War and my parents

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 9:46am

So, I was talking to my parents last night about how I was going to a war protest (my father works for an aerospace engineering company that has a lot of military contracts, so I should've known). My dad said, "Well, what do you want us to do? If we don't stop them there, they're coming here."

ME: (deciding to not engage in that debate) Well, let 'em come, then. I'd rather turn the other cheek. It's more Christian.

Dad: Well, war isn't pretty. It's just part of our world. It's the lesser of two evils.

ME: But the lesser of two evils is still evil. I don't understand how you can claim to believe what Jesus taught and still approve of war.

Mom: Well, when you're older, you'll understand.

Me: No, when YOU'RE older, you'll understand.

Dad: Well, we clearly don't agree on this.

Me: No, we don't.


NOW...what else should be said about this issue? I don't want my parents to feel okay with asserting they are right because they are older. It is the worst kind of cop out. Either defend your position or give in -- don't assert your age as your infallability. Any ideas?

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:04am

touchme---I agree, it's a cop-out. But that may be their excuse for the rest of their lives.

You're waiting for them to own up to it and explain, or to come to their senses and have a change of heart.

The truth is, neither may ever happen. Can you live with it, if that's the case?

I'm not saying it's right, but people don't always understand what they say or believe in, and they don't always bother to explain it either.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:07am

touchme, how old are your parents?

[JudasIscariot]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:14am

Personally, I support the War in Iraq.

That being said, you should go to the protest anyway. Send the message that you are going to do what you want, because we have that freedom in this country. If you don't support the war, and protest it, but don't sit there arguing with people who are not going to change their minds no matter what you might say.

It is those kind of close-minded people who give all of the Republicans a bad name.

[Mamie]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:14am

Your parents should be old enough to remember Viet Nam. The very same argument was used then. If we don't stop them (Communists) they'll end up here.

We didn't stop them.

They didn't come.

results -

US casualties - 58,209 KIA, 153,303 WIA, 1,948 MIA

We won't even mention the millions of Vietnamese civilian casualties.

[DBillyP]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:19am

I learned long ago that there are certain issues about which I should not engage most members of my family. This is one of them.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:30am

Judas, at 17 I do believe you can enlist with the permission of your parents....and if they truly believe you will amount to nothing, as your myspace says, and if you are truly as pompous as you make out to be on myspace, then enlist, and go fight for your country....and maybe you will learn some humility.

touchme, you will not change your fathers opinion, and frankly why put him or yourself theough the grief of trying to do so. Do what you can to change things.

I can understand that those who lived through WW2 could be worried about "it coming over here"......but today, in my opinion, it doesn't apply.

The world is too large and complex for a "winner" to be able to take over the US, Russia, etc.

What he may mean by "come over here" are things like 9-11.
America had always been spared that sort of thing until then. We've never had entire cities destroyed by war. People, for instance, who go to Warsaw or Dresden cannot even imagine that not too long ago they were just rubble.

I do believe if they could, no one would be stupid enough to want war. Yes we see rubble on TV, in Lebanon, Iraq, etc...but it's not the same...it's "there" and not here, and I don't think the average American gets that "there" could just as easily be here, and sadly I think it will be, and that we'll see many more 9-11 type things.

Judas, go enlist, make your party proud.

Updated On: 8/15/07 at 10:30 AM

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:43am

Elphaba, my parents are both nearing 70. My dad faught in Vietnam (Air Force). I don't think my dad would call Vietnam a failure. I think he thinks his fighting kept them "over there".

DBilly, I think you're probably right. I should shut up on this issue. I guess that I'm too big of a pretensious liberal boob to get myself to shut up when I feel something is wrong.

[DBillyP]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:47am

LOL ... oh, trust me; I know that feeling! I called my dad one day a couple of years ago to gloat about my alma mater beating his in a college football game, and we ended up not speaking for months because I foolishly responded when he brought up something about the war. Live and learn.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:48am

hmmm, so they grew-up post WW2 and during the height of the Cold War, and that's where that comes from.
Yeah, you won't be able to change that thinking......not a "battle" worth fighting, you know?

[WOSQ]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 10:57am

To put it in musical theatre terms: "We're the generation gap."

That's what this is and said 'gap' will continue through history.

Sometimes events will bridge the generation gap. Oddly Watergate united generations that had been torn apart because of Vietnam.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 11:27am

I guess I figure that if they can talk about the war, so can I.

Luckily, though, they're not the type of parents to not talk to me because we disagree. They are the type to drop the issue if they get too heated.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 12:33pm

that is my father in a nutshell, drop the issue if it gets too heated, lol

[DBillyP]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 6:01pm

I am re-editing one my boss's books, Holy Homsexuals. I want to share something from it that I just read. It was written about biological family members who don't accept a person's sexuality, but it seems apropos to this thread:

In South Georgia we used to say, "You can’t teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it irritates the pig." Sometimes that is how it is with biological family members. They do not have the capacity or the inclination to change their faith systems, so we need to stop wasting our time and irritating them. We need to get on with the job of forming our own functional families of choice.

[Mamie]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 8:27pm

well said!

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/15/07 at 8:47pm

er, DB my pig sings.....albeit not well. ;oP

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/16/07 at 7:23am

i'm sorry, touch, but it's clear from this thread that your parents are nazis and the best thing to do for both you and them is to kill them. i know, i know, it sounds harsh, but if you allow them to live in the clearly delusional state in which they now exist, aren't you really torturing them? surely the most humane thing to do is to put them out of their misery so that you can move on without their poisonous bile infecting your mind. trust me, if they understood the depths of their incoherence, they'd probably beg you to do it. no jury in the world would convict you for killing supporters of this evil imperial oil based genocide bush and his cronies have perpetuated, so you don't have to worry about that. i'd suggest that you research some humane ways of euthanizing them. for everyone's sake.