It sometimes seems there is no end to the sea of lies, superstition and stupidity in which America floats and one of those times is now, when John Boehner can smugly announce to Wolf Blitzer this evening that any price to pay in Iraq is worth it if we stop al Qaeda there and because al Qaeda is the main enemy we are facing there. Do we have a future if someone like Blitzer can pass over this without saying "wait a minute - how stupid do you think the American people are?"
Do we have a future if the CNN switchboard isn't jammed with violently furious citizens sick to death of the lying and the corruption and the rule of morons? Is it worth pointing out that stopping a world wide operation by killing some of them in Iraq is meaningless?
Probably not. America is a country where power is always given to the stupidest, the most dishonest and the best able to lie with a straight face. We're the country that won't vote for someone perceived as smarter than us and dreams about some bumbling rube of a hero born in a log cabin with a vocabulary of slogans about honor. America is a place, where according to Jack Cafferty this evening, the majority think the Constitution establishes Christianity as a state religion and that the founding fathers sought to establish a Christian nation. It's a place where a substantial number believe that religious freedom applies only to Christians and that the Bible should be used as a standard history reference in the public schools.
Does this country retain a shred of the intelligence, education and indeed, the sanity to make a republic possible or will we be looking at our iPods and grumbling about toys and Britney's belly in a state of oblivion as we fade into history? Is it acceptable that a quarter of us didn't read a single book last year and the most literate perhaps read 4 romance novels or new-age self improvement crap?
Go ahead and call me an America basher - an America hater or anything you like, but if I had a brain in my head I would have abandoned this vast national celebration of ignorance a long time ago. It's only because I love what this country is supposed to be that I hate what it has become and I hate the people who have made it as it is and if I knew a word more hateful than hate I would use it.
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"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine."
-- George Washington
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Sadly, you are exactly right. I too love not America, but what America is supposed to be. Do I believe it will ever again enjoy the respect, admiration and support of the world? No, but that is not all America's fault. The world is changing, becoming smaller and most important, the resources are becoming more scarce.
Perhaps well beyond our lifetimes, after the US has destroyed others and crumbled itself, it may emerge once again. I won't be around to see it. I will stay and live and die in Asia, and watch from, what I hope remains, a safe distance.
I'm not leaving just yet, but my bags are packed
iPods are ancient. If anything everyone will be looking at their iPhones. Like me.
You summed up the state of affairs in the country precisely...
A country of self-interested slogan lovers who have no idea what any of the words they spew means...
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