Smells Like Teen Statism

You’re asking what I’ve lived through? Cute. I grew up in Korea, which you call “South Korea” because you’ve never left your mom’s basement in Cleveland, but should’ve learned by the fifth grade. It is a country with a hostile regime 30 miles north that can hit my hometown with artillery. Not symbolic range. Real range. That’s the distance between Dallas and Fort Worth. I have been aware of this and fearful of it since I was conscious. Did you live in fear of Vancouver or Toronto hitting you with a maple syrup bomb? I could drive to the artillery pointed at my city in under thirty minutes. My grandparents lived through the Korean War. Cities flattened. Families split permanently. I am free today because the American military intervened. My father and grandfather are veterans. I support American veteran charities, and there’s a reason it’s one of the few words in my bio. I do not take that lightly. If they had not, my family would be living under a regime that enslaves its own people. The people north of that border are genetically identical to me. Same ancestry. On average, they are shorter and lighter because a dictatorship rationed calories and crushed an entire population for generations. That is not rhetoric. That is measurable. I am an American, and I love Americans. I am deeply grateful to this country. But do not confuse gratitude with ignorance. You read about communism in a classroom. I grew up within artillery range of it. If you have never lived with that proximity to tyranny, do not lecture me about what it feels like. Respectfully, shut your ignorant mouth.