I understand, and you have my sympathy. ;)

I can handle them when they are deeply cooked into something, like a spaghetti sauce for instance. But gloppy onions on a burger is a non-starter, and raw onions on anything is truly offensive. Just fart really big at the dinner table.

You love onions so much, and I hate onions so much, that there has to be a difference in how they taste to us, how we perceive them. We know that there are genetic components to how people react to cilantro, asparagus, beans, and other foods, and maybe we are wired differently to taste them differently. After all, how can you truly compare tastes between individuals with scientific certainty?

I have a friend who feel this way about Cucumbers. Most people would say that cukes are low on the taste scale, down there with lettuce and celery. It's not that they have no taste, but it is very mild and subtle. But not to my friend. He claims they have the most powerful taste of any vegetable (exactly what I say about onions), and even if they've been picked out of a salad, he can taste nothing but the cukes (again, me and onions).

He doesn't understand how anyone could like the taste of cucumbers, and I'm the exact same way with onions, but neither one of us can understand how the other feels. There must be something genetic that keeps us from perceiving these foods in the same way that others do.

Oh, and to stir the pot further, I nearly equally despise green peppers, but absolutely love yellow, orange, red, and every sort of hot pepper. Only green peppers are forbidden, for all the same reasons as onions. They're just unripened bitter peppers. Who's eating unripe apples or oranges? So why peppers? Let them ripen, and they'll be delicious.

Plenty of leaders have been killed by their own. Ask Sadat and Indira Gandhi.

Besides, none of those countries' citizens grew up being fed a steady diet of Freedom Propaganda. Most of those countries have always been repressive, so they don't know any better. From the time we can talk, we are fed a steady diet of American Founding Mythology, with HEAVY emphasis on Freedom and Liberty. Even the story of one of our most enduring indelible stains, Slavery, is ALL about the right to Freedom.

Other countries need other countries to save them, because they generally don't value freedom enough to take it for themselves. But Liberty is baked into the American DNA, and we will not let it go. I suspect a lot of MAGA followers are going to get a new attitude when the MAGA Nazis flip the switch, and just being a MAGA supporter won't save you. All they ever required was your vote, and if they no longer have elections, then your one and only value to them just disappeared.