Revisiting an old essay

I was rather annoyed by the latest veto by President Bush (see previous post for more on that) so I decided to go back and look at an essay I wrote following the last presidential election. After reading it, I thought why not post it here. So I will:


Reaction to the Election and the Current Condition of the United States of America:

What follows are my opinions about the current state of America. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I am not a Christian, or Jew, or Muslim. For the following, I am only a concerned citizen and was inspired to write this after seeing the results of the election. I cannot sit idly by while I see events transpiring of which I do not approve. To wit, I choose to us the pen, electronic though it may be, to express and disseminate my thoughts on the subject.

I do not expect that everyone that reads the following will agree with everything contained therein. I do, however, ask that you will grant me the right to my opinions as I would surely grant you yours. It is only through honest discourse that we can hope to understand each other and so I have endeavored to provide just that.


November 3, 2004

I have never been more ashamed to be an American. There were times in the past I have not been proud, but they were few and fleeting. But I have never experienced something like this, never a deep and utter disconnection with this country. It is a feeling entirely new to me and one I hope can be healed in time.

When George W. Bush won four years ago, it was acceptable; it was excusable. Back then he was at least a candidate who was not entirely known to the American people. A modicum of faith in him that he could lead the country to a better time was an understandable opinion, even if it was not a universal one. Many people knew of his name only through his father, who was president for a single term before being voted out. We could have looked at his father's record and thought of the younger Bush, "He may run our economy into the ground, run up a huge deficit, and get involved in a land war in Asia". But what was the chance of those things happening again? He was not my candidate of choice back in 2000 but I did not hold any animosity towards him for I did not have the foresight to know what I do now.

Fast forward four years to the election that took place last night. It was surreal. I could not comprehend what I was witnessing. The red spreading across the maps looked like the blood of this nation flowing from a great gash in her heart. The single vote I cast could not hold back that torrent. I could do nothing but watch in horror and bitter disappointment; George W. Bush will be in the White House again.

But in the end, it is not Bush in whom I am disappointed. It is not possible to be disappointed in someone when you have no expectations. Any expectations of him being a true leader had long ago evaporated away. No, I reserve that feeling for the American people. I blame them because I thought they would be wise enough to choose correctly and right the wrong they made last election. I thought for sure the people would come together and ask for a change. I had faith in my fellow man and he stabbed me in the back.

Although voter turnout was at it highest level in nearly forty years, apathy was, ironically, at its highest level ever. A majority of voters turned a blind eye to what has been happening these past four years. They did not care about the hundreds or Americans who died fighting our president's war. They did not care for all those who have lost their jobs. They did not care that prejudice and hatred are becoming more rampant and more acceptable. They did not care that the Earth that sustains them lies dying at their feet. And most importantly, they did not care about the ideals for which America stands.

The war in Iraq rages on with no end in sight with more and more people dying nearly every day. Why President Bush started this war is still shrouded in mystery. The administration originally claimed it was to remove weapons of mass destruction from the clutches of a tyrant. When those were found to be non-existent, the primary reason became to remove Saddam Hussein from power and in the process cripple a strong ally of Al-Qaeda. When that connection was found to be tenuous at best, the impetus again shifted, this time to bring freedom to the people of Iraq.

I will ignore for the time being that Bush obviously lied to the people of the United States, hoping that we were either too stupid or too scared to notice those lies. He thought that we did not need or deserve to know the truth as to why we fight and die. Instead he left us to guess the reason for ourselves: Was it to avenge the ills Saddam caused his father? Was it for the oil? Was it to increase the coffers of his friends? Your guess is as good as mine.

I will instead focus on what has become the ultimate justification of the war, the ultimate justification for the time being anyway. Bush now claims that the reason why many Americans are risking their lives is to bring freedom to Iraq. Could he have come up with a more ludicrous lie? He might as well claim that he fights to bring peace or that he kills to bring life. One cannot bring freedom to a nation by occupying it and forcing freedom down its throat. The only thing that will succeed in doing is choking the fledgling country and in turn will cause it to reject that which you wanted to give. A democracy forged in this way, from without rather than within, cannot survive; lasting freedom cannot be attained in this manner and it is the height of hypocrisy to even try.

Every person on this earth has the right to be free. We have liberties here in this country that most other people can only experience in their dreams. Unfortunately, we most often take these for granted but there are times that it hits us how fortunate we really are. I would love for everyone in the world to be able to have what I have. In order for a people to be truly free, however, they must want to be free. They must be willing to risk everything for it; they must as one rise up and demand it. From the crucible of this fight for freedom comes a unity of purpose that can sustain a nation.

The situation in Iraq is the exact opposite. The people are not demanding that they be given freedom we are instead demanding they take it. They do not want their liberty this way and the more we try to force it upon them the more they will resist and fight back. We see this growing resistance everyday in grisly scenes from the frontline of the war. Do you think if England just granted us independence without a fight that we would be the country we are today, or that we would be a country today at all?

