796. On Assange

I'm glad he's been cut off. I remember once when I was six or seven (so this was fifty years ago) laying in the backyard by my grandfather's workshop staring up at the sky. I noticed something very small fly over. In time it flew over again, maybe an hour later, in the same pattern. Curious, I spoke to my grandfather about it. He told me it was the government and if I had done nothing wrong I had nothing to worry about. I still remember that conversation.

I've always known the government was up to something ever since that day fifty years ago. The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against was already in place on that day five years later and was probably in place when Ike gave his warning. I also learned that day not to fear my government if I have done nothing wrong. So far, that belief has worked. You may call it naivete; I call reality. The government does things I'll never know about for reasons I'll never understand. It doesn't matter which party is in power. So I choose my politics on which party I believe does the best for the most and I accept that whichever choice I make will never be the best choice which can be made. And I accepted a long time ago that given we have many people making these choices, all with our own perception of what is good and evil and right and wrong - this year about 110,000,000 will be doing so all with their own personal agendas.

None of us are completely right or wrong. Nor will we ever be. I'm content with that.

Here's the closing paragraph of a poem I learned when I was 8 years old by James Whitcomb Riley:

"My doctern is to lay aside

Contensions, and be satisfied:

Jest do your best, and praise er blame

That follers that, counts jest the same.

I've allus noticed grate success

Is mixed with troubles, more er less,

And it's the man who does the best

That gits more kicks than all the rest."