Too Much

Warning- This is a thesis-inspired post and for those of you who don't know, my thesis is pretty heavy stuff. So read at your own caution but you've been, well, cautioned. I promised a more uplifting, entertaining post is on its way!

I think I might have mentioned it before but for those who missed it: my thesis is some pretty heavy stuff. It's interesting and it's a subject I'm really passionate about but it's something best researched and written about in small doses. I, being a procrastinator, don't often get that luxury. To remind inquiring minds, my thesis is about the human rights abuses that occurred under the military dictatorships in Guatemala and Argentina where 200,000 people and 30,000 (approx.) were killed, respectively.

And I'll tell you, it is hard. Just a few minutes ago, I stumbled onto Illustrative Case 31. Don't Google it. If you want to sleep tonight, just refrain and take my word for it when I say, it recounts things that should never happen to anyone. I know that for some people in the US, life is no small potatoes. But for most of us, we live our day-to-day life so incredibly blessed. The thing is, I don't think we really always understand that. Lately, my Facebook news feed has been blown up by barbs against Obama, Romney, Paul, and everyone else running for President. People are scared of the government, people hate the government, people want it to be better. And that is a really great thing. It's great that we all know what we deserve and won't stop trying until we feel we get that. But despite who is President now or who wins the presidency this year, we can all rest assured that our government won't up and decide to kill 200,000. They won't approach us in languages we don't speak, holding a gun to our heads. They won't kill our children by the hundreds or burn our towns down. They won't desecrate absolutely everything important to us and I highly doubt they're out to unravel the fabric of our society.

I want to make it abundantly clear that this is in no way a political critique on the US or some sort of political statement for this country. I'm just saying that, at the end of the day, those things probably won't happen to us. And it's so alarming to me that things exactly like that happened so, so close to us. And most of us didn't even know. And it didn't end until well into our lifetimes.

I don't know how many people out there have read the Hunger Games but for those who have, I'm pretty sure I can say we were repulsed by that government. Appalled that a government could ever treat its children that way. Well, this is ten times worse. Partially because I think these people would have PREFERRED to send a child into an arena to fight to the death than what actually happened to them and partially because it's real. It's real life things happening to real life people and sometimes, it's too much.