Curmudgeon76's blog: "The Ignorance of a Nation"

In my "About Me" section I make my political passions pretty clear, but I do not feel that is the place to elaborate as I would like.  Politics have shaped me, altered me as a person, and in recent years the process has been quite painful.  For anyone who may be curious to actually know something important about me, I will lay it out in this blog, giving insight into my mind.

I was raised a Republican.  I started voting at age 18 and have voted pretty religiously my entire adult life.  Most of us gain at least a little wisdom and experience with age, and with that wisdom comes regrets of past choices.

Before Trump ever announced his candidacy, I had already grown frustrated and disgusted with the GOP's consistantly empty promises.  I had been part of the Tea Party movement in the beginning, wanting to demand fiscal responsibility in all levels of government.  I attended town hall meetings, though I never was involved enough to campaign for any candidates.  Like many Americans, I was desperate for someone in office whose word was actually worth something.

By 2015, I'd already decided I'd given the GOP too many chances to stand for what they always falsely claimed to stand for.  Three things I absolutely and unapologetically HATE are gun control, abortion, and socialism.  Republican politicians make careers out of campaigning against these things, but when push comes to shove, they never really DO anything to beat them back, even when in control of the House, Senate, and Oval Office.  They have many tricks up their sleeves, voting one way when it doesn't count so they can brag about that vote to their supporters, but voting completely different when it matters, knowing most of their supporters will never take a close look.

One of my biggest regrets is helping Bush get elected twice.  By the end of his second term I wanted to see him swing from a rope for letting Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean rot in prison until his last days in office.  It was an act of political cowardice on his part that I will never forgive him for.

I hated McCain and Romney both, as they were both liberals (in the modern sense, not the classical sense), but I was regretfully still buying the line of bull crap that only a Republican could beat a Democrat, so I again bit the bullet and voted for unworthy candidates.

As I was saying, before 2016 even arrived, I'd decided that if the GOP did not rally behind the most constitutionally conservative candidate, I would never vote for another Republican again after voting about 95% Republican since 1994.  When candidates were announced, I settled on Cruz, believing him worthy and sincere.  I vetted the others, but the process of elimination was pretty easy as each were guilty of things I disliked.  When Trump first announced, I knew nothing about the man, so I gave him the same objective look as the others.  

It was so quick and easy to deduce Trump's unworthiness that I am still trying to wrap my mind around what happened next.  Within a couple weeks of Trump's announcement I had learned of his corrupt business dealings, his history of getting politicians to use the "Right of Eminent Domain" to confiscate for him private properties that he coveted, his multiple marital infidelities, and his verbal and financial support of left-wing causes and politicians, including his support of everything the Clintons did throughout their political careers.  Surely, I thought, there's enough conservatism left in the Republican Party that a man like Trump would never stand a chance.

I watched the campaigns as Trump flip-flopped daily, I viewed and reposted numerous video clips of him contradicting himself, quotes from his own book about how he loved gullible people.  When he announced his intentions of starting another tariff war, I pointed out to people the historical precedence for that terrible idea.  I pointed out to people the disastrous results of the Farmers' Alliance of the 1890s and their nationalistic trade demands that bit them in the butt, leaving grains moldering in silos.  I pointed out how the Smoot-Hawley Act deepened and prolonged the Great Depression.  If I, a factory worker with a high school diploma, could learn from these historical lessons, surely enough intelligent Americans would stand against such a plan.

It was too much to hope for that people might actually bother to educate themselves and vote responsibly, even in the information age.  Even Cruz eventually betrayed me, throwing in his lot with Trump.  Now regretting my years of support to the corrupt GOP, I researched all the third party candidates.  Most leaned to the left and were easy to eliminate after only a glance.  Though most had not held office, all had some kind of history, public statements, financial contributions, etc., to give me an idea of what they represented.  I looked at which candidates had been competent enough to file their paperwork in the most states so that votes for them must be legally counted.  Eventually I settled on Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party, not as a perfect candidate but as an acceptable one.  One of the things I hate most is people who claim there were only two choices in 2016.  When I point out the obvious lie because I spent countless hours researching other candidates, they then change tact by saying, "But they were never going to win."  I usually reply with something like, "Of course not, moron, so long as people like you hold enough majority to make certain of it."

During the Obama administration I had accepted the fact that conservatives, who I considered MY people, were an oppressed minority.  I knew I had more enemies than allies, but I believed I could still trust and respect the people closest to me.  I would learn better in 2016.

Many will criticize me for it, but political principles are more important to me than personal relationships.  This has become more true as I've gotten older.  I believe a person's political alliance is an indication of their moral values.  This increasing unwillingness to compromise such values is one reason I've never married.  It's the reason I've ended decades-long friendships, and it's the reason I will feel guilty until I die about the years that I DID compromise, about all the years I was part of the problem, a lazy, low-information voter.

2016 opened my eyes and changed my view of humanity for the worse.  The dishonesty, hypocrisy, and ignorance of the majority of people I still cared about was stunning.  People who had for years told me, "'Liberal' and 'conservative' matter more than 'Democrat' and 'Republican'," betrayed their own words by voting for a lifelong liberal with an R beside his name.  People who had acted like the Clintons were Mister and Missus Satan turned around and supported a man who had supported everything the Clintons did until he decided to run against one of them.  People who had always pretended that morality mattered supported the most morally bankrupt individual I've ever seen run for office, a draft dodger, womanizer, self admitted sexual predator and crook.  It utterly destroyed what remained of my faith in humanity.  It damaged my relationship with my parents, the people who formed and then betrayed and damned near destroyed my moral compass.  I ended a number of friendships, some lifelong, because I could no longer look on those people with anything but contempt.  I now find it impossible to trust and difficult to respect other humans, reserving my respect for other constitutionalists who have renounced both the Democrat and Republican parties.

Depressed, I largely withdrew from the world, seeking solace in reading and writing as my physical health declined and I lost 30 pounds while I battled a dangerous bacteria.  This year I've finally been able to beat the c. diff. bacteria, but I had another piece of my intestine removed in July, had two sections of small intestine untwisted, and had a lot of scar tissue scraped away that had formed after a previous surgery in 2001.  For the past few months I've been mending well physically, feeling better than I've felt in years, but my world view will never again be as naive as it was pre-2016.

This isn't the sort of thing most people would put on a social media site, but I feel it's important to present myself honestly.  Mirroring the changes in my real life relationships, I find I value quality over quantity, and I delight in meeting kindred spirits who share my political values.  I've met a number of individuals on Facebook with similar stories and values, and we support each other as best we can while keeping a sharp and critical eye on the leadership of this declining nation.

The only lover I've ever taken remains my best friend, though our romance ended years ago, and I have a small inner circle of real life friends who have shared my same concerns for the past three and a half years, but I tend to keep mostly to myself these days.  I spend very little time on Facebook, and I'm rarely on here for more than a few minutes a day.

I don't take Fubar seriously at all.  It's just something fun to kill a few minutes with.  Nevertheless, the insights into my personality laid out in this blog are perhaps the most important part of my identity, and a good way for people to measure whether or not they wish to know me.  I'm cynical, mostly serious, but with a warped sense of humor.  Though I had my last pet euthanized three days after being released from the hospital in July, I still prefer the company of animals to that of people, a fairly common attitude. 

I'm still trying to figure out the point of Fubar, to be honest, having never hung out in bars in real life.  I might make a jokingly flirty comment if I think it won't offend, or I might enjoy looking through photos, sending drinks, and generally playing the game.  But it's only fair that people who take the time to look can be informed when they decide whether to block me, ignore me, or interact with me.