Baby, Baby Let Me Sleep On It

Ever get one of those emails that the person wants you to forward on and you might if it didn't imply that if you don't send it on that you're not a good person or a good christian or a good American or a good whatever?

Sometimes for good measure the person who sent it to you wants you to not only send it on, but to send it back to them?

I hate those.

During the first part of the email they might claim or imply that they respect people with opposing views, but then the wording can change slightly to imply that their view is the only "right" view (or at least the one expressed in the email).

Years ago I sent a message to a person I love very much (and by the way, in case someone is wondering... I personally believe in God, The Holy Spirit, & Jesus AND I not only say the pledge of allegiance regularly at Toastmasters, I occasionally lead the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner - I'm told I have a good voice) asking her to not send me emails like that. Guess what. She still loves me and I even pray for her sometimes. I assume she prays for me, too.

But, in my request I did not imply once that if she did not do as I say that meant she didn't love me. I simply asked her to (send it on, oops, I mean) stop sending messages with those "catches" in it to me. I have never doubted that she loves me - ever. And she sometimes does some things that I really, really disagree with. I have also never doubted that she loves God or the U.S.A. or our troops.

Who decides what the standard is for loving our troops enough? I mean, maybe you don't love the troops enough if you didn't marry one? (I mean, for goodness sake, there are lots of troops to choose from!) Do you not love the troops enough if you vote for the person who didn't serve in the military? What about if you voted for the person who candid people admit sort of half-assed it through school and the military over the one who actually saw action and got a purple heart? Does THAT mean you love the troops less?

What if you vote for the person who helped a weapon system get built over the one who wanted that weapons system killed? What if that weapons system malfunctioned badly and killed our troups in larger numbers than otherwise would have happened with a more effectively designed system?

I don't know how far back problems with U.S. military weapons go, but even Abraham Lincoln said,

"I can make more generals, but horses cost money."

We can get a chuckle out of it, but what does that type of thinking say about the care we take with equipment versus human beings?

Maybe if we defined "love the troops" to mean something DIFFERENT than agreeing with one side of a political debate we would be able to treat each other with more respect and dignity and yes, love.

Now, there is also the last part of the email that really bothers me. Maybe the person who sent it on to me doesn't think about all these issues, but I do. Maybe he doesn't consider them "issues" and we're just supposed to "follow orders" and send it on. Or maybe we have the "choice" to not follow this order, but we all "know what it means" if we don't submit to this "request".

So, let me think about this a (very) little - if I choose NOT to submit to your surveillance of my assigned task - does that mean that I don't love the troops? You see, by asking me to send this back to you in addition to sending the message on, that's what you are doing. Surveilling me. And it's a real word even if spell-check isn't smart enough to understand that.

I want to believe that this person simply didn't think through the implications of what was contained in this email. I certainly hope so. Like the woman I referred to earlier, I pray for this man sometimes. I'm not perfect, so I didn't say "all" the time.

Now the question is - will he still love me (and by love I mean the old-fashioned "Love thy neighbor" kind of love) if I don't send it on? I hope so.

Why the title of this post? Well, I started out thinking I would be clever and borrow a line from Meatloaf's Paradise By The Dashboard Light because I might say something I might still believe but regret (a little) in the morning like Tom Cruise's protagonist in Jerry Maguire, but only the morning will tell me if I should have slept on it.

Instead I guess I just decided to go for it.

Now I'm wondering if those who agree with me will think I wimped out by not going far enough.

Oh well.