At least for quite some time...

      Those who have read my other JEs or other postings know I enlisted in the US Army. I will be shipping in less than two weeks now, so I wanted to tell everyone goodbye. My last day online will be October 18th, and then I'll be shipping to Ft Benning, GA shortly after for 21+ weeks of training. I've signed up for the Infantry, and I have jump school and RIP in my contract.

      After I finish Basic, I may be able to get online occassionally. However, during my free time I hope to be doing extra PT and learning. I may have enough time to reply to emails and such, but probably not slashdot.

      Lastly, thanks to everyone who has supported me as far as joining the military. Any posts in this journal entry will be reported to me via mail.

Thanks,
John

This WABC news story really makes me sick. You can no longer post a picture of the President without also posting one of his democrat challenger? I better start calling all the local government and military offices to tell them they aren't allowed to show pictures of the President. Maybe this rule even applies to local government officials?

Anyway, all of this really brings back memories of my pre-homeschool days and reminds me of stories my friends have told me about their own experiences. Luckily, at home I am allowed to have pictures of several presidents in the areas I study in. See, my parents always thought it was important that I understand politics. Even as I small child, I remember admiring President Reagan and watching his speeches on the television. Back then it did not matter to me who was a Republican and who was a Democrat. I have always had respect for the Presidency, no matter who it was in office.

Even in my little extremely rural hometown, where most of the population is republican, our teachers/instructors/professors have always been insanely pro-democrat. For the most part, I do not really care as long as they do not hold my more conservative beliefs against me. Now, in college it was was nice that I could challenge most of my instructors openly. My peers were able to hear both sides of the story and make up their own minds. Luckily for me, at the college level there was only one teacher really targetted me because of my beliefs. On the bright side, this allowed me to be more vocal and popular. It actually seems strange that a conservative would have popularity as being a rebel.

My first experience with the indoctrination was way back in my early elementary school years. My school decided to take part in a poll to let the children pick the President. Many students knew who they liked, but they were not aware of party differences. The sheet they gave us to fill out was extremely difficult to understand, and required the teachers to explain how to fill it out. Well, before we even realized what was going on, our teachers had us all signed up as Democrats! We were told that if we valued our education and such, we should vote this way. Regardless of which candidate we preferred. At least half the class followed the instructions given, and so they only found out they voted for the wrong person later when the numbers came back.

So as far back as elementary school, we were being taught that if you wanted a good education and prosper, you must vote Democrat. Most of these kids were not as politically aware as I, they did not watch debates, did not read, and basically believed whatever their teachers said. Of course most of these same kids still are not politically aware even though they have voting power now, but that is a discussion for a later time.

I did not attend a public high school, so I was spared further indoctrination. I do however have stories from my friends, both liberal and conservative. It is not uncommon to hear jokes about President Bush told at the beginning of class. It is not uncommon to hear that a math teacher would interject politics into his or her lecture on geometry. The students hear this garbage over and over every day, and eventually it starts to stick. Political jokes are fine, but it is sad when making fun of the President becomes part of the daily lecture. Even worse, it is considered okay by many to make fun of the President, but you better not show him in a good light without also showing the contender.

While this news story does anger me, it also makes me so glad that my parents encouraged my political interests. I have such extremely intelligent friends who cannot tell you the name of Senator Kerry's VP hopeful, but they will tell you how much they hate Bush. The teachers have actually made this kids stupid by not forcing them to go research for themselves! They have been spoon-fed pro-liberal ideas their entire adolescent lives, and now they only know how to repeat what they have been told to believe. They cannot tell who al-Zarqawi is, but they have strong anti-war opinions. I do not care which way you vote or if you are a pacifist, but your opinions do not mean a whole lot to me if you do not even know what you are talking about in the first place.

The most amusing thing is, these are the same people who were telling me the Military is going to brainwash me into something evil. *shakes his head*

As I was metamoderating today (despite the fact that I have been unable to moderate since a certain incident), I saw multiple anti-Christian posts. At first glance, I assumed there was probably some strange story dealing specifically with science vs Christianity, but they were actually all unrelated threads in different sections of Slashdot. Actually, religion bashing is fairly common on Slashdot it seems. This seems unfortunate to me, as the arguments tend to be purely emotional and rarely is anything ever gained by arguing about it. At least, nothing more than higher blood pressure and some grey hairs.

I do not believe that I would be considered 'religious' by most people. I do however get complaints from both the religious and those who despise it. On the one side, no longer do I go to Church or claim a denomination. Constantly, I'm told that I have to go to Church to be a 'good' Christian. However, I still claim there is a God who set the universe in motion and gave us a foundation of knowledge to build on. So, my atheist friends whine that I believe in a 'lie' that somehow taints my judgement on all other things. Apparently, my Christian-styled morals are inferior to their same 'self'-styled ones, despite them being nearly identical for some strange reason.

