John Byron Belville’s Tall Tales Told: Idiots & War (Both Good For Absolutely Nothin’)

You will notice there is no rhyme nor reason in placement of these tales. They are just remembrances that I have experienced in my life that my one love, Jackie Sue Belville, told me I should write down for posterity. That, of course, would mean you. So here goes. A trip into the exciting life of ol’ Johnny B.

One thing is for sure, if you live to be my age, you gain some wisdom.  For instance, I’ve learned it does no good to argue with an idiot.  Oh, I don’t mean a literal idiot, I mean someone who just cannot be reasoned with.  Since my birth, there has been an invention called the Internet and on that contraption is a thing called Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, etc.  On these Social Media, there are – well, idiots.  These are people that when you show them the facts, they divert and divest themselves from the discussion by calling you names and trying to bring your attention to something that has nothing to do with what’s being discussed.  These people are what I call idiots and for a better name, let’s just call them Social Media Idiots.

In my lifetime, I’ve had a multitude of discussions with these people and none of those discussions came to anything.  No minds were changed, no emotions were enhanced, in fact, nothing worthwhile happened at all except the tearing of hair and the gnashing of teeth.

I’ve come to the decision to lay back on debating idiots from now on.  I’ll Facebook, but I won’t argue.  There…I’ve said it.  Can I abide by it?  Probably not.

In the 60’s I protested.  I wasn’t for the Vietnam War, so some of us got together at Idaho State and protested on campus.  We occupied the Administration Building with a sit-in much to the dismay of the mucky-mucks that ran the university.  The sit-in lasted two days and two nights before Johnny Law was called to breakup this ‘peaceful’ demonstration and to make sure none of us was harmed by falling words.  As a protest, it wasn’t much, but later that same week we marched … legally…down Main Street in Pocatello, Idaho.  That protest was much more dramatic.  We had signs depicting the slaughter happening in Nam and we had some of the Drama Students at the university build us a coffin with a withered arm dangling out of it and the caption on the crypt read, “Twenty Thousand and Counting,” meaning at that time twenty thousand American lives had been lost in Vietnam.

Our protesting, plus the protesting of thousands of other university students, I would like to think, changed the course of the war.  However, it still went on for an additional 5 years until we finally called it quits.

I am proud to have been a cog in the machinery that brought that stupid war to an end.  I am only sorry that so many of my young friends had to die before it did.

Above I mentioned war.  In case you don’t know it, I am a Populist [A Liberal] in my political leaning.  War is an antithesis to everything I personally believe in.  I understand the necessities of wars, but that doesn’t mean I like them in any way.  I feel just the opposite: I hate war.  Now, having said that, I also believe the United States is a war-loving country.  We say we hate war,  but we have not been clear of war for decades.  Somehow we find ourselves in wars we have no business engaging in and our soldiers die for, in my estimation, no reason at all.  Truth be told, most of the countries we are doing war in, don’t like us and don’t want us there at all.  Yet, there we are, fighting and dying for a concept the people don’t understand and don’t believe in themselves.  So, why do we do it?  My theory is we are so powerful, we are the Super Heroes of the world and have to strut our stuff to prove it constantly, and the best way to do that is to engage on killing others “legally.”  I’m not so sure God likes us killing others in the name of bringing democracy to the ‘unwashed’ out there.  Somehow killing his creatures when we don’t have to grates on His nerves, I think.  Then to say we are doing His will?  Now, that’s a blasphemy of the highest order.  No, I don’t think God enjoys our efforts…our National Narcissism, when it comes to war.