Stuff I Learned a Long Time Ago

So buttons huh? Yep, bigger, better buttons.  Buttons with horrifying consequences, buttons that could destroy the world, being available to men who apparently have the mentality of a surly fourth grader.  That's where we are, an implied Armageddon that starts with something like, "my Dad can beat up your Dad."
Let me start with my grumpy old man routine: I grew up in a world where there were real bullies, not just trolls on the interweb.  I have been punched in the face, and I have punched others in the face, I have experienced the raw, adrenaline stoked rage of being in a fight. I get it, violence seems like it will solve things, on some level I agree with this guy:

But I don't agree all the way, because I don't think using your fists makes you a man, but it's a lot better than shooting somebody. When I was a kid, there was that phase where boys on the playground would get into the arguments of the "my Dad can beat up your Dad," sort. I don't remember what the exact context of that was, but I do remember considering the scenario.  I don't think I ever got to the place where I actually worried about my Dad getting beat up.  First of all, I had seen my Dad do really strong stuff, like carry heavy things, dig holes really fast and split wood with an ax.  But before any of that, I understood that my Dad was a grown up of the sort who would almost never get into a fist fight. Other kids apparently didn't have that confidence in their Fathers. I don't remember how exactly this stuff went down, but I do remember knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my Dad wouldn't be getting into a fist fight with that other kids Dad, and that reality was certainly not a weakness.

That did not stop me from getting into fights myself, but it did shape my consciousness concerning violence, so that, as I grew up I at least wanted to fight less and less.  The last time I threw a punch in anger was in college, at a friend of mine who was drunk and disorderly, it was a bad punch, technically and philosophically.  I didn't really want to hurt him, but I was irritated enough with his drunken foolery that I did want to let him know that I wasn't messing around.  I regret that punch more than any other I have ever thrown, not because he didn't deserve it (he did), but because by that point I was fully aware that violence doesn't solve problems and I let my anger and reactivity get the better of me.

As I grew up my heroes were like MacGyver, who wouldn't use guns.  Doctor Who, whose weapon was his mind and a sonic screwdriver, and of course Captain Jean Luc Picard, who unlike a former Captain of the Enterprise very rarely had to monkey flip a giant space lizard, and who mostly had to think his way out of problems. In other words, they were men who could be trusted to handle things like grown-ups, like my Dad would. Ingenuity, intelligence and diplomacy are not boring, or weak, and they are things I would very much like to see our President exhibit rather than bragging about his button.