I Don't Care

by Michael Z. Williamson
[email protected]
July 4, 2001

I can be your best friend.

Not because I care, but because I don't.

I don't care what church, if any, you go to. I don't care if you are Church
of God, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, Church of Christ
reformed, Church of Christ Scientist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints, Byzantine Catholic, Roman Catholic, Jewish Congregationalist, Hindu,
Shinto, Islamic, Buddhist, Greek Orthodox, Native American, Irish
Druidic,Scandinavian Druidhe, Pagan, Wiccan. Hell, I don't care if you
worship the Great Pumpkin. Or no deity at all. How you spend your Sundays,
Saturdays, Fridays, Tuesday evenings, full Moons, or eclipses is up to you.

I don't care if you have sex with men, women, both, or neither. If it's in
private, and they are freely consenting adults, it's your business. I may
not like it myself, but I don't care about you.

I don't care what brand of beer you drink or not, if you drink wine or not,
liquor or not. I don't care if you brew your own, grow your own or roll your
own. I don't care if you smoke dope, rope, or nightshade. It's your body,
poison it any way you wish. Just keep the residue in your own home, okay?

Vegetarian? Okay. Vegan? Great. Rare steak only, or raw rattlesnake? Cool.
Squid with the tentacles still wiggling? Suits me just fine.

Are you skinny? Fat? Ugly? Overdressed? Underdressed? Naked? Hey, it's your
life, do what you wish. If I don't like it, I won't watch.

I am a politician's worst nightmare. I can't be made to hate, I can't be
panicked by the strange, and I'll react ungraciously to attempts to inspire
me so. I vote on issues, not on smokescreens, and no Orwellian pigs in suits
need apply.

I'm not part of a vast conspiracy to put Candidate X into office--Candidate
X is an idiot, and so is Candidate Y. I voted for the Manchurian Candidate
myself, because I don't care. I don't belong to the Hate Group of the Month
Club on the Evening news, because I don't care. How can you possibly think I
have anything in common with them?

Oh, right. I own guns. So do they. I'll bet a bunch of them read Doctor
Seuss growing up, too, as did I. I don't see how that's relevant, either.

So that's it. Power scares you. And by not being a pawn, by being able to
think, and by daring to think differently from you, I scare you. Well,
relax, because I don't care.

Read the papers of the country, or for that matter, the world. You'll find
me right there defending the unpopular in letters to the editor, in marches,
in protests and sit-ins. I don't care so damned much that I'll go far out of
my way to prove it. When your oppressors refuse to believe I don't care, I'm
willing to reinforce the point, WITH FORCE.

(continued)

The only actions of yours I care about are those that actually affect me.
Try to rape my wife, and you die. Try to assault me, and you die. Touch my
children. Well, then you'll die slowly, as a lesson to others.

Try to take my guns away, or send someone else to do so. Well, then I care.
Keep in mind--they protect you, too. The people who DO care about silly
details of your life DO have guns, whether you call them extremists,
fanatics, cults, militias, or Federal Agents. It's easy to hate a name,
isn't it? I'd hate the names, too, if it would make any difference, but it
doesn't. Hateful people hide everywhere, and I don't care. Only when they
ACT on that hate do I become aroused. By acting on hate, they interfere with
my ability not to care. And that just ruins my whole day. Sometimes it takes
the threat of force to prove I don't care. That's why I have the guns.

Why would you want to take my guns away, knowing I don't care? I'm no
threat. I'm your best friend. I don't even care if THEY have guns. I don't
even care if YOU have a gun. I care even less if you don't like ME having a
gun.

So do me a favor and don't come to my door asking me to turn over my tools of
reason.

Because I don't care who interferes with my right to not care.

And neither do my guns.

Copyright 2001 by Michael Z. Williamson.
Permission is granted to copy in whole for non-profit purposes, provided due
credit is given. Please inform the author directly at
[email protected]
or through
http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com  
Mr. Williamson's online archive is found here:
http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com/Williamson

Oh yeah,
well
"I am a bad American"
and Cliff Yablonski hates you.

Divide and you shall conquer. Since we lost the Soviets as our main enemy, the in-fighting has been totally awful.
I enjoy an argument as much as the next fellow, but now it seems to me disagree & hate are the same thing.

This IS the dividing line.


This is the attitude of compromise.

Two things:

One, this essay perfectly exemplifies my position on things - until just a few years ago.

Two, most gun owners fit into the "I Don't Care" mold - until gun confiscation [i]directly impinges on [b]them[/b][/i] they won't "get involved".  

And that's why the other side is winning, one slow step at a time.

I think you guys aren't understanding the irony in his writing.

No, I understand it.  He marches, protests, and writes to the right people, and so do I.  

But the fact remains that most gun owners and non-gun owners don't do a damned thing.

And that's why we're losing.  That's why "compromise" means we give something up.

Good point, though.

I love the idea of "compromise".  Say I have a thousand dollars and you want all of it so we compromise and I give you five hundred. Then we compromise again.  No matter the compromise, I always lose.  It has been the same way with gun rights.  In a compromise we ALWAYS lose.

That version of "compromise" is called appeasement.

What about us Southern Baptists?

Interesting article.

Eddie