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Finding Out Who My Friends Are…
On the whole, I enjoyed college. I enjoyed football, I enjoyed track, and I enjoyed girls. I tolerated bookwork. I excelled at the first three, but struggled with the fourth. I would study in six- or eight-minute segments, for 14 hours at a time, because I hated it so much. But despite my difficulties with focus and memorization, I persevered and did well enough to get my Caucasian butt into medical school. So it all worked out.
Medical school was much worse. No football, no track, no girls. Only lots and lots of bookwork. It was absolutely horrible. I survived, but it was a miserable four years. Because I was so unhappy during that period of my life, I haven’t really kept in touch with any of my friends from that time. I don’t have a lot of doctor friends now, either, come to think of it. Doctors are sort of a weird group. They’re not all normal like me. But anyway, I haven’t kept in touch with my medical school friends as I should have.
After 25 years, I finally decided to reach out to one of my friends from that time. He included me in a running group text with me and him and a half dozen other classmates from my med school class. They text back and forth about football scores and funny memes and such. Nothing of any significance – just fun stuff – which was fine with me. And then one of them texted the following Tweet:
Another one of my friends responded with three laughing emojis. How clever!
I knew that I was probably the only conservative in the group. They were all leftists in school like they’re supposed to be. And I presumed that they all wanted to be perceived as open-minded and deep thinkers, so they would avoid any appearances of independent thought. They instinctively understand the Bernie Sanders rule of philosophy – the surest way to demonstrate original thinking is to never have an original thought during your entire life. And if you do, you never publicly admit it.
So I should probably let this slide, right?
Then, I thought, well, they haven’t spoken to me for 25 years. Who cares about the next 25? Right? So I responded to the Texas Tweet:
I suspect that the governors of Texas and California will be splitting the cost of putting that Tweet on billboards all over California, so that any Californians who have not yet moved to Texas might consider staying in California.
Worth a try. But it probably won’t work.
There was so much chatter on this group text for the past couple of weeks, I had to turn off the sound notifications because it was keeping me up at night. Now I haven’t gotten a new text in three days. I texted some stuff today about the Ohio State game, with no reply from anybody.
If my point is so wrong, you would think that all these smart guys would be jumping at the opportunity to explain to me what an idiot I am. But they didn’t even try. They just black-balled me.
Which I figured they might. And I guess I just didn’t care. They’re probably enjoying themselves more without my input. Which is fine by me. But not for them, if you think about it.
America has changed. Americans have changed. We choose a tribe, and our perceived value to society is determined not by our value to society, but rather by our loyalty to whatever tribe we chose. Friendship doesn’t matter. Our shared love of America doesn’t matter. Tolerance and empathy don’t matter. Only loyalty to whatever tribe you chose matters. Regardless of how dysfunctional your tribe is. Nothing else matters.
So you can’t be friends with anybody if you disagree with them about anything. What an empty existence it must be when you intentionally abandon everything that makes you human.
There is a reason that our society feels so foreign, and our politics seem so dysfunctional. America seems different. I miss it. I miss it a lot.
I miss my friends, too. But not as much. They chose their tribe. I chose them, but it didn’t matter. So I won’t lose any sleep over it.
But geez. I miss America. I really do…
Published in General
Most people care only about avoiding conflict and being approved of. They will say and do anything so long as social pressure demands it.
Friend to Friend
Union General Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate General Lewis Addison Armistead were personal friends and members of the Masonic Fraternity.
Although they had served and fought side by side in the United States army prior to the Civil War, Armistead refused to raise his sword against his fellow Southerners and joined the Confederate Army in 1861.
Both Hancock and Armistead fought heroically in the previous twenty-seven months of the war. They were destined to meet at Gettysburg.
During Pickett’s Charge, Armistead led his men gallantly, penetrating Hancock’s line. Ironically, when Armistead was mortally wounded, Hancock was also wounded.
Depicted in this sculpture is Union Captain Henry Bingham, a Mason and staff assistant to General Hancock, himself wounded, rendering aid to the fallen Confederate General. Armistead is shown handing his watch and personal effects to be taken to his friend, Union General Hancock.
Hancock survived the war and died in 1886. Armistead died at Gettysburg July 5, 1863. Captain Bingham attained the rank of General and later served 32 years in the United States House of Representatives. He was known as the “Father of the House.”
This is a statue on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga:
It’s called the New York Peace Monument, and it was donated by the state of New York in 1907. It’s titled “Reconciliation”. Both sides erected statues to honor their warriors for their bravery in battle, not their ideologies.
Anyway, the point is if fierce enemies can bury the hatchet as Americans, why can’t the left? I think I know the answer. They don’t want reconciliation – they want to annihilate the enemy (us). It’s hard to stay friends with people who want you gone . . .
