Conversations at work

At work I try to stray away from conversations regarding politics, mostly because I'm in Georgia and people down here tend to not be of political stripes and I don't want to get canned for causing too much unnecessary thinking. But today I was approached by a self-proclaimed evangelical Christian who asked me about my leaving the Christian fold. This conversation evolved into a discussion on politics and made me wonder why seemingly smart people can reject simple logic.

As it happened, said worker mentioned something about celebrities needing to keep their mouths shut on political issues, something I can agree with sometimes, and progressed to why "we shouldn't negotiate with Ahmadinejad". He said Ahmadinejad shouldn't be negotiated with because he is a "madman" and is a bad guy in general.

If Ahmadinejad is a madman, a madman whose most recent sin was holding British seamen hostage for breaching Iran's territorial integrity, one must wonder what the equivalent Iranian views George W. Bush, whose government deposed a leader of a sovereign nation, albeit a leader who maintained the delicate balance of rival groups through brute worse. Whose government holds people who are not even soldiers of any particular nation or militia for years without charge, engages in practices upon those detainees that are worse than what the British sailors have claimed.

By the way, "moderate" President Khatami's government also held British sailors upon British incursion in Iranian waters. Strike two crazies up for the Iranians.

Or strike Ahmadinejad up to being politically pragmatic and snappy, knowing how to play the west like a fiddle.

Oh, and did I happen to mention that we happen to have a lot of troops in two other countries right now? Oh yeah! Afghanistan and Iraq.

138,000 troops in Iraq.

27,000 troops in Afghanistan.

Should we embark upon another grand excursion? Should we now depose an elected leader of a country? Paging President Allende! Paging President Allende!

I asked him why another military adventure would be such a terrific idea.

Liberty, he says. Liberty for the people!

Liberty.

And justice.

For all.

Whatever and ever Amen!

O! How people have such great ideals! I can't recall the number of times I've been assailed for being too idealistic by cats like my coworker. But, lest we forget, it's okay to be hyperidealistic when you're hypernationalistic.

:throws arms in air:

-rl