Am I In the Twilight Zone?

There's just no other way to say this.  So here it goes: "What the fuck is going on America?"  I mean, really.  What.the.fuck.  It's not a secret to those that know me, that I am not a Donald Trump supporter.  I'm not one to hide my feelings and I wear my emotions on my sleeve.  But lately, I found myself becoming quieter and quieter.  Not giving an opinion on current events.  Not for lack of interest, no.  More for keeping the peace with family and friends alike, even with strangers both in person and behind the computer screen.  But you know, one can only take so much.  One can only stomach so much bullshit before they I explode.  And did I ever.  Of course, I am rambling about the current immigration chaos going on at the borders in our country.  The zero tolerance law that Trump enforced back in April of this year.  The topic that has been played over and over and over and over again on the radio, on the news outlets, on DJT's go to, Twitter and of course, good ol' Facebook.  I was in line at a local grocery store a few days ago and two people in front of me, both were different nationalities, got into a heated discussion about the current president and his administration.  I was behind one of them and I got out of line because those fools were about to go to blows and I, well I wanted no part of it.  That wasn't the ugly part.  Well it was but it got uglier.  How is that possible you ask?  Well, because the others waiting in line, started cheering for one or the other to fight. They were encouraging violence.  Did you get that?  It was like I was in the middle of a street fight gone bad, instead of the local grocery store.  Nothing happened, thankfully.    Security was called and life resumed.  I walked out of the store feeling more dejected than anything.  How is this possible?  How can so much hate be walking amongst us?  Such things happened in the past and lifetimes ago, not now.  Not in 2018.  At least, that's what I kept saying to myself in my head.  It's not just that incident at the grocery store that has me feeling angry and sad and helpless.  It's also the fact that there are so many people in this country who would rather turn their nose at innocent children who are incarcerated in CAGES for gawd sake, than help them or try to speak up for them. Now, I know that some of you out there will vehemently disagree with me.  And that's fine.   That's your right to do so.  We can agree to disagree.   Yet there are others who vehemently oppose my views on this topic and  all hell breaks loose.  Names, ugly and vile names are spewed, insult after insult.  All because we disagree.  You know, I get it.  When it comes to religion, politics and oh hell, anything you feel strongly about, emotions and our passion takes over.  I'm guilty of this as well.  But I won't go toe for toe with you if you are being ugly.  I don't do ugly.  I don't do stupid either.  If you are going to debate me, do so with facts, not memes or videos that may or may not be altered. I like to debate, sometimes I have to eat crow because I am wrong.  Sometimes not.  The thing is, instead of trying to help fellow man, we beat each other up.  Why??? What is the end result of that? I'll tell you what it is, nothing.  That's the result. Nothing. All I know is that I cannot sit back quietly while those kids are out there helpless, in a foreign country (to them), not able to fend for themselves.  I just can't. And so, I become active and attend rallys and protests in efforts to stop the opening of yet another "Baby Shelter".  They want to open one here in my city.  Actually, really close to where I work.  But no way am I going to not do something, anything to try and stop them.  Even if we fail, at least we tried to help.   I've been to three so far.  Protests.  They have been interesting to say the least. And peaceful.  A few crazies among the groups or we're met with opposition from time to time but nothing has gotten out of hand.  Not yet and hopefully not at all.

I'm sick and tired of being called out, sometimes by my own family, for having and voicing an opinion.  I'm tired of being silent.  Of bowing my head whenever something happens.  Over this week and most of last week, I've seen and heard things from so called friends and acquaintances that leave me speechless.  And that's hard to do. -gotta keep the humor going.  I even let myself get caught up in the proverbial Facebook discussion about DJT's abhorrent decision to separate children from their families.  It wasn't pretty, friends.  Not pretty at all.  But because of that so called discussion, I was able to see people's true colors.  Their essence, if you will.  Like I said, it was not pretty.  I quickly removed myself from the situation, but not before damage had been done.  By both sides.  I felt almost dirty afterwards.  As if I had done something terrible.  But, I hadn't.  I just voiced my opinion and came to the defense of the defenseless.  How could that be wrong?

After the last presidential election, I thought to myself, "Surely, this is the worst of the worst."  Well, Surely, was wrong.  -again with lame attempt at humor.  Work with me people.

Now I know, I know we don't live looking out through rose colored glasses -maybe just a few, and we don't walk in harmony all day errday but can we agree that ugly has reared it's disgusting head and has a death grip on us?  If you don't agree with me, that's fine.  Just don't try and convince me that I am on the "wrong" side of the fence with my beliefs.  As I told someone today,  this is still America and I have the right that freedom of speech gives me, to speak my mind, not yours, to be as passionate as I want to be with my beliefs, to stand up to injustice(s) and have differing opinions from yours and at the end of the day, still meet you maybe for a drink or lunch or take in a movie.  Just because we may disagree, does not make us enemies.  Well, theoretically anyway.

Maybe I should have stopped at glass of wine number 1 before I started writing this.  But I'm on glass of wine number 4 and well, you see the end result.

It's been fun kids, until next time.

-peace