Every Saturday night I spend at a racetrack, watching good ol’ boys and girls drive in circles and playing in the mud. It’s a great American pastime. Every Saturday night, for as long as I can remember, I’ve also stood and saluted Old Glory as the National Anthem is played, listening to those around me singing along, watching children raise their hands to their hearts, and then come the cheers at the same part of the same song every Saturday night – “for the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”
It is the land of the free, for some. For others, not so much. Perhaps my idea of freedom is different from those around me, because I see it to mean “equal.” Equal in rights, in opportunities, and in benefits.
Look around. We’re not so equal, are we? There is an entire population of people in the United States
Look around. There are still people who are being policed based upon the color of their skin. There are many in our country who remember what that was like, for it to be illegal or “frowned upon” to exist. To walk into a building, to drink water from a fountain. To stroll on the sidewalk alongside other human beings, to be hated simply because they came from somewhere else in the world, brought to our home under duress and punished for it. To be hated for the slant of their eyes, or lighting a menorah. Today there is a state that has set us back fifty years with their law allowing them to target anyone they think could be here illegally. They could get a whiff of refried beans on your breath and demand that you whip out your proof to be here. While I get frustrated too with those here against the law, we all know that it’s just giving too much power to some you know will abuse the hell out of it.
Look around. We are supposed to have separation of church and state. I don’t see it. We pledge to “one nation, under God.” In God, we apparently trust our money – it’s written right on the currency. It may not have started out pertaining only to a Christian God, but the majority have interpreted it that way and have run the marathon with it. What if you are not a Christian? What if you are of a different culture, believe in a different God, or Goddess? But we are told to pledge our allegiance to both God and America U.S.A.
Look around. People in years past have gone to war to protect our “freedom,” and for those who’ve done it with the truest intentions in their hearts and their minds, I thank you. But why should you believe me? Why should you believe any of us, when so many have come home from various battles war-torn, chemically and mentally beaten, and abandoned by the people they swore to defend? It’s shameful the way veterans are paraded out on holidays, but as soon as the fireworks fizzle, they’re forgotten about by a government who finds more importance in getting paid for a three day holiday than taking care of their soldiers.
Look around. There are people who escape paying taxes to support their freedom every day. Free from having to work, having to earn their provisions. Then there are those who lost half their income, that they work hard for, to support those same people. Sure wish I had that kind of freedom. Free to sit on my ass and populate the country more on a welfare dime. Remember when “government assistance” was created to actually assist those in need? Now everyone is under the microscope of judgment, because too many have gotten out of control. It was stated last week that one in seven Americans are now at poverty level. I guarantee not every one of seven qualifies for assistance. Isn’t it pathetic that too many employees working for the big W can’t even afford to shop there? Freedom comes with a price, that the upperclassmen have made impossible for the rest of us to afford. Many have just flipped the worker bees the big bird, taking everything they can get their grubby hands on, leaving those who are truly down and out to sit with a shameful cloud over their head. It’s not even that we live beyond our means, we’re simply trying to own the basics and keep up with the ever-modernizing world. It’s not that I’m against paying taxes. I’m against only some having to pay them, and seeing the revenue thrown in the toilet that only in the last few decades has everyone been allowed to use.
Look around. We are free to be a sick population, but not free to medicate ourselves. It is illegal to purchase prescription drugs outside of our borders. The US companies were selling to Canada, Mexico and B.F. Egypt who would then sell it to us for cheaper than our own pharmaceuticals were, but we will no longer be allowed to eliminate the American middleman who does not have our best interests at heart. Consensual homosexuality, they want to make a crime. Plain old screwing a stranger simply because they can is apparently okay, though.
Home of the free. Unless we’re gay, colored in skin, or poor. Free to speak our minds, as long as we’re pledging to God and leaving the turban at home.
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