman who wasn't yet in national levels of government.)

"Do you see more war in the future?"

I believe that humans are violent. War is easier than hammering out problems and diplomacy. People who analyze international relations and Asia, all know that the Chinese playbook had aimed 2027 as the year they would retake Taiwan. However, both Trump telling allied nations, whether in NATO or SEATO that they need to take more responsibility for their own defense. When Biden and Pelosi changed American foreign policy by saying we would stand shoulder to shoulder defending Taiwan, it changed so much. It not only changed previous foreign policy plans, it reconfirmed to Taiwan uppermost, followed swiftly by South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines that a united front would isolate and stall offensive plans in China to act in aggression towards Taiwan, and had a chance to succeed.

"Why did America, if not you, vote for Trump?"

Americans are often said to envy wealth. Trump voters want wealth as well as wanting to abandon the social programs of the past, that they don't see as fair. But those who voted against Trump probably also envy wealth. Wealth can be a positive or negative as a driving force.

I know a man who was Democrat his entire life but voted twice for Trump. He told me how he had stopped seeing America as focusing on liberty and hope, and instead it was anti wealth now. For him, he thought it was America becoming like Europe, who he once respected, (he'd served in Europe to defend NATO against the Soviet threat) but now sees as a mix of people who wouldn't defend themselves, as well as anti capitalist. Or in other words, he said, why pay to send troops to a place with tons of money to defend people who wouldn't pick up a weapon and defend their own?

"Who are your favorite "fine" or "non-genre" artists?"

This is not a fair question. But I'll try. Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollack and John William Waterhouse. But I've hundreds of fine artists I appreciate.

"Is it hard to review products when you've done it for 25 years? With nothing new under the sun, do you end up yawning and write to please the readers or is it heartfelt?" 

I never lie in a review, but that is a harder comment to explain because at the peak of publisher and creator awareness of me, there used to be so many good products and I had only so many pages I could write a week. I eventually decided to only focus on lifting others, rather than criticize everything. For one thing, I could never do better than 99% of them all, and it was insulting, in my mind, to act as if I knew better than another person's viewpoint being expressed in art.

"You are nucking futs to think Ezra Pound or Yukio Mishima were anything but assholes and fascists!"

Feel whatever you like about them, I've read too many of their works to feel as you just expressed. And it isn't that I forgive all the bad choices, dark beliefs, I just about never, however, cancel others. 

Ideas about what shape my outlook

I vote how I vote due to experiences in my life, wisdom or knowledge I've acquired, and beliefs that have framed my choices. Someone said a socially liberal but fiscal conservative person ends up de facto conservative. And that a social conservative is rarely a fiscal liberal, since they won't fund things they feel are wrong. As such, I'd argue that I am a centrist, as I don't impose my outlook on others, and that I am libertarian with a very small letter L to start, as being a centrist means there is no party that represents my outlook. I get people who demand to know my voting history, since I turned 18 in 1982 I've voted for approximately the same number of Democrats and Republicans. But for US President, slightly more Democrats than Republicans, and more 3rd party than either of the main parties. 

My views just don't easily find a home in parties. Frankly I am moving towards only voting for local and state elections, as my disappointment in the major national choices leads me to want a system with more choices due to the limits of all or nothing two party choices. As a person with political science degrees some feel I must have deeper outlooks to voting. I might, but not for my degrees. I focused upon international relations, and was as bored as I was angry about the American political system.

Choices are often argued as being held by the individual, but I've not chosen my own existence. I was born as a result of rape. My mother didn't get a choice. But how many people get to choose existence? How many humans are a result of purpose? The point I am making, is that there are arguments about why we exist. Are we a miracle? Are we an accident? Does our life reflect miracle or train wreck? 

Who am I? In a course of study some of the class argued that a baby became human only after being wanted and born in healthy form. I was not by purpose. One of the students said, I don't even think adoption makes people into being human. The birth mother needs to have decided to have a child, however they were conceived? I said I am a child of rape, so you are arguing that I am not human? She immediately turned beet red, and said, I am saying you don't get to choose the label of what you are. A number of other students in the course started calling her names. I said stop that. We all have an ability to communicate freely, we are in America, freedom of speech should run through our veins. Do I believe in abortion as a right? I don't think society can forbid things that are moral choices, or they turn the concept into an act of rebellion against the rule makers. By leaving it as an individual choice, whether it is moral or not, is found in the heart of those who chose that act. 

It occurred to me, in the period following 2020 that people of one view were not allowed freedom of speech. Someone said, my body my choice, and someone else said, in all areas except vaccine mandates. I am not a scientist, so I can't define the concept of herd immunity. As a confirmed non conformist *my wife certifies this statement* I did still get the vaccine. However, it wasn't an act of obedience nor obeisance. I was of the mind, based upon all the doctors I was seeing, that I'd not get my necessary surgery if I had not received the vaccine. My G/P doctor confirmed this. I had had a broken neck since a traumatic fall in February 2019. I walked around with an uncorrected neck break, was in a near fatal car accident, and by virtue of having no correction, by the time I had life saving neck surgery, I had two shoulders that were messed up. I had to get one surgery at least, or my neck surgery wouldn't have mattered much. I had shoulder surgery, but only post vaccine. 

I am not saying anything about the vaccine itself. Nor even am I considering policy. I don't really know what herd immunity truly is. If it is a goal, they ought to have explained it better. The way it was forced upon people was I think was a mistake. Forcing conformity is tyranny without the best explanation. I did have to get my surgery, so there was no choice for me. I could have avoided making the choice, but the pain then was worse than now, and I would have lost my mind in the meantime. Maybe I didn't have a choice, or I made a compromise between my own body sovereignty and the suffering of pain.

I do think we are all upon a journey to find the truth. Some have lower standards of success. But I know, it isn't an easy thing to find the greater truth. We might all have opinions, and experiences, but regardless of that, not all ideas are equal. Not all choices are good ones.

Image by Jeffrey Catherine Jones©