Done with work--with bonus commentary track!

So my sort-of family owns a chain of fireworks stores, Marvin's in southern Indiana/north-western Kentucky. Now that the fireworks season has come and gone I'm (hopefully) done working for them. The pay, I'll give you, is good, but the work is beyond frustrating. I almost have a moral problem with selling explosives to the inebriated and occasionally criminally stupid ("Hey, do I really need to put artillery shells in the tube?" "Uh, well, only if you want any control in what direction they shoot off in, and are fond of having hands...") but I figure it's your responsibility to use pseudo-weapons of war...well, responsibly. Bottom line is I should be updating more often now.

On a different note:

My mother once told me: "When I think of you and your sister, the thing that gives me the most pride is that you both turned out to be your own person, independent of me and your father and your grandparents and all. The greatest disappointment is that deep down, you're both damn Republicans."

I'm not really a Republican, I don't think. Certainly I'm not what we consider a Republican these days--I've grown up in Kentucky, sure, but my mother's a teacher and my father's bounced between factory worker and factory management for most of my life (which does give me some interesting views on labor unions). Deep down I WANT to be a Libertarian, but Libertarianism unfortunately rests on the assumption of equality of opportunity, something we've not quite reached (I also cannot accept the idea of "states' rights" in this day and age; the concept was a necessary evil when the US was formed, but these days we should realize that right and wrong are not bounded by which side of the Ohio you're on).

So I guess what I'm saying is, I'm working for equality of opportunity--in both a legal and a social sense--so that I can say without any misgivings that I believe in absolute personal responsibility, free markets (because only with equal opportunity can they really be free) etc. Dunno why I'm talking politics here, I guess I just feel like I sometimes don't come across clearly without a little information on where I'm coming from.