Are you looking for some non-political entertainment?  Are you sick of 2/3 of your Facebook feed being taken up by political talk?  This post is for you – 100% devoid of politics and completely not about politics.

I’m just kidding, it’s totally a political post.  But I ask you to bear with me for just a few minutes.  This blog is meant to be mostly apolitical and it has been for half a year. However, I do need to take a timeout and acknowledge the reason I can afford to have this little slice of my life be without politics.

I’m white.  I’m male.  I’m straight.  I’m financially well off right now and expect to be in the future because I work in the defense industry.  I have health insurance through my defense industry job.  I like guns.  I’m going to be just fine under the Trump administration, in an icky, short term sort of way.  And almost everyone I see on Facebook complaining that politics is all they read about now are in some kind of similar predicament – they may not be quite as comfortable as me, but most of the people complaining about political talk, protesters, etc have one thing in common:  they don’t have as much to lose as those protesting and talking non-stop politics.

I’m confident when I get pulled over by the police I’ll be treated fairly or, at worst, receive a ticket that I don’t think I really deserve.   I don’t have to worry that my skin color is going to set the officer on edge or make him take a second look at what I might have in my car.

I am 100% certain I won’t need birth control or an abortion in the next four years.

I can use the public bathroom I’m most comfortable with because I am lucky enough to have grown into my body comfortable with the gender on my birth certificate.

My marriage will not be questioned or overturned, no matter which way the Supreme Court shifts.  I won’t ever have to worry that my spouse won’t be able to make medical decisions for me when I’m in a coma or that, God forbid, if we ever got divorced, custody might only be based on biology.

I am confident that I won’t die from lack of healthcare coverage.  I might die because I eat too much or drink too much, but I’m not going to die because I have a pre-existing condition that, without the ACA, will no longer be covered.  For thousands of Americans this is a very real fear.  If ACA goes away without a replacement, people will die.  That’s a fact and it’s being ignored in all the rhetoric.

Along those lines, I don’t fear losing my healthcare coverage because a political party has branded it “Obamacare” instead of referring to it as the Affordable Care Act and is acting as expanding health coverage to 20 million people is somehow the worst thing that’s happened to America.

My family is not going to be torn apart because of my immigration status.  I won’t be ripped away from my US citizen wife and children because I don’t have the proper paperwork which the government has refused to allow me to obtain for decades.
The worst thing that is likely to happen to me in the next four years is another deployment and, frankly, that was likely to happen under Clinton too.

What’s the point of all this?  It’s that if I want to stop thinking about politics, stop thinking about what’s going on, stop being involved in political discussion and protest, I can and almost certainly my life will not change.  I hesitate to call it a privilege because calling it a privilege implies that it is something above and beyond what is expected for all human kind, but at this point, that’s what it is – a privilege.  And I recognize that I have been given this privilege through almost no work of my own.  I did nothing to earn my gender, skin color, sexual orientation, etc.  Yes, I worked hard to get where I am financially, but I was aided by to color of my skin not holding me back.  I was aided by not being a woman.  I was aided by being straight.

And a lot of you out there are in the same boat.  If you’re saying, “I’m sick of politics,” and “Not another political post” every time you log onto Facebook, I ask you to imagine how it feels to be in one of these groups that is scared.  At risk.  In danger.  All the time.  Every day.

I’m not even asking you to go out and protest or even to start in the political discussions if you don’t like them.  I’m just asking you to reflect for a few minutes on the fact that you feel comfortable opting out of these things and what that says about your life.  Then consider how it would feel not have that luxury.  Just think about it for a while and maybe you’ll find you can handle all those political posts after all.

There.  That’s it.  FF is going back to posts about my half-assed farming and falling off ladders.  But please think about what I’ve said.  You don’t even have to agree.  Considering it will be a legitimate start.