As a straight white man I have a lot of privilege that other Americans do not. I don’t hold hate in my heart for people who are different than me. Guarding my peace is more important to me than becoming enraged at someone else with a different life experience.
I believe that humanity is at it’s best when people accept others for who they are and as Tim Walz said, “mind their own business” when it comes to issues like two consenting adults in love regardless of their gender, and when it comes to the issue of women having the legal right to make their own reproductive health care decisions safely and without repercussion from the Government.
Much of the privilege I have is based in a historical context. In US White men were the only citizens who could vote for many years before women, black and native American people were allowed to vote. Thank God we no longer live by those barbaric laws.
Freedom is not free and it doesn’t mean as a US Citizen I have reason to hate another human for how and where they were brought into life and where in the world they live. I believe peace is achieved through strength when leaders of countries look to their citizens’ shared similarities and for ways to work together internationally.
Growing up as a citizen in a nation with the most lethal military is a mixed blessing. I’m grateful for the feeling of safety I have in the US and when I travel internationally and because US has the most powerful military is not a reason for the military to engage in combat anywhere in the world. Sovereign nations do better for their citizens and for the world when working towards peace without conflict that leads to violence.
Unfortunately peace on Earth is not the reality in every country and region. It never has been and to some extent probably never will. Still, I choose to work towards peace apposed to building weapons and training to fight. I am grateful for the men and women in US Military who make it possible for me to live in peace and their battle whether in preparation for combat and when in combat is not my battle. I don’t provoke foreign nations and I don’t start fights. I’m good at avoiding violence. My ability to avoid violence doesn’t mean that I don’t care about who wins in a fight. I want the good guy to win in a fight whether violence decides who wins, and in civil fights in court.
I am a middle age man and have learned there are two sides on a coin and two sides to a story. Choosing heads or tails on a coin toss often decides how a game will start. Stories are not as straight forward as a coin toss. A story might involve two people and affect many people. A story might involve one and more families and affect millions of people. A story might be about a country and have an effect on many other nations.
The more characters in a story makes for more outcomes. Not everyone wins. Many stories are about love and about comedy and have nothing to do with violence. Even in a story that has violence a lesson can be learned. That is life and life is worth living.
I think the decision for the US military to enter into conflict with Iran was made in haste. The argument to start a war against Iran is weak. I doubt Iran would have enriched their nuclear material to a point where they would have made a nuclear weapon. I worry that the war US instigated against Iran is a beginning of a larger global conflict that could come to be WW3.
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