I think so. I think that it is. Well, let me put a caveat there. Maybe it isn’t completely dead, but it is mostly dead. It is right on the verge of dying. And I think I have figured out what killed it. 9/11.
Some people would say “No, 9/11 didn’t kill us. 9/11 made us stronger. We have gathered together and are stronger now than ever.” I say bullshit. I say we are weak and pitiful and have no right to hold our heads high about being Americans. Remember right after 9/11 when people would ask “Will things ever be the same?” Now if you look around, on the surface, everything is the same. But no, that is wrong. Everything is changed. It has been changed for the worse, and our government is to blame.
The USA tortures people now. Or we send people to other countries to be tortured. THE USA! We were supposed to be the ones who were morally superior to everyone because we even treated our worst enemies with respect and dignity. Not now. Nope. National Security. We are holding hundreds of “enemy combatants” without trial. And new reports show that many of them have nothing to do with terrorism. But come on, we’re not even supposed to know about the details there. National Security. Now the government is spying on domestic phone calls. “Oh, you have nothing to worry about if you aren’t doing anything bad. Trust us.” But why should we trust them? They won’t show us the details on this program. National Security. The Patriot Act can allow the government to bypass our Civil Liberties. National Security. We are stuck in a war that keeps getting worse, pushing a country to the verge of civil war. But anyone who speaks against it is “un-patriotic”. And lets be honest, we really aren’t supposed to know anything about this war. National Security. And if the press has the gall to expose any of these secrets, well then they are helping the terrorists by exposing what the government is doing.
But we are in a time of war, so it’s all okay. It is a war, of course, that will never end. Or so says our Attorney General. So we’ll always have this stuff. Always. 1984, 22 years too late?
And the same people that are doing all of these things are using fear to stay in power. They tell us that the bad guys are always out there, ready to attack at any minute. And if we let any of those God-dammed hippy Democrats get in charge, we’ll be dead in a few days. So they keep us scared so we don’t care that our liberties are gone. So while we’re terrified we’re going to die on the way to the post office, they take away even more rights, completely unrelated to terrorism. No, no abortions for you. No, gay man, you cannot get married. There is even a bill in Missouri now that would make Christianity the official religion of the State. Oh, and lets give lots of money to rich businesses. Why don’t we sell our ports to foreign countries? Why don’t we give more money to Texas than New York to protect itself? Why don’t we cut taxes while running up a huge debt that will be saddled on future generations, and hope that foreign countries don’t decide to stop investing in us.
So if all of this bad stuff is happening, why don’t we just get rid of the people in charge? As I mentioned above – fear. The suburbinites in their SUVs with their perfectly manicured lawns don’t want to be hurt. They don’t think that the government would ever do anything bad to them, but those Jesus hating Eh-rabs will if George W. doesn’t get his way. They are so scared and so stupid that they will give up anything for a false sense of security. And that’s right, it is false. Because it isn’t like the government can actually stop anything even with these new tools. “Bin Laden determined to attack within US”. They had that before 9/11. They even had tapped phone calls before 9/11 saying that the attacks were going to happen – that didn’t get translated until days later. They had the information, but they didn’t use it. So now they have a lot more information, and a lot more bad information, so how the FUCK am I supposed to believe that they are going to be able to stop anything? Hell, a terrorist could put a nuke in a shipping container and have a NINETY FIVE FUCKING PERCENT CHANCE that it won’t be searched.
So yeah, lets keep turning over our freedoms. Maybe the government will come in the night and take me for this post, because I am “unpatriotic” and a “potential terrorist”. You know, by speaking out against the country, I am probably aiding the enemy.
I know that we all know the National Anthem, right? Right? You hear it before all of your football games. It is right before the prayer at NASCAR. But does anyone listen to the words? What about the line “the land of the free and the home of the brave”? Do people remember what that means? That means that because we are free, we have to be brave. Our freedom makes us vulnerable. We must stand up and say “I’m willing to risk everything, absolutely everything, in order to live a free life.” We have to be willing to die because of the values that this country was built on. We must not give up our freedom for security. Even you, soccer mom in your SUV.
Or maybe we could just change the words to “the land of the apathetic and the home of the pussies”…