First of all, everyone should read Rosemary’s comment about my last post and go to the link that she posted with it.

I think that from the time a person turns 13 until the time they turn 30, every couple of years, they have to completely redefine the way they see the world. I think that’s what I’ve been doing for most of high school. I am about to talk about the Iraq War, even though a lot of what I’ve said already has basically fallen under the catergory of “sad stuff that isn’t New Orleans.” I don’t know why I’m having trouble talking about New Orleans, but I think that right now that just isn’t speaking to me as strongly as some of the other stuff that’s happened.

Anyway, back in middle school I was against the Iraq War. This isn’t a particularly surprising thing, I live in Seattle, and I went to a hippy middle school, so all I had to do to get that opinion was follow everyone else around me, which is what I did. This is obviously not the best way to espouse a political philosophy, and by the beginning of high school, I had swung in pretty much the opposite direction. Iraq, I decided, was a brutal dictatorship and it was and is not just our right, as a powerful democracy, but our duty to invade Iraq, as well as any and eventually every other country that wasn’t basically democratic. And it wasn’t just Iraq. Suddenly I was attracted to really conservative ideaologies about the economy welfare, and Canada. I even bought a book by Ann Coulter. What I read of it was pretty terrible.

I’m pretty sure that this was just a reaction to me waking up one day and deciding that I was exactly like everyone else around me, and that if I wanted to be perceived as provocative and intelligent, I had better start getting some beliefs that were different from everyone else. Many of my friends will tell you that I often take the opposite side of the majority in an argument, just because it’s the opposite, and this is pretty much what I was doing then. Since this is also not a good way to get political beliefs, lately I think I’ve been moving towards another redefintion of the way that I see the world.

This change has not happened suddenly, like it did last time, but rather has progressed bit by bit, slowly eroding all my previously held beliefs and leaving me with only questions. The following is a dialogue that I have been having with myself for the last month or so. Isn’t it better to live in a democracy than a dictatorship? Yes, but hasn’t going into Iraq just created a worse situation than was there before? If that’s the case, then don’t we have a moral obligation to stay? But what if it’s impossible for us to ever improve the situation, simply because we’re an invading foreign power? So you’re saying we pull out of Iraq and allow a mass genocide to possibly occur? But if we can’t make the situation better, aren’t we just delaying and increasing the inevitable disaster that will be caused by us leaving? Are you seriously suggesting that there is a situation where it is our moral imperative to allow a genocide to take place? I don’t know what I’m saying, do you? No, I’m just thoroughly confused.

Politically, I am currently a moderate who swings left. If my current political trend continues, basically, I’m going to become Chris Miller.

I don’t really have a point or a subject tonight, I’m just kind of letting the words flow. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more cohesive, or at least shorter.

-Ben