Of all the potential hot button issues, you got canceled over Texas? I mean . . . “Hey I’m a tolerant guy but how can I be friends with a guy who doesn’t hate Texas?”
Things get complicated when you talk about anything but public policy. Some of it matters like the characteristics of leadership, but it’s just too vague. What people on the left are trying to do is, either be tactical (avoid an actual conversation) or talk tactically instead of trying to genuinely improve public policy. This is how they can get any popular, but dumb, collectivist (government is how we steal from each other) policy over the line.
How do you understand public policy? There is no value added from “non-public goods”. Central planning with the tax code is 99% worthless. Not keeping Medicare and Social Security fully funded is a disaster. Simple but effective. This leaves out some social issues, but I haven’t figured that out yet.
The other thing is, socialism and populism are largely a side effect of government and the Fed doing too much. The economy has become regressive. That is a vague topic I realize, but you need to keep that in the back of your head. It also has social implications that I don’t know how to necessarily discuss very well.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
We are not a nation of laws, we are a nation of political will. – Steve Deace
Deirdre McCloskey has a bunch of long podcast interviews that cover this in an integrated way. She has a lot of practical data that largely supports conservative, pro family and related things. It’s not like moralizing, it’s more just how things work better.
Well, if you on wondering why I went so long between comments, I followed the link and was hooked right away.
This is exactly my experience. They are trying to get any dumb but popular collectivist idea over the line. Doing it as a group makes them feel good. They totally live this way.
I forget which member said this, but if a leftist isn’t actually involved in a policy topic for work, everything they say and think will be wrong and simplistic. That’s the other problem.
This is why it is wrong to say twitter doesn’t represent America.
That is true. Sometimes a way to fight back is to not let it achieve its goal. Even if the left side of the family doesn’t understand and causes a split, be ready to mend the split.
They will know soon enough. The left is a cancer that consumes its own, too.
The worst evils are perversions of the greatest things. Lucifer was the greatest of angels and became the Prince of demons. Our secular culture has not transcended religion, instead it has perverted the Christian religion, the soul of Western Civilization, and made its virtues into vices, as you point out.
The Christian virtue of Charity has been perverted into unquestioning support of the welfare state, the glorious Gospel Truth of equality before God (“the first shall be last and the last shall be first”) has been twisted into the secular demand for equity, and on and on.
The cure for bad religion is good religion. I think it is going to require a genuine and thoroughgoing Christian revival before this comes to an end.
Confederate statues are avatars for all of us the left sees as an enemy whether or not any of us care a whit about the confederacy. Lumping us all together justifies their hatred of us. Remind them that the confederacy was democrat and they will tell you the parties switched sides.
Edited to change “states” to “statues.”
There is a book about that.
The Democrats told you then that race determined destiny. They tell you now that race determines destiny. They were racists then, and they are racists now. In what way have they budged?
yes, I’ve read it. Excellent.
This is a shame. I have often wished my lefty associates would refrain from shouting their political views from the rooftops. I refrain, why can’t they? But because I work at a church, I feel like I can’t be as transparent with my politics as I would like.
When I taught high school in our heavily Republican community, my political views were unknown to my students. Over the years we had a handful of leftie teachers, and all of them talked about politics to students. Shameful.
Once during the 2000 election two students got into an argument about Bush versus Gore and I told them that both needed to do a lot more research because there arguments were ineffective (“Gore’s an idiot” versus “He’s more for the environment”). One of them rode home with his aunt who taught English and told her that he was worried that I might be a democrat. She laughed all the way home. About a month before the 2004 election, kids in one class asked me who I was voting for. I’d had a Bush/Cheney sticker on my truck for probably 6 months at that point.
I do have to say that back in the olden days (I graduated from HS in 1964) my senior Advanced History teacher made no bones about the fact that he was a conservative. He had us all going to Goldwater rallies. I don’t remember him being punished for it.
Roman Gabriel the Rams quarterback?
My daughter and I absolutely do not talk politics. Which is odd, because her boyfriend is just as lefty as she is, but we can have perfectly civil conversations about it.
Yep.
He was a Gilligan’s Island native also
Funny how, despite the attempts to paint us otherwise, Conservatives are the party of “diversity.”
Very sorry to hear about the break with your brother.
I had a thought that I thought was my new thought I had thought all on my own. But then remembered this exchange, so maybe not entirely my thoughts alone.
The reason some people get so bent when discussing political ideas is their political beliefs are, perhaps, the only religion they have or their political thoughts are more believable to them than whatever religion they think they have. It is a very natural thing to defend one’s religious beliefs and shun those that would question them. This concept seems to explain a great deal about the way some have behaved in recent months and back through life as well.
And when the world no longer makes enough sense to be predictable, you fall back on what you really believe in and defend it tenaciously.
It’s not that complicated. Christianity teaches people to sacrifice. Many people adopt that mentality and apply it where it is terribly inappropriate.