Just to get it all out of the way, readily will I admit that I have done many things which I know were wrong. What's worse, is that I will most likely be tempted by the 'dark side' in the future as well. Most of us can admit that we have fallen to tempation from time to time. We all generally know the difference between actions which are right or wrong. There are variations from person to person on certain things of course, but most of us tend to get along together until you introduce variables like politics and such.

The first question now is, where did this knowledge of values and morals come from? Well, a lot of people seem to believe it just comes out of thin air. As if you are born knowing right from wrong immediately. This is an extremely flawed idea in my opinion. Without influence from other humans at critical stages, a person would lack useful motor skills, communication ability, and so on. Basically, all one has to do is search for information on feral children. If they haven't been given proper care by a certain age, their abilities are limited to the point where, quite frankly, you would assume the subject was born with a severe mental illness. Our set of morals does not simply come from DNA. Certain factors in our personality may be encoded, but even 'survival instincts' are subordinate. A being may be born knowing that it needs things, but we're talking about very limited/non-existant knowledge about what it wants or how to get it. When a 'tamed' animal acts wild, we generally chalk it up to 'survival instincts', but doesn't that just mean it didn't know right from wrong? The lion was happy with it's tamer, but it didn't think about the consequences of biting him. A baby will drink from a bottle, but it has to be coaxed first. Locke's idea of tabula rasa leads me to believe the only reasonable answer is that our knowledge of right and wrong comes from our parents and society.

If all our knowledge comes from those who surround us, then where do they get it from? I speak english, and I will most likely never forget how. I would know how to go to english even if I didn't take all those classes on it throughout school. How would I know? Because my parents taught me how to speak it. How did they know how? Their parents, and then their parents, and so on. If I was born in Spain, I would most likely speak Spanish. If I was born anywhere else, I would most likely also be more fond of certain regional dishes, I'd probably watch different television shows, maybe enjoy different sports, and so on. The fact is, I was not born enjoying ice-hockey and disliking Sponge Bob. None of us grew up knowing what we would like and dislike for the rest of our lives. In fact, most of us have changed dramatically throughout our lives, based on our experiences. If I didn't know about TVs, I wouldn't watch them, and so I would have no knowledge about reality shows. If people around me only spoke French, I would never know the meaning of 'Hello.' My point is, every bit of our knowledge has a root. Morality is no exception.

Atheists tend to get rather annoyed when I tell them that right or wrong is based on religion. If anyone can find a better source, please inform me. The fact is, people who grow up in a Judea-Christian based society are going to have a set of rules based on examples from the Bible. Those living in an Islamic state are going to believe in rules from the Quran. If your country has a mix of early religions, then your idea of morality is most likely going to be based on a mixture of those. Get what I'm saying? Okay, now I'm told that a person's opinion isn't based on religion. The fact that you don't like what is considered right, does not make you special. If you think that abortion is moral, that doesn't mean you're somehow given a superior knowledge of right and wrong! If I think that ant killing is a horrible atrocity, you would just think I'm insane. Why? Because your idea of what is normal and not is based on what you have been exposed to over the years. If you were surrounded by people who run around naked, then you would probably believe that is just fine and dandy.

My point is, I am sick and tired of people believing they are superior simply because they have a different and more 'liberal' set of standards. Admit it, we are not that different just because of religion. Without religion, you would not know right from wrong. Just as how without English speakers, you wouldn't know the difference between the words 'right' and 'wrong'. Stop claiming that your ideas are somehow better than mine because you are an atheist and I am not. You cannot defend your immoral behavior simply by claiming that you were somehow gifted with a superior knowledge of right and wrong. Seriously, if this is going to be the way it is, we might as well just start running around like savages and animals. There is always going to be a small percentage of people who hate all things conservative and would rather change what is 'right' to what is 'wrong' because it is more convenient for them to explain their actions that way.

I suppose the truly sad thing is that the 10% of people who want change are always the loudest, and therefor most likely to get what they want. Those of us who generally keep to ourselves and try not to make life harder than it has to be, end up watching our way of life slowly slip away. Liberal values were great when it meant removing racism and sexism, but today it seems to have become extremely polluted. It has become all about appeasing the loudest tiny percentage. Forget the fact that most of the country does not support this and that, the majority will generally fall in line because we have to. We do not seem to notice the small things until it is too late. We are looking at the idea of a bizarro Nazi Germany. Of course, this is all the stuff of an entirely different journal entry. My point is, just because your ideas of 'right' are based on a minority opinion, does not make it superior. Stop acting like you are a victim because people do not agree with you.

