The Ideals of America

The Ideals of America

The when the founding fathers made America, they had a number of ideals in mind. They wanted freedom of religion so that they could not be prosecuted for heresy. They wanted freedom of speech so that their superiors could not execute them for their words. They wanted the right to a fair trial for the same reason. Last of all, they wanted the right to bear arms to defend those rights.

We have taken the freedom of religion and have slowly tried to reinterpret it into freedom from religion, I change that I believe is firmly in the good. It is proven that societies that do not assume that god is on their side have much lower crime rates, better education, etc. on average than those who do. This idea would be abhorrent to the founding fathers.

They were mainly puritans, descended from puritans, in a world of religious. They took religion for granted, like we take getting gas. While it might be expensive for a bit, you would always have god in your life. God shaped everything they believed and did, many scientists had horrible moral dilemmas because what they knew clashed with what they were taught. The educkated elite take it for granted now that anything that can be proven should automatically take precedent over what is simply believed, unless you count the religious right. They just take the science and go looking in it for something that supports them, and then discard the rest.

Freedom of speech went literally hand-in-hand with freedom of religion. It was a way to protect the people from the powers that be, whether the governors or the priests. They assumed that without freedom of speech, a democracy would eventually just become a monarchy again, but this time with pretensions of freedom.

The right to bear arms also comes from that root. In England, only the nobility had the right to go armed, in general. This meant that the peasants could not defend themselves against them. The nobility could do anything they wanted and if they peasants didn%u2