America: Love it or Leave it

I have been thinking the last few days about my connection to America and what it means to me. In the past my connection to America has been much like that of a boy who doesn't want to acknowledge the similarities he has to his father. It is easy to walk around and feel patriotic without acknowledging the reality of America. It is easy to look at our American Heroes without realizing their faults, some heroes were conquerors, some were slave traders, and some were just men doing what was acceptable at the time but torn between loyalties. Our forefathers were smart guys who knew that this was a country for the poor and downtrodden and the lazy bastards that no one else really wanted and they saw that things were changing around them even as they drafted the documents that would act as a frame for our country. This is why the constitution is a living breathing document that is meant to be changed with the times. I personally think that portraying our heroes with some tarnish on them makes them that much more real and makes their accomplishments that much more impressive. But to this day we feel like we need to protect our children so we give them a partial education consisting of a pantheon of American gods and these same people grow up into adults who don't want the truth because it gets in the way of their day off.

We tell them that Columbus discovered the new world, not that any educated person at that point knew the world was round, that many many other people had discovered it before him, that he wasn't in the ship that originally discovered the main land, that he enslaved Native Americans and would cut off their hands if they did not fulfill their quota of gold, and that he was a discoverer and not a conqueror. But dad-gum he discovered America, hundreds of years after a laundry list of other travelers and Natives. We show our children the accomplishment that is Mt. Rushmore but don't tell them of how it is an unforgivable desecration of the Black Hills a holy area to some Native Americans that is comparable to the crucifix for Catholics.

". . . My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags -- that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it."
Mark Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The "Love or Leave it" philosophy of America is exactly what keeps us from ever truly having a free country. What the essence of this phrase means is that if you see that something is broken you have two options 1: Shut up and deal 2: Take off and forget about it. They want us to go to Canada so that they end of with a country of ignorant/silent people who don't speak up for what they believe in. I have no problem with love of country but when it comes without the knowledge of the accomplishments and subsequent failings of those who came before you. We don't need historical supermen, the inspirational impact of real men's accomplishments is much more effective.

So back to me, Nathan. I am sick and tired of feeling like a second class citizen in my own country because I feel that a woman should have the right to choose. Because I feel that two dudes kissing is not reason enough to alter the US constitution and limit the freedoms of all Americans. Because I feel that no one other than law enforcement needs to have a handgun... The right to carry arms is to stand up against tyranny and don't think the King of England is going to invade any time soon. Because I feel that Education should be held above the Military (we spend 86% more than China, the second most spendinist military nation in the world). And because I think America should be the world leader in real Freedom and Equality and that we shouldn't limit anyone's freedoms be they black, Jew, gay, handicapped, a smurf, or fucking whatever. We need to get over our petty religious bigotrys and start living up to the promise that our nation truly has.

I am as patriotic as anyone who pickets an abortion clinic or the funeral of a homosexual. I am as patriotic as anyone who feels they are protecting the "sanctity" of Marriage. I can support my troops without supporting a war whose purpose keeps changing to fit the needs of the administration. I am just as patriotic as anyone who says they support their President but doesn't think about the world wide consequences of what he does, how he is limiting scientific progress, and how he uses an unjust war to stay in office, increase the wealth of himself and his friends, and keep a nation in fear just so that he can push forward whatever agenda he feels like. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost but we are a country who doesn't feel the pain of this war because of the racism and the distance that it lets us feel because two planes flew into two very tall, very important buildings 3 years ago and killed our families and friends and forced us to look at the world in the same way that everyone else who has been attacked at home does.

To be continued...

As always, I hate everyone... Except you.