This I Believe (with apologies to Robert A. Heinlein)

Our Noble, Essential Decency « Robert Heinlein | This I Believe

If you haven't read Robert Heinlein's brilliant summation of what America is supposed to be, take a moment, click the link and do so now.  I can wait.

See, when I was still a naive teenager and first read this short essay, a lump formed in my throat and pride surged through my veins.  There was no greater glory than to be born a citizen of the United States, no happier destiny than to be a part of this great people.  Like RAH, I had a central belief in the honesty, goodness and charity of all Americans everywhere.  But I was a dumb kid then and today, I know better.

It's a shame really.  This country which once stood for fair play, liberty and justice for all has been transformed by the hands of wretched, evil men into the police state that it is today.  Today Americans live in fear because a group of covetous men stole the presidency of the United States and allowed, if not abetted, the 9/11 attack even after being strenuously warned about the imminent danger of such an attack.  Such criminal negligence is usually met with jail time but no prosecutor in the land dared to bring such charges against the wanton felons Rove, Bush Jr., or Cheney.  This unholy trinity was untouchable by virtue of wealthy friends and family connections that shielded them from any real, meaningful consequences for their felonies.  To this day they walk free with no fear of any criminal liability to themselves, proving once and for all that the American justice system is unequal and broken.  In such a broken system one wonders how we as a people turn the other way when lowly, common Americans are arrested and jailed with such enthusiasm while those at the top of the food chain literally get away with murder. 

Strangely this sort of authoritarian rule is embraced by the rabid, radical right, the charismatic Christian crowd.  They have ignored their Christ's teachings of love, humility and tolerance for a Satanic, vindictive, mean spirited bigotry.  The most recent example of this was this past 9/11 when the whole world held it's breath wondering if a bunch of Floridian nut jobs might follow through with their threats to burn Qu'rans and set the world on fire.  I suppose if I had any words of encouragement to my Muslim brothers and sisters, it would be this: don't feel so bad; they act this way towards their fellow Americans too.

Indeed, the rabid, radical Republikkkan right has declared a sort of war on the rest of America.  To them free health care, doctor-patient privacy, teaching hard science in the classroom and the Bill of Rights are things to abolish and vilify except when you want to buy guns to defend yourself from an increasingly repressive federal government that they themselves helped-- nay insisted!-- create.  Oh they whine about the federal government now because a Dumbacrat is in office, but just watch how that opinion changes if they do indeed manage to reclaim both houses of Congress as so many political pundits predict.  Then it'll be: We have to expand the government in the name of homeland security but Social Security is a Communist idea and must be abolished!  More money for war and weapons, not schools!  Cut taxes for the wealthy and pass the cost to the middle and lower classes!

See, to the rabid right, we don't count, we don't matter.  Hell, they don't even think of the rest of us as true Americans at all.  All that matters to them is legislating morality through their dangerously warped prism of fundamentalist Christianity and that means the country should just fly right and do as their told.  If this is contrary to personal freedom and the individual responsibility they are always on about, so be it.  Better to be a hypocrite forcing America to be a Christian nation than to allow civil liberties and freedom to rule the land.

So Tea bagger Christine O'Donnell won the Deleware GOP primary to the chagrin of the Republikkkan party.  She's the 8th Tea bagger to win in primaries this year and I read there is a possible 9th victory on the horizon for this fanatic cult.  That means that, in spite of the abuses heaped upon them by the radical right under the illegal Bush regime, the American people have gone and bellied up to their bigoted bar and ordered themselves another round of "stick my liberties up my ass cuz I'm not using them anyway".

So what do you do when Americans are destroying your faith in America?  What does one do when white collar criminals like Bush get away with murder?  Where do we go when justice favors the rich while punishing only the poor?  How do we fight against this wickedness when even local law enforcement does the bidding of evil men in Washington?

I never, ever thought I'd live to see a day where I would write this: I'm glad Robert H. has passed on so he didn't live to see this travesty befall his (and my) beloved country.  I sometimes think he got the better end of it simply because he didn't have to watch in horror as his belief in the goodness and decency of all Americans got dashed against the rocks of political opportunism and religious zealotry.  My America and his was a great place to live until the freaks on the rabid Republikkkan right and their enablers in the Dumbacratic party twisted and profaned it into this unholy mockery of what it once was.  Today our system of petty governance is hardly discernible from the style of government employed by the Soviets in their day.  Should the Nazi-esque rabid right succeed in their ambitions to reclaim political power they will only take us further down the wrong path and all hopes of reclaiming our lost Republic will be dead forever.