Reactionary Rogue
So I come back from my vacation, to find myself with a new trainee. He is one of the most opinionated and right-wing types I have ever talked seriously too. Actually, we didn't get as much done last night as I would have liked due to talking. It is sort of funny to see the issues we agree on and disagree on. He is a strident Catholic, and has that borderline segregationist mentality that is probably just a leftover from tribalism. That is definitely one area where we would disagree, the origins of human social behavior. The things we agree on tend to be the limited government principles, since those are the issues Libertarian and Conservative ideologies have in common. In today's political spectrum I guess Libertarians are centrists, because I would be called Liberal on many social issues and Conservative on limited government principles. Conservatives tend to pick and choose where the government has the authority to tell the populace what to do.
One issue we talked about had a funny result. I told him I was generally in favor of gay marriage, on the grounds that I can't see what business it is of mine. His argument stems from that he believes marriage is a religious, specifically Christian, institution. He said that two people have to be living as Christians to get married, which I suppose is probably the Catholic position. This puzzled me, as a man and woman in this country are just as married in the eyes of the government no matter what faith, if any, they practice. He countered with the idea that there are two sides to marriage, one civil, and one religious. This is the view of the Church, as I found out when I was going to become Catholic and discovered that I needed to somehow invalidate my first marriage through one of God's Holy Loopholes. Marriage is an holy sacrament to the Catholic Church, and cannot be broken by man, it is right there in the vows afterall. Of course, this has no practical effect outside of the church, as man can definitely sever the civil side of marriage. So he does support civil unions, with all the same civil rights that married couples receive, but disagrees that it should be called "marriage." It is hard for me to see it as a problem. But I guess since my wife and I are heathens we are just civil unioned. The disconnect I have is that in my mind marriage is a civil institution in this country, because of the seperation of church and state. It is completely irrelevant for a non-Catholic if the Church recognizes your marriage or divorce.
The thing I do admire about him is how driven and focused he is. He has spent ten years in the Army, and injured his back in a mortar attack in Iraq. He is a strong supporter of the war, unsurprisingly. He just feels we ought to be using more brutal tactics and bombs. But right now he is going to school full-time, year-round, to make up for what he sees as lost time. He wants to eventually be an history professor. What I envy is that I wish I had a goal to advance myself that inspired me to apply myself so vigorously. Instead I spend my time outside of work just dinking around and sometimes feeling despondent over my career situation. That is a big part of my problem, I just don't have the career mentality. I have the job mentality, I don't much care what I do for a living, I just want to make more money. For a career you have to be willing to make sacrifices and want to achieve your goal bad enough to focus your entire life to accomplishing it. I just don't have that kind of ambition. I am a nine-to-fiver, content to punch the clock and go home to my family. I say content, and I am except for the desire to make more money. If I felt I could continue to advance and make incrementally more money as I age it wouldn't be an issue. But the amount of money I can make has plateaued, and I well know that as unskilled labor goes there just aren't any better paying jobs than the one I have.
So here I am, an Atheist waiting for a sign from Heaven to inspire me to have the ambition to improve myself.
One issue we talked about had a funny result. I told him I was generally in favor of gay marriage, on the grounds that I can't see what business it is of mine. His argument stems from that he believes marriage is a religious, specifically Christian, institution. He said that two people have to be living as Christians to get married, which I suppose is probably the Catholic position. This puzzled me, as a man and woman in this country are just as married in the eyes of the government no matter what faith, if any, they practice. He countered with the idea that there are two sides to marriage, one civil, and one religious. This is the view of the Church, as I found out when I was going to become Catholic and discovered that I needed to somehow invalidate my first marriage through one of God's Holy Loopholes. Marriage is an holy sacrament to the Catholic Church, and cannot be broken by man, it is right there in the vows afterall. Of course, this has no practical effect outside of the church, as man can definitely sever the civil side of marriage. So he does support civil unions, with all the same civil rights that married couples receive, but disagrees that it should be called "marriage." It is hard for me to see it as a problem. But I guess since my wife and I are heathens we are just civil unioned. The disconnect I have is that in my mind marriage is a civil institution in this country, because of the seperation of church and state. It is completely irrelevant for a non-Catholic if the Church recognizes your marriage or divorce.
The thing I do admire about him is how driven and focused he is. He has spent ten years in the Army, and injured his back in a mortar attack in Iraq. He is a strong supporter of the war, unsurprisingly. He just feels we ought to be using more brutal tactics and bombs. But right now he is going to school full-time, year-round, to make up for what he sees as lost time. He wants to eventually be an history professor. What I envy is that I wish I had a goal to advance myself that inspired me to apply myself so vigorously. Instead I spend my time outside of work just dinking around and sometimes feeling despondent over my career situation. That is a big part of my problem, I just don't have the career mentality. I have the job mentality, I don't much care what I do for a living, I just want to make more money. For a career you have to be willing to make sacrifices and want to achieve your goal bad enough to focus your entire life to accomplishing it. I just don't have that kind of ambition. I am a nine-to-fiver, content to punch the clock and go home to my family. I say content, and I am except for the desire to make more money. If I felt I could continue to advance and make incrementally more money as I age it wouldn't be an issue. But the amount of money I can make has plateaued, and I well know that as unskilled labor goes there just aren't any better paying jobs than the one I have.
So here I am, an Atheist waiting for a sign from Heaven to inspire me to have the ambition to improve myself.