I most certainly hope I am not blowing wind out my ass with this next bit.
‘Grim determination wins the war’. I don’t want you to doubt that. I want you to think about the war in question. I’m not talking about Afghans. Not talking about al-Quaeda. I am talking about your ability to think as free men.
There is this notion—false notion—that he who dies with the most toys, wins. There is this equally false notion that he who has the most guns, most planes, most sophisticated armament, wins. Not so. Definitely not so.
But see, there is something that has been lost in my country. That something is the idea there is such a thing as “Truth”, and it is worth fighting for. Worth dying for. And the truth is no way intrinsically connected to toys, guns or planes. It never was.
In eleven more days, I will be 34 years old. That marks 15 years since I attended art school. 15 years since I made the stupidest error of politics of my life and tried attending a United States fully-accredited art college simultaneously as a reservist of the United States Marine Corps Reserves, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, Hamlet and Chesley Avenues, Baltimore, Maryland. That unit has since been effectively decommissioned.
See, I didn’t know what “leftism” was back then. Didn’t know what “rightism” was. All I knew is I wanted to defend my country—and, I loved art. And I still love art. But I left that art college after only one year. Not in disgrace, but not happily, either. I was not liked there, to put it plain—and, after a year, I was sick of the bullshit. I was there to learn art and to do art. Not to learn feminism. Not to learn atheism. Not to learn to be a straight member of a homosexual colony. Not to go back to smoking the same drugs I smoked in highschool, and later gave up from boredom—and perhaps gave up feeling a bit of shame about my chemical habits.
I spent a couple of years thinking about that art school afterwards. Thinking about the treatment I received while there for one year. That’s something to feel real shame about—although none on my part.
Yet, even as I say this, I temper what I say—because I want you to temper what you think.
I want you to think about what is going on with populist causes of every stripe—not just with Muslim Marxists in Afghanistan or in the Philippines, but about the whole appeal of a leader getting up and preaching “virtue” to a bunch of people who are already too eager to kill themselves—and others—in the name of virtue. I want you to think if zero-tolerance really and truly is what you want your kids believing. Maybe it is—but then again, maybe the answers come a little better when they come a little slower.
I come to Newgrounds because there is a bit of levity, here. A bit of humor, here. I might not do humor as well as the other people on this site—but that’s O.K., I enjoy their contribution. I don’t feel there’s any real threat of censorship just yet. But I do get a little worried about people’s attitudes. Where it’s O.K. to substitute anger in place of thought—no, that’s not O.K. Where it’s O.K. to pick on small stuff instead of realizing the greater blessing of having an open forum to say what you mean in the words of your choosing—no, it’s not OK to be tedious or petty when freedoms are at stake; it’s not O.K. to disregard the opportunity to say what you mean, nor to disregard the men providing that opportunity at no cost to you.
Being tedious and petty has nothing to do with the Truth.
That’s the end of my speech. Consider it. Ponder it. Maybe get and start reading a book while you’re at it. That much would mark a considerable change in this American generation. A change for the better.
I hope I am not tossing pearls before swine.
Because if I am—if I become convinced of such—this practice will cease immediately.
