The soul of America is missing and presumed dead.
I know that's not a very hopeful or positive statement. I know we're here to fight for a better America, to make our nation what a small band of colonial rebels dreamed of it being, but we need to face some very hard truths.
Today's America, centuries after its founding, has come to embody these ideals:
If you are not white, you are second-class under the law.
If you are not straight, you are second-class under the law.
If you are suspected of terrorism, you will be tortured for information in a military prison and tried in a secret court.
If you're an American, the above will happen, except you get to be in front of a federal judge instead of a military tribunal.
The majority of the American people support such practices, despite the fact that they violate our own Constitution and the Geneva Convention that we signed and swore to uphold as a nation.
The government wantonly spies on your phone calls, letters, and any other form of communication they can. All in the name of protecting you, of course.
The police are militarized to the point where even the smallest offenses merit full-on paramilitary gear, overly large and heavy use of force, and sometimes, summary execution.
The press is investigated for espionage and self-censors itself out of fear.
Those who expose government lies and deceit are hounded to the ends of the Earth.
We spend more money on prisons than education.
Trillions have been spent on a drug war that puts away far more nonviolent offenders than violent criminals who rob, rape, and murder.
Trillions more were spent on a war fought based on lies, while our government was and continues to commit many of the offenses we used as reasons to fight that war.
The global economy was wrecked by investment bankers who rigged the marketplace, cheated, stole, and lied to their clients, were bailed out by taxpayers who were victimized by those bankers, and none of them went to jail or were prosecuted for it, because they are "too big to fail."
We continuously cut social spending that improves the length and quality of people's lives while refusing to cut one dollar for a military stronger than the next five nations combined.
The top .01% of the nation owns over half of the nation's wealth, while millions starve on a daily basis.
The government is filled with regulators who came straight from the places they used to regulate, and we say that they are "experienced" instead of "saboteurs bent on wrecking the system."
We can't pass a budget each year without threats, shutdowns, and other such instability, ruining our credit rating and bringing us to the level of 1970s Italy.
A tiny minority of congressmen can hold the nation hostage by refusing to pay our bills unless we cave to their demands. Makes you wonder who the real terrorists are.
A major movie studio cancels a movie they spent tens of millions on because some anonymous computer hackers threatened violence against them. The theaters refuse to show the film. Cable companies refuse to buy it for pay per view. All because some 14-year-old North Korean hacker threatened to kill people.
There is so much more I could write. And I could bother to link pieces to back up everything I've listed here, but Google works the same for everyone. In fact, it's one of the few things that does work in America.
We are a plutocracy, living in fear, scared of our own shadows, thrown against each other by the mega-rich, lied to by our leaders, spied upon by our government, and treated as the squabbling children we've become. More people line up for a new iPhone than give to charity, or vote, or do anything of consequence beyond the narrow scope of their own lives.
We are selfish, greedy, and fighting over a smaller piece of the pie while the majority of it goes to the people who have pitted us against each other. We turn away from the crimes committed in our name, done for our supposed safety, because we're scared. We're scared because we were told to be scared, and we forgot the lessons of one of the last real leaders this nation has had, who told us the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Well, that man is likely turning in his grave right now, aghast that we let the fear win, that we let the rich win, that we stood by while people destroyed everything good and decent about America for their own profit, and that we idly let our government shred the Constitution because we were scared of crazy religious extremists who successfully attacked us ONCE. We let it happen.
Is this the America you want to live in?
Go find the missing soul. Go find what makes us great. Go out there every day and do something that changes someone's life for the better. Look beyond yourself at what is out there around you. Go vote, go volunteer, stop acquiescing and stop being divided by silly bullshit. Fight. Fight this monstrosity we've become. Fight against the injustices being levied upon your fellow man. Find something to do that makes things better, and make sure that those you do it for or with help spread that to others.
I don't want the soul of America to be dead. Do you?
Why America isn't the greatest country in the world anymore