Lick them, I dare ya!

 

America has an aggression problem.  This isn’t going anywhere near what you think…

 

One of the curiosities I see is that our culture often sees itself as the holder of something others want to take by force.  We see outsiders as aggressors.  I suppose it is understandable since we took our nation by force from the outside so maybe this is a cultural collective guilt?  Carl Jung would be proud. So would the Borg.

 

There likely are but I cannot think of a single alien visitation movie where the aliens are not portrayed as hostile.  They swoop in either in typical saucers with glass bubbles for round alien heads to look out of or swoop in like Independence Day, 1 and 2 in order to “harvest” us or our planet.

 

Even if you look at the War of the Worlds movie interpretation that they were already here, they are again harvesting and eating us.  Making red poo too, just so ya know …

 

I was asked by a friend when discussing gun laws, “If we enacted gun laws and our guns were taken away, how long do you think it would be before the government oppresses us and tries to take us over?”  Really, the answer to anyone’s action is aggression?  Or it is that we are aggressive and assume all others are too?

 

We have landed on the moon.  In spite of Kim Jong-un’s claim, the US is the only nation to land men on the moon. Russia has sent a probe or two the moon. The US has landed or crashed probes on Mars. Russia has landed probes on Venus.  [bet ya didn’t know that, good job American press].

 

We have done probe fly bys on almost every planet and dwarf planet in our solar system.  The Russians have done many as well.  The Chinese are gearing up to.  Yet not one of them has attacked!

 

We have been the alien far more often than we have been visited by aliens.  [That would be many times to none for those keeping score at home] yet we have not attacked or harvested or even gone armed for confrontation!  Much less spewed red poo …

 

So why do we assume that visitors would be aggressive if they came here?

 

Fear is a basic human emotion. We assume and imagine the worst so that we can be better prepared for it.  We rarely go into a dark alley and plan to run into a bear and offer it a picnic basket.  Instead we plan to spray mace or lead or a golf club or a purse at anything that moves in the dark, in-spite of the dark never having attacked us previously

 

Now I wont knock people for being prepared for risk.  But I do think it is silly to spend so much time preparing for something that almost never happens.  It is akin to walking around in hip waders waiting for a flood to happen.  So why do we think we will be attacked if Mars were to visit?

 

I think it is two fold.  The US, likely among other nations but I live here so this is the only nation I will claim to be an expert on, tends to go to aggression for a great many things.  The number of times I have heard someone say “I’ll kill you” in my life has to be in the many thousands.

 

Road rage is so interesting to me.  For usually such a minor act, such as merging when ya don’t want them to, we decide that driving like an idiot and possibly killing ourselves is the clear and obvious answer.

 

Look at European Futbol matches and how many police it takes to manage some of them.  [yes I know that is not American.] Or how often a championship parade becomes a riot!  How is that rational?

 

We often think that violence will solve an issue.  It almost never does.  In fact it usually makes many, many more issues.

 

Being who I am and what I do, I think there is another issue.  I think America has an ego problem.  A weak one.   A weak ego does not do well when confronted with challenges.  A weak ego becomes more aggressive or fearing when challenged.  Think of it this way, a weak ego is what terrorists hope for.  A strong ego wont be scared by such small threats.

 

When we seem to always assume those coming to us from outer space, cause this happens often,  are coming in guns blazing we imagine them that way so we can feel justified in blazing our own guns first.  If we make the visitor out to be a menace we can justify killing them, right?

 

We see others as we need to see them to justify the our fears and not feel a fool.  If a confident person walks down a dark street in the bad part of town at night, odds are no one will care or notice.  If you walk assuming threat, you take a defensive stance like a cat with its fur standing up.  You invite confrontation.

 

From the outside we are zero threat to anyone coming here.  The biggest risk we could be is germs.  Yes, if aliens visit and you are scared and feel the need to kill them all before you welcome them, lick them.  I dare ya….

 

We sent Voyager 1 to the universe.  OK, really the Galaxy.  It wont leave our Galaxy, ever.  But really, we sent it out there!  It is armed with music and pretty symbols and gold!  Even a nice road map to help the return mail come back to us.

 

So even us, the insecure us did not send out a probe with weapons and germs … so why do we always seem to think that others are coming here to harvest us?  I’m betting on a galactic scale, were not that tasty.

 

In the mean time, before we are visited by an alien life form, which is incredibly not likely sorry tin foil hat brigade, maybe we need to work on our egos a little so we don’t kill the mail man delivering our return voyager record…

Irony

This is a bout a man named Blind Willie Johnson. He was a Rhythm and Blues and Gospel musician. I’m very not a Rhythm and Blues and Gospel guy but I am an irony guy, in a wrinkled shirt at the moment.

Blind Willie was poor all of his life, but we wasn’t blind all of his life. The story goes that he was blinded at age 7 by his step mother. His step mother, apparently, was caught by Willies dad on a date with another man and in retaliation she blinded his son Willie, with Lye.

He married twice at least, became a preacher and lived in Texas but was best known for his music. He died in absolute poverty living in the remnants of his house that had burned down that he could not afford to fix. He died from living in that house he could not afford to fix.

Here is the irony. His song, “Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground” was selected as one of the compositions included on the Voyager Golden Record. This record is on the Voyager space craft that left the solar system and possibly make alien contact one day.

He lived blind and poor and died alone in his burned out home. And his composition was selected along with Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky and Chuck Berry as well as others, to represent mankind. I only wish the album came with his back story.