To Agree or Not Agree - That is the Question.

Shakespeare will probably be turning in his grave at the glib use of, arguably, his most famous line.

But....

This seems to be where we're all at (or maybe where I'm at).

Gone are the days when we were simply just allowed to disagree with someone, something or some event and no one's head exploded.

Politics...COVID...LGBTQ...CRT...Affirmative Action...the gun debate...drag shows in school...trophy hunting in Africa...and now, the war in Ukraine.

These are just some of the topics of conversation, that there doesn't seem to be any middle ground...any neutral space to debate or have an personal opinion - we now have to choose a side and, more worryingly, it's no longer acceptable to be a passive supporter of something - you HAVE to show the appropriate level of support for it, which is decided by the mob, or be forever labeled "anti" something - you have to kiss the ring, to be accepted.

Social controversy is nothing new to the human race. What IS new, is this immediate rush to fucking cancel a person, who simply see's things differently, or, who just doesn't fucking care, one way or the other. That's a human character flaw, exacerbated by the internet's ability to allow people to be tougher, meaner, more intelligent and more vocal, then they actually would be, in a group of real, live human beings.

For clarity - I'm a Tory voter (well I was before I moved to the USA). I support Trump all the way. I'm vehemently pro-2A. I own a number of guns. I don't agree with the sexualization of children in schools. I'm against BIG Government. I only use pro-nouns, in the manner in which the English language meant them to be used, and Epstein didn't kill himself.

From that last paragraph, anyone now reading this, will have already made assumptions about me and, that's fine, I don't really care, my fucks-given app isn't sending me notifications, it doesn't really matter to me.

What does matter to me, is calling out the hypocrisy, in the difference between how most people talk about controversial topics in private, but are too scared to talk about them, in the same way, in public - again, that's a character flaw in people, derived from a fear of what others might think.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is alive and well on LinkedIn - more and more people seem to be lining up to belong to a group, an idea or a collective way of thinking - even if they don't actually believe in what the group stands for, what the idea is or what the thought process signifies - they just wanna belong to the fucking group. Much like how a group of rioters behave, feeding off each others rage, which fuels their collective "courage" and increases their belief in why they're rioting in the first place, only for it all to fizzle out, like a soggy marlboro, when they get home to their 5-bedroom detached houses in Henley-on-Thames, and the embarrassment kicks in.

Whatever happened to having the courage of YOUR convictions (not someone else's) regardless of the consequences of voicing those convictions, in an audience that deliberately forbids you from having them? If COVID confirmed one thing to me - something that I had, for years, already had firmly ingrained in me - it was to never, EVER go along with a narrative, so hideously perpetuated by so many people, who were, themselves, unconvinced of their own bullshit.

If something is "trending" on LinkedIn, then there seems to be a rush to be SEEN, to embrace, support and promote that trend - even though they probably have the opposite view of whatever is being trended, and for those of you who have seen how I dress, or what I listen to on my iTunes play list, you'll know I don't follow trends.

Forrest Gump said "...I am not a smart man..." and this I will concede to you all - I am not a smart (in the academic sense) man - but neither am I complete imbecile and I like to have my own opinions, make my own assumptions and ask my own questions, with little care for people, with letters after their name, who think that their own academic intelligence, trumps my acute sense of knowing when something doesn't feel right.

The war in Ukraine - I have questions. I have an opinion. Like Tyrion Lannister, I drink and I know stuff. However, the sheer amount of academic wizards-behind-the-curtain-types, on LinkedIn, really are starting to crack the whip on any and all dissent, disagreement and/or individual thought - it's almost as if they resent anyone challenging their academia, and instantly become prickly - you can almost see the contempt, vaguely masked, in their responses to any challenges to their own academic wizardry. And then, there are the ones who simply reply with emotion - "...you brute, think of the innocent children..." . Those are the ones that need the most help, I think.

Some of the most evangelical supporters of everything Ukraine, are even starting to suggest that we should hate all Russians and, the worrying and massively hypocritical aspect of that is, if we were to apply that same formula to other countries, religions or races, those same people, spouting hatred of all Russians, would be the first ones to scream "...racist or Islamophobe...". All Muslims are terrorists or all Mexicans are drug smugglers - we must hate them all. Because that's exactly what's being peddled here on LinkedIn in regards to ALL Russians, and I ain't buying that shit - not for one minute.

Anyway - much in the same way, I'd like the anti-gun lobby to tell me how gun control prevents criminals buying illegal guns - I'd like to know why western media outlets report on the war in Ukraine, in such an outrageously biased way? Are we to believe that Russia is the only perpetrator of war crimes? Because if that's the narrative, then it'll be the ONLY war, in the history of war, when that has been the case.

Why are Ukrainian casualty figures not being released? That hasn't happened since after the first day of the Somme in 1916.

Are we really to accept that Zelensky will NOT negotiate for peace until Russia withdraws from ALL Ukrainian soil? Because if we are - then we better all strap in for a long, long war - a war, it should be noted, funded and armed by the West, and I have no doubt that some store-man somewhere, is shuffling around with a clipboard, doing inventory on how long that can be sustained, without it jeopardizing their own country's defense capabilities - does no-one understand that "stores are for storing" anymore? (apologies, that last bit was for any former LE Officers reading this, when they were the QM).

Classic Soviet strategy is to get you to look "here", whilst something else is happening over "there". History is awash with such Russian strategies. So what happens if, whilst we're all looking over here (Ukraine), something else happens over there? (Taiwan). If I was Mr. Xi Jinping, I'd be telling old Vladimir, to keep at it for as long as it takes to severely deplete NATO's stocks of ammunition, armaments and equipment, to a state that would render the West's ability to mount an effective response, to minimal.

But...as I said...I am not a smart man.

To conclude, and to counter the predictable head explosions that this article may result in - I am not pro-Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but that doesn't make me anti-Russian, or are we to believe that all Russians support the war? That's like saying that all Brits supported Tony "the prick" Blair's decision to invade Iraq and, in the sake of common decency, I think it'd be nice to actually acknowledge that many Russians probably don't support what their own Government decides to do all the time - fuck, imagine that - that'd probably make those people a little bit like us.

I am pro-Freedom and I am pro, the idea that, generally, in war, no one's innocent and no one gets out clean - I've been in enough of them to have experienced that (Northern Ireland, Iraq twice, Eelam War IV in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan).

I am, however, anti-bullshit, anti-cancel culture, anti-I'm-smarter-then-you-because-I-have-letters-after-my-name, and I am definitely anti-you-can't-say-that.

Coz I just have....