Final thoughts

A (not so) quick thought.

If your opinion is that veterans deserve to be treated with respect and compassion, especially when seeking medical and other assistance with the VA, and you discover this may not be the case with the VA currently, how would you choose to express your viewpoint to the masses?

Would you focus on the veterans, finding someone to talk to about what they want and what they have actually experienced at the VA vs. other places they have chosen to seek help? Would you point out the possible structural issues with the VA and suggest what could be done to fix something that is helping many people, but is not functioning as effectively and humanely as it could be?

Or would you find a group of people you personally do not like to be the scapegoat, blaming them for some veterans still not getting the help they need and being divisive instead of seeking to identify and solve the underlying issue? Would you show an obviously disheartening photograph of a veteran lying on the floor with no one helping him and viscerally call out the "sickening staff" who worked there? Would you begin discussing the benefit of abolishing the VA so veterans (like the one in the photograph you showed earlier) decide on their own where to get help? Would you focus on the politics of the liberal left vs. veterans/America? Well, Tomi Lahren did.

Maybe I am disheartened because I do agree with her on some issues, but our perspectives are so misaligned that any claims she makes after she states her initial point of view do not make sense to me. The agreement stops after she explains why she thinks the way she does. This is because she spends her time doing three things: timely dialing in on a hot-button issue, placing blame on an individual or group rather than finding compromise or solving problems, and creating division (based on ignorance or fear) between politicians vs. citizens, America vs. immigrants, the left vs. the right, and even Trump vs. the world.

I do my best to understand how her environment has shaped her, what her personal situation is, and how it affects her thought process. Sadly, she disappoints me every single time in the end. Her emphasis on division while explicitly calling for unity is something I also have trouble wrapping my head around, because while I believe people should be judged on their actions, statements and promises they make play a huge role in that. If they don't align, is what you are doing truly benefitting anyone but yourself? Does it matter that her rhetoric is having a detrimental effect on our society today? I think it does. She should continue her videos, sharing her opinion and letting her voice be heard. But if ethics, morals, unity, peace, trust, compassion, or cooperation mean anything to her, maybe she could try just a little bit harder to critically think about a situation before almost self-imploding in a fireball of anger and disdain for about three minutes a day. Sometimes she does have something good to say about issues that need to be discussed, but by not even attempting to understand the other side of the story, the entire point is moot. When the assumption she bases her entire video off of is actually a faulty assumption, there is no way to get to the core of the issue and find a solution. I just wish she either knew that, or cared.

And those are my final thoughts.