Trying Not To Throw Things

Hey all. Sorry the entries haven't exactly been regular of late. Part of it is due to the lack of source material... back when I started, there was a crazy letter on the reader's page pretty much every day. Now it's maybe one or two a week. People seem to be less stupid, which I guess is a good thing, but admittedly, I'm just not feeling it lately.

I'm not about to throw in the towel yet, but I'm definitely feeling fatigue. I feel like I've been swimming upstream nonstop for years now, and while progress has been made, it's been painfully slow, and maybe mostly cosmetic. Are we improving on a fundamental level? Are things really getting better? I guess lately, I really don't think so.

This country doesn't love democracy. We claim to, but a nation doesn't love democracy if the best it can muster is a 35% voter turnout for national elections. This country doesn't love freedom. We claim to, but the majority are still willing to have freedoms taken away for a false sense of security, as if bad things will stop happening if they give up the liberties this nation was intended to protect. I can't tell you how many times I've heard permutations of "If you're not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't be worried" in the last few days. That is a defense of authoritarianism, and a direct affront to the very concept of a free democracy. This country doesn't love justice. We claim to, but only when it's convenient. The scourge of entitlement and self-importance has become epidemic. We seem to want the rules to apply to everyone but ourselves.

Can we ever go back? Can we really return to the American experiment, or is this the final spiral? The patriot in me wants to believe we can turn it around, but the cynic looks around and sighs, certain that with so few people acknowledging their roles in the issues, or even that the issues exist, there's not a whole lot of hope. That's what it really comes down to... hope. Are we really very far removed from a fuedal society now? The majority work for a pittance of the spoils, and fight for the scraps grudgingly thrown at them by the corporate elite who live as far removed from the common folk as lords in castles. We allow ourselves to be deprived of liberties so long as we are made to feel protected. We no longer say 'Live free or die.' We cower when we are attacked, and willingly give up liberty in the hopes that we won't die. The lords of the land gladly take the opportunity to revoke those liberties, parading their armies about to make us feel secure because it costs them little, and basking in the riches our redoubled efforts make for them. We've traded our hope for the far easier commodity of dependance. We are everything that this nation was founded in opposition to. Without that hope... without that love of freedom and democracy and justice... without a hatred for greed and corruption and tyranny... what are we? We are the antithesis of the Constitution. We are the bane of the Bill of Rights. We are the enemies we claim to fight.

I know, I'm a downer tonight. Sorry about that. It's probably a passing thing. I'm just tired. I'm tired of being made angry every day. I'm scared that the American experiment will fail completely in my lifetime. Maybe it already has.

I hope not.