Spooked!

I often think I was born in the wrong country.

I’m not a church-going Christian. I don’t salivate over an automobile (or even care for them). I agree with Socialist views. I can’t stand NASCAR and barely tolerate American Football. I detest handguns. I believe in the importance of historical preservation.

Joseph McCarthy would have had me burnt at the stake.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not part of some underground militia movement. I just don’t see the “greatness” of a bankrupt, arrogant country run by idiots. I constantly hear that “America is the greatest country in the world”, but where’s the proof? What evidence backs that up? Has anyone who says these things actually read a newspaper in the past decade?

Probably not. They’re too busy drinking beer, watching NASCAR, bitching about the price of gas as they fill up their Hummers, and waving that flag to bother reading anything aside from the welfare check they received in the mail.

I know I sound overly cynical, but at times, I can’t help it. No, I don’t think all of America is stupid. Still, ignorance in this country is more widespread than the Black Death… and unfortunately, there aren’t enough casualties. If you look at our origins, it’s a shame to see what we’ve become: a herd of cattle trudging along in our daily lives and gabbing about American Idol and YouTube. You know: the important things.

Sometimes, I see this country in the same light as I view the first class passengers of the Titanic. The ship is going down but who cares? Someone should be shoveling the ice off the deck. Rounding up the undesirable steerage passengers and putting them back into their coral. Fetching another glass of wine instead of worrying about lifejackets. After all, she’s unsinkable. Isolationism rules!

We forget how difficult it was to create the vast experiment now known as the United States of America. And that’s what we still are: an experiment. We’ve grown comfortable even though we are a very young country. Instead of heeding the advice of our predecessors, we forge ahead like a reckless teenager. We know everything. Parents are stupid.

I’ll admit that everything about America isn’t junk. There are plenty of good qualities: freedoms, liberties, independences. Things we take for granted and forget are always in jeopardy. Ideals believed in so highly that our soil is stained by the blood of our ancestors in their pursuit of these goals.

But if that hallowed ground comes in the way of a new Super Wal-Mart, it’s not so important. We can’t let those things get in the way of progress, right?

I think that’s by biggest issue with this country: we’re apathetic. In the safety of our small, cloaked world, we ignore the things which truly upset or endanger us. We gripe about the high cost of gas when we pay less than most of the world and remain helplessly dependent on fossil fuels. We moan about politicians yet many Americans don’t vote or protest to change the status quo. We whine about jobs lost overseas yet buy everything we can that’s manufactured in China. We’re complainers, not doers.

I do hold out some hope for this country. I’m not that much of a pessimist. Yet before things begin to change, they must become increasingly worse. We believe some things are worth fighting for only when we have no other option. And by then, the internal struggle to regain the America we once knew will rage on for decades.

I may be around for that battle. Or I may have moved on to more foreign surroundings. Either way, it will be interesting to watch it all unravel on Fox News.

Too bad phoning in a vote won’t really matter.