First of all, thanks to Rita for suggesting me to Jason for this project, and to Jason for giving me the opportunity. To David: Thank you for your service to this nation, you serve a noble calling.  I returned Sunday morning from San Diego after attending my youngest son’s graduation from Marine Corps boot camp, OORAH! Same recruit depot I attended 31 years ago, it brought back strong feelings and memories. I have noticed that warriors tend to be shunned somewhat in the pagan ranks, so it seems. This has puzzled me for a long time, and so it was the inspiration for my first post. 

    I puzzled why pagans were, for the most part, anti-military, or at least anti-war. I read a conservative  commentary once which said that Pagans were mostly liberals and liberalism was “an essentially feminine, submissive world view. It is the world view of men who do not have the moral toughness, the spititual strength to stand up and do single combat with life.” Quite harsh, but it stuck in my mind and I have met those that it described completely.  A liberal pagan friend described conservatives as “people who have failed in our society. They lack something emotionally or economically or psychologically so they tend to gravitate toward the military”. Again harsh, but looking back, it did describe a few of the men I served with, although not the majority. There it is, both extreme ends of the political spectrum, both convinced that their position is the only proper pagan view. Both sides willing to vote for their parties candidate based on their party affiliation alone…and both so terribly wrong.

    The time has come to stop voting for the party and start voting for the person. Apply the virtues we live by to those we elect and pay to do our bidding. If our servants betray us, we must remove them and seek out those who will be honest representatives of we the people. As pagans, we pride ourselves in our honesty; our vow to harm none, etc. We seek to be free, yet we elect those who little by little place us in chains through their legislative power, guided by their greed, and their desire for even more power.

    I have reached the conclusion that both sides are wrong and that until they meet in the middle, where most of us truly are, we have little hope for a better nation.