Manipulative Patriotism

I'm sure you've seen the man in the picture above by now. His mug has made the rounds on social media after his arrest for a parole violation and women seem to find him quite attractive, despite knowing his current residence is a Stockton California prison cell. He was originally convicted on weapons charges and other gang-related activity, but his angel-eyes have made women across the country let loose a collective, dreamy sigh. Then came the inevitable backlash. Never underestimate the male population's capacity for manipulation and jealousy when large segments of the female population find another man attractive. It's why men hate Justin Bieber (be honest), why they hated Hansen in the 90s, why they hate any good-looking male who receives too much attention from women, and they will do and say anything to tear them down.

This next image has gone viral as well.

Now I looked up what Jeremy Meeks is actually in prison for and this image isn't just misleading, it's a lie. He's in prison for violating his parole because he was in a car leaving a house that was scheduled to be raided by police. He did nothing wrong, this time, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had actually cleaned his life up prior to this latest arrest, and wasn't involved in sex trafficking of any kind. I'm not exactly sure where that accusation came from, but it's especially offensive to women so why not throw that in as well, right?

The comments wherever this image is posted are a mix of patriotism, outrage, and ignorance, as are the comments on most viral imagery. But one particular comment caught my attention.

"This is what's wrong with the world today...."

This is what's wrong with the world? This right here? Because women find a guy attractive, despite his criminal past? These two individuals are entirely different, would require entirely different searches, and I guarantee Fabio or Brad Pitt would come up before this marine as well. Every single actor, musician, entertainer, politician, and business executive would come up in a google search before this guy. Should we eschew all of them in favor of this marine? Should we all have a picture of this guy on our mantles? And when did Google Autofill become the authority on social relevance anyway?

The truth is, people are tired of the war. They don't want to hear about it anymore and wish it would end. It's been the longest conflict in the history of this nation and war weariness set in close to a decade ago. At this point, resentment is our main emotion, and for a lot of people, if you mention "the troops" and "the war" we roll our eyes and don't want to hear it. We don't agree with the reasons we're over there, and don't agree with what we're actually doing over there. THAT is what's wrong with the world today. The fact that we send young men to the other side of the planet to die for rich men's gold. Ogling some pretty boy jailbird is the least of our problems and people would rather look at angeleyes there than a guy that looks like hamburger because he was ordered to be a hero.

"The troops" and "our soldiers" are always used to guilt-trip us like WE sent them over there. If we don't support the war, and think our military is doing more harm than good there, we're not "supporting our troops", and we're treated like the people who spit on Vietnam vets upon their return. But unlike Vietnam where young men were drafted and forcibly sent to die in war, we now have an ALL volunteer military and they chose to be where they are. Yes, this marine's actions were heroic and something I might not have done, personally. But to use his sacrifice to guilt-trip people because they don't want to stare into the heart of darkness 24/7 is reprehensible.

It's not like we stopped paying attention either. We paid attention to the war daily for five to six years, two years longer than WWII, the Civil War, and our own Revolutionary war. It's now the 13th year of conflict and we're tired of hearing about and seeing our young people coming home as meat in plastic sacks. It's depressing and there's nothing we can do to stop it, so we look away from time to time.

But people like this image's creator want us to staple our eyelids open and gaze into the misery that 13 years of blasting human beings to pieces has caused. They want to USE this marine and his sacrifice to foreward their political agendas. But it isn't about the marine, is it? It's about jealousy. It took some time and motivation to create this image, mispelled as it is. So what was the motivation then? If they wanted to bring attention to the marine's sacrifice, they would've posted about the marine. Instead they USED him and his actions to tear down someone else because he was just too pretty and too many people were talking about him. That's what we call a "hater".

Thanks for Reading the Article. PLEASE UPVOTE!!!!