ratbastid

It's been a while, to be honest. The country I live in isn't the America I love. Something really important and sacred about America got lost, over the last few years. The country I live in is terrorized by its leadership, cowed into relinquishing the rights that our forebears spilled blood to secure for us. And we don't even care--we're in such a television-daze we don't even notice. Thomas Payne would have noticed, but not us. We're interested in when the new season of our favorite shows will start, not about the illegal surveillance of our communications. Mostly we don't even notice, and if we did notice I doubt we'd care.

Nobody rose up when George Bush led this country to hell. Oh, some people marched, but vastly more stayed on their couches. They were reassured that we were hitting back at the people who hit us, and that they were scary dudes, and that was good enough for us. We knew better, or some of us did. But nobody rose up, looked our leaders in the eye, and said, "No." George Washington would have done that. He DID do that. I didn't do that, and neither did anybody else. Closest we have today is Cindy Sheehan, who's mostly just a joke.

The America I love is expressed and sourced in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Those precious, sacred documents are defiled by the PATRIOT act and Guantanamo and the torture of terror suspects and TSA airport security-theater. And nobody seems to give a damn beyond the opportunity for political posturing.

So, yeah, you know what? It's been a while since I've felt proud enough of my country to write something I like about it. Are you going to tell me I'm un-American for that? Are you really going to say that? Are you going to say I don't put "Country First", precisely because I exercise my uniquely American right to dissent? Because I'm MAD about all this. And I'm ready to fight for what my country is REALLY about.