The hypocrisy of the war is joined by another as egregious. Bush browbeats the people of Iraq to take the freedom he offers as he tries to deny the citizens of his own country the same. He claims to stand for freedom for everyone in the world while simultaneously trying to push all the gay Americans back into the closet and all the heathens down into hell.

Bush wants to write bigotry back into the Constitution. As if the stains of the "3/5 of all other persons" and the absence of equal rights in the original were not bad enough, he now wants to wipe his ass on our founding document and add another stain; this one of religious righteousness. At least those former travesties were corrected; corrected, but not erased. And it is better that the memories linger, rather than be abolished, so that we can learn from the mistakes of our past. We should realize that every time we try and add prejudice to the supreme law of this land that our children or our children's children will certainly not only fix that error but will also look back and judge us harshly as a result.

We declared our independence so that we could all enjoy "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". If one gay person's happiness comes from putting a ring on the finger of another and declaring their undying love for them in front of their friends and family, who am I, or anyone, to tell them they cannot enjoy that which straight America considers a personal right? If two adults want to become one-- emotionally and physically-- where could I, or anyone, possible assume the authority to tell them no?

If the president wants to protect the sanctity of marriage maybe he should investigate why nearly half of marriages end in divorce in this country. I find it a larger scar on the face of marriage that so many people take their vows so lightly as to discard them like a used tissue than two men or two women trying to declare their deep and undeniable love for each other. We can learn from those that strive for their right to a marriage, for when you have to fight for something, it becomes more important than if it is yours be assumption. I doubt that the gay couples that were fortunate enough to get married will rend their union as easily and wantonly as the rest of America.

The president looks to his religion to be the guiding light in his life, and it is his right to do so. If he wants to pray for strength and wisdom, or tithe to his church, or read the bible, he is free to do just that. But as soon as he makes his church’s doctrine into the law, it is sin, a crime against the United States. He is taking away every American’s right to choose their own creed. It should offend every citizen and Christians doubly so, as he is preying on your sympathy as a religious peer to manipulate and use you.

Bush’s actions are in direct violation of the Constitution, the document he swore to preserve, protect, and defend when he took the oath of office. An oath he obviously deems to be trumped by his church’s law. This is ironic, since when he made the aforementioned promise his hand was resting upon the bible. So in breaking this oath, it was not only a blasphemy against the most sacred document of this country but also against the most sacred document of his religion.

Bush wants everyone in America to pray to the God he prays to, to worship the God he worships, and to believe only what his God wants us to believe. If you are not a Christian now, you will be. You are becoming one by proxy; you are being baptized by legislation and confirmed by your vote to keep this man in the position as reverend for the country.

Many people came to this country seeking a religious safe harbor. They came to escape the prejudice and persecution of their homeland and to be free to pray to Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, or one of a million other deities in the heavens. Where can we sail to now to find that same religious freedom?

In an ironic display of sanctimony, Bush fights against countries that have fanatical religious leaders forcing the populous to submit to their demands while he turns this country into one that has a fanatical religious leader forcing the populous to submit to him and his cronies. The difference is that he believes himself to be a warrior for Jesus Christ and they claim to be the same for Allah. He prophesizes that God will lead us to victory as his enemies echo the sentiment on behave of their followers. How long will it take him to learn he is fighting his reflection? How long will it take the people of this country?

Winston Churchill once said "All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from them". Since our president seems incapable of admitting that he is fallible, one cannot help but think that he is neither wise nor has he learned anything from his first term as president. If this is indeed the case, it does not augur well for what is to come. The difference this time is that the president no longer has to concern himself with re-election. There is nothing left to temper his actions, as bad as the last term has been, the next one has all the signs of being worse. We are being lead to a future that is dark and perilous not only for America but for the world as well.

President Bush does not lead by persuasion, or charisma, or intelligence. He leads by intimidation and fear and lays these on thick in the stead of anything redeeming. He is the Wizard of Oz; a charlatan who impresses with smoke and fire and attempts to make you afraid in order to distract you from what is actually transpiring. In reality behind the curtain of those conspicuous displays of power and misdirection stands a man of hypocrisy: saying one thing and doing another, claiming to believe in something and striving to bring about the opposite.

The people of America have again foolishly put their future in the hands of a man who has already proven he cannot be trusted with that honor. I had hoped in the end that right would conquer wrong, good would vanquish evil, but it did not happen. I have been taught that that is the way it should be; that is the way it must be. It is clichéd but I believed it. Clichés are so commonplace because they all hold in them a core of truth. "Look before you leap", that is just sound advice. That advice, however, was ignored and as a country we clenched our eyes shut and took a giant leap of faith. As a result of this action we are going to plummet, far and fast, and I fear where we will land.

This is not one of those events that in a few years I will be able to look back on and laugh. No, I will look back and cry: cry for the brave people that will die trying to bring freedom to a country that does not want to be free, for the people that will experience state sanctioned prejudice, for the millions of families who will suffer through economic hardships, for the shell that mother earth will be after she is stripped and raped of all that she has to offer. Most tragically, I will weep for the loss of what our founding fathers, all of them, fought and died for: the ideal that was America