Since my diary of a few days ago, wherein I hammered home the point that I really hate this country sometimes (which is totally true, but I'm not actually planning on moving to another one, for various reasons), I've been thinking that I may have bit off more than I could chew. I was tired and angry when I wrote it and, truth be told, I don't get all that angry anymore.
Don't all stare at me at once now. I swear to God, I am not even making this up.
That kind of seething rage and passionate anger, the specific kind that I am known for on this website, is not really me anymore. I'm a pretty happy person today, and I am very lucky and blessed, and I would probably annoy the fucking lot of you, if you were ever to meet me in person, with the hippy-dippy shit I utter on a daily basis to my friends, family, and co-workers.
This probably garners less web hits and shit, but I don't really care.
So, without further ado:
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY COUNTRY!
December 25, 2013
by Shiz
1. No matter what shit I profess to know about the United States, we have always been the land of the free and the home of the brave.
2. The rabble rousers the US has had simply immortalize the term "rabble rouser". These people are courageous beyond belief! Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Daniel Ellsberg, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Edward Snowden, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Harvey Milk, Dan Choi, Scott Woooledge, Chelsea Manning, Chaz Bono, Dan Savage, etc. etc. etc. I could go on for days.
3. The individualism that America exceptionalizes is phenomenal. While we celebrate things like sensationalism and media and craptastic Hollywood skills, we also celebrate general do-goody people who help out the poor, the sick, and the needy. I could give you names here, but they probably won't mean crap to you because they're all local. These people are true heroes: they help their communities to become better places to live, and they don't want any kind of PR for their efforts.
4. I can say all sorts of shit about how our government is a steaming pile of horse manure (and it is, and I will continue to complain about it until the stench goes away) to people I meet at work, or at home, or out in a restaurant somehwere, and not get arrested for my views. I like that a whole lot, because I am an extremely opinionated bitch and I don't plan on curtailing my bitchiness anytime soon.
5. I can tell a person like Phil Robertson to go to hell, and not be stoned to death because I told a man to go suck it. I also do not have to cover my head in public, defer to males in general, or not get an education, simply because I am a woman.
(We can talk about the lack of equal pay women still have compared to what men receive in terms of financial compensation in the US later, when I'm not being all grateful for getting a monthly period, bearing children, and being the fairer, "passive" sex, being allowed to live, and all that stuff.)
(If you can detect and allocate my sarcasm to a specific sentence, then I give you #6: America! Where sarcasm found a home! The Onion! )
7. Complain all you want, but in the United States of America, we have a few unwritten, unverbalized traditions. And everyone is supposed to know them, understand them, and respect them. These traditions are as follows (in no particular order:
* Telephone hours are from 8am - 10 pm. Anything outside these hours either designates a booty call or an asshole who simply refuses to adhere to these rules.
* Mowing the lawn falls within the same timeframe, although 8 pm would be a better ending time, seeing as some people have small kids and such.
* If you respond to someone's text or phone call in the middle of a meeting with other people, everyone in said meeting is plotting your slow and painful demise.
* Small kids are left to frolic in public at their own will, as long as their parent(s) are around to see it. If their parent(s) are not around to see it, then you have the fun task of chastising the child and returning him/her to his/her place of origin, wherein he/she will be grounded for of a period of at least 2 weeks.
* Please continue these in the comments, because they are a vast and expanse rule regarding social decor.
8. #s 8-10: I got nothin'. I just put them on the list because, ya know, I have zero to show for it, but I was hoping to add to this list of marginally good things that contribute to awesome societies.
Or whatever. I'm also tired and emaciated by hunger. (And by "emaciated," I mean "fat, but kind of hungry because I have absolutely nothing else to do right now".)
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Excellent Ramadan, and Good Kwanzaa everybody! I love you guys more than you know!