I'm sure my journal entry isn't all that revolutionary as far as pointing this out, but as I'm running into it more and more... I feel the need to write *something* about it.
      Every day, I hear the arguments about who's more patriotic and such. I get tired of this crap from people like Michael Moore pretending that they support the military. Look, you're not supporting the military just because you're not calling soldiers 'baby-killers' and claim you don't want them to die. Just to appease the other side, I will also say that mindless flag waving and chanting "USA! USA!" doesn't make a person ultra-patriotic in my eyes either.
    To get to the point, I mentioned Michael Moore for a reason, but I don't mean to only bash him. It's just that he seems to be the most visible example of what I dislike. Another example, lately at the college and such I see flyers and ribbons saying, "Support our troops - Bring them home". Is this what we tell our sports players? Gosh, I love our football team, but why do they have to go all the way out to the superbowl? I mean, of course, we want our loved ones safe and sound, but you don't support someone by telling them they aren't doing a good job and need to come home. At this point, it's probably not wise for me to speak out against anyone specifically, but I have to wonder how some people can say they're supporting the troops by wanting them home safe, but then turn around and support voting against giving the soldiers equipment they need in the field.
      Look, I am not *yet* a soldier, but as long as nothing bad happens between now and the end of my training, I will be one. I have told my family that no matter what happens to me, I would feel betrayed and *not* supported if they were to act like Michael Moore and company. I willfully chose to become a soldier, and I would rather hear a person say they hate me rather than use me as a political tool.
      So I think to myself, not all of these people have political motivations, so why do they feel this way? They say they support the troops, but their actions are obviously anti-military. I talked to a girl recently, going out on a date. She didn't know I was military bound yet, and it seemed we had a lot of the same interests and the same sense of humor. Thing is, about half way into the date we're talking about the future and I tell her about the military. Wow, she changed quite a bit. She supposedly supports the troops and thinks it's amazing that I'm joining, but after that all she asks about is why would I want to it, why does someone with a 3.9 gpa want to be infantry, am I just using it for college money, can't I get a job somewhere else? She decided on that point that she doesn't want to get to know me, but "Good luck in the Army!" I told one of my instructors at school, and she actually pleaded with me saying she'd get me letters of recommendation and such if I tried to get a scholarship, as if college money had anything to do with me joining the military. She tells me that she doesn't want me to have to go to Iraq and be 'cannon fodder'. Thing is, her car has one of those yellow support the troops ribbons on it. That's great, you support the troops, but you don't want anyone else to join the military.
      These are just a couple examples, but it's what I hear constantly. I now tell girls immediately that I'm going to join the military just to avoid problems later on. Usually this results in some fake patriotic wow I'm so proud of you! You'll look awesome in a uniform blah blah See ya later. Guys aren't as bad given it's a totally different situation, but even they don't *get it*. A lot of the people who are prior service, active duty, or shipping off get it, but you still have those people who don't know why they're joining the military or are only joining for the benefits.
      Being Infantry is the worst though. No one understands why you would want to put your ass on the line like that, which is exactly what I've been getting at. 90% of the liberal leaning people I meet see the military as a welfare institution. It all makes sense to me now as far as how they can support it. The left wing, sensitive, metrosexual, get-in-touch-with-your-feminine-side portion of the population would never ever be able to go along with the military's traditions and values if they actually viewed them for what they are. The new advertising campaigns are actually even geared up for these people. Army of One? 150 jobs? College? Learn skills for the future? What?! What happened to the idea of pushing yourself to the limit, fighting for God, Country, and Honor? Getting your ass in the grass because you owe it to those who fought and died for you before you were born? No... The average liberal seems to think the military exists as a job placement program. In fact, it actually fuels their later arguments.. That the military exploits poor people, that we shouldn't fight, etc,. Look, if you don't want to fight, don't join the military. Even if you're a chef, you're going to have to fire a rifle sometime in your career.
      If you serve your country and then take your college money and skills elsewhere, that's fine, you did more than most people, but please... I only want two little things! One, I'm sick of constantly hearing this garbage from people like Jessica Lynch, people who thought the military was there to serve them... That they wouldn't be in combat... whine blah blah whine. Two, if you don't support the military mentality, please stop saying you support the troops, because unless they were hauled off kicking and screaming... The military is who they are. You cannot hate everything about the military and still support the troops, it is a contradiction.

Well, I just got back from MEPS late last night. It was not a fun experience, but I ended up getting a contract and taking my oath. They offered 11x (Infantry) with Airborne and a RIP slot, and of course I took it. I know I said before I wasn't going to try to become a Ranger, but I changed my mind :P My ship date is October 20th, and I got a $12,000 bonus. It's sad though I won't get to use the money for quite some time, I could really use it at the moment lol I could throw a really good going away party for myself ;)

Yay... It's my birthday! My present? Going to MEPS Monday for my pre-enlistment physical. yay...

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/mepsglance.htm