“And Here are the Over-zealous Neighborhood Watch Groups in Right to Carry States”

I was talking with my wife this evening. I was telling her how much I love wearing military cloths at the house but I felt like it is not my “style”, like to me the impression people give that have not been in the military and wear military cloths in public is that they are trying to give some sort of message and I dunno it sees like a “statement”. But my wife had a different perspective. She said that when she sees people, say like a homeless person, who doesn’t seem like they were in the military (although it’s not so easy to tell especially with homeless) but you can sometimes tell based on the age and their figure. Someone of the age of fighting in Afghanistan wearing fatigues from the Vietnam War and skinny as a greyhound, then I would guess they probably did not serve. I do respect people who served in the military big time.

There is a big difference between those volunteering their lives to serve their country when you do not know much about what you will be a part of, and most of the leadership of the military. Sometimes things happen during service that you couldn’t have seen coming. Unfortunately people often join with good itentions and then become disillusioned once they see what they are really there doing. The things that we are involved with these days are hard to defend, but every issue has two sides and if one does not understand the opposing side well enough to argue both sides, than they probably can’t make an accurate assesment of their beliefs about the issue.

Historically, war has certainly been used to boost the economy and even though I am totally against so much that is done, I understand that an organism seeks to survive and the government/military functions as an organism. War has brought countries out of terrible economic times many times, often because in the past they would go off the gold standard and start printing a bunch of money to finance the war. Now that we have fiat money, they just print so much that the military is really the thing that backs the U.S. dollar (no it doesn’t make sense and clearly can not go on forever) created by debt issuance and strengthened through actions of the IMF and World Bank around the world. We dwarf any other countries defense spending by an enormous amount, I don’t feel like finding a link cause this is supposed to be a quick post. We do have bases in at least 80 countries. If that is not an empire, I don’t know what is. But now the interest on our debt is either surpassed or close to that of our military spending, which is astronomical, so there is no way out of this without a lot of pain.

Don’t read that as to sound like I support the military at all. I am completely anti-war. War is not good for anyone, but that is not to say that no one benefits from it. There have been times where it might have been the only option for survival but that doesn’t make war good, just that it is a necessary evil once in a while, but not just to boost the economy. That is disgusting to me, and at the very least it is one sided. I’m just giving an example of trying to see things from both sides to understand the issue better.

A lot of people choose willful ignorance when it comes to many topics, and while I understand where they are coming from, it is a dangerous to take it too far, it has allowed some of the most terrible atrocities that have happened (kneejerk stereotypical example would be Nazi Germany), and it gets messier when you have kids that will have to find a way to survive in this new world. I never have any right to tell any parent how to parent, but decisions still end up affecting us, and willful ignorance keeps you ill-prepared. I see “prior proper planning” a way to reduce stress especially during difficult times and make yourself more resiliant to what may come. To me, that is positive. I learned it from a woman I consider a second mother to me. The future is happening whether you acknowledge it or not. History does indeed happen in cycles, especially in fashion. No, wait, I meant to say “especially with economics,” but it is certainly true of many things =) .

The point my wife was making from the beginning of this rant is that she respects people who wear military cloths because they don’t give a fuck. Basically the opposite of what I was thinking, but I think she is right. Military cloths are the best cloths made from my experience, and specifically in the winter, I think I am going to just wear my military cloths. They last forever and generally always look the same. Plus you can get them really cheap. “Buy once, cry once” once again. I could have two or three sets and never have to worry about choosing cloths, cloths wearing out, etc. Plus they have neat little features, like string ties around the ankles and more.

I’ll post a picture of me dressed this way. Like I said I never felt comfortable dressing this way in public but Abril makes a good point and it aligns with a lot things that make sense to me, but sometimes I also like wearing like a suit when I can, I do find it fun, but I guess I just get tired of wearing something different all the time for no real reason. It’s not like I’m bothered by other people’s cloths, they can wear whatever they want for all I care, but for me having to consider which cloths, and also buy new cloths because they wear out, and match cloths, and everything else involved is not worth being able to wear a different shirt all the time. What can I say. Either way …….

I Love you all!

Edit: I thought I also want to mention that when I lived on the streets, my friend and I would wear nice jackets and dress pants, sometimes I would wear a tie. To us, not giving a fuck back then meant find the fanciest cloths at the thrift store while we lived on the streets, intoxicated and simply loving life. We thought it was really funny. Of coarse I also had dreads but that made it all the better I thought. And one time my friend Ana-Lisa and I, and Randy, were dumpster diving and Ana-Lisa found a wedding dress. She put it on and we continued dumpster diving, her in a wedding dress and me wearing a suit and multiple ties. For some reason I feel like it was around the time people would have been driving past us to work. I wish I could have seen us haha. That was kind of normal behavior on Capitol Hill at that time though and in Seattle, so we really wouldn’t have drawn as much attention as in many places. We were just having fun.

Just right now a Seinfeld episode is playing and Jerry says something like “Frankenstein was just not right, I miss the blazer… there’s something about a monster in a blazer. It at least shows he’s making an effort!” Lol. Sounded like an interesting syncronicity.