Arguing With Myself. The Uniformed Mind.

I have always argued with myself.  My best friend will attest to this.  Im fully aware Im nuts.  That is not what Im going to discuss though, because that is a given, its a constant, like gravity.

Ive recently noticed something about myself and my uniformed brothers and sisters of all races and creeds. We have two minds.  I think most of us will all agree we became EMTs, medics, firefighters, and cops for the same reason, we wanted to help people.  We all were almost hypersensitive to suffering and injustice.  We saw the suffering and injustice and thought "hey, Im going to do something about it!"  In many ways, when we started out, we were "liberals."  

FYI: This is not a conservative vs. liberal post per se, nor am I saying one is better than the other.  Im just noticing a difference in our thought patterns.

As time goes on and we see more and more depraved acts of humanity, laziness and greed, we start to wonder why we are doing this.  People that once believed in and helping the "underdog"  are now saying "let em figure it out on their own." " Let em down."  "Why is my paycheck going towards helping these shitheads?"  The thing is, I notice these things being said while we are in uniform or just status post duty.  I have noticed when we are in civilian garb, maybe at bar, a friend's house, the coffee shop, we are shocked at the things done to the "underdog." "Its not right!" we say.   We want the best for our fellow humans.  We believe racism, greed, and all the bad things that accompany them exist and should be stopped.  However, when we throw on our blues(or whatever color your uniform is) we sound just like republicans.  We hate, we stereotype, we believe the only good people left are the X amount of people currently on duty.

Im sure there is a balance between the two worlds.  It may never be found though.  I feel we live like Spiderman/Peter Parker, who was always in constant turmoil because of his two lives.  Until we find that balance, I leave you with this.  This is for all my brothers and sisters in uniform.  It something Nick(my best friend) showed me a long time ago, and often provides me with inspiration good or bad on days when I dread going to work.  http://youtu.be/OAvmLDkAgAM