Bad Liberal Day

One weekend a year I feel compelled to turn in my Liberal card so I can trail my kids all over town to bask in the power and glory of the military.

This is the weekend. Blue Angels screaming over our house cause the kids, dog and I to do the supersonic dance.

I know each F/A-18 Hornet costs over $41 million dollars, which means the funds paid to build those 7 blue and yellow jets could alone support the education and family support programs my pinko-liberal soul longs for ($278 million dollars, in case you were struggling with the math). Add in the monies needed to pay for the staff, supplies, fuel and marketing and I've got me the funding for a attachment parenting campaign that would reach every prospective parent in the country.

I know they are precision killing machines, designed for both ground and aerial attacks.  They support wars and other military action that under most uses go against everything I stand for in my personal life.

It would be convenient to blame my primal enjoyment of the mind-boggling speed and ear-shattering blast of the engines to the converge of my teenage hormones and the release of the 1986 movie Top Gun. Unfortunately for my liberal credentials, my addiction results from a pre-pubescent exposures  to the Blue Angels at air shows hosted by my uncle in Sheridan, Wyoming.  

The speed and the power appeal to me on a very basic level. They make me want to laugh and cry and scream and dance and jump up and down all at once.  So, for just this one weekend every year, I turn in my doing-the-right-thing card and scream along.

p.s.  One weekend a year I also seem to have minor crisis over the identity conflict the air show causes for me.  I wrote a similar post last year, except that time I remembered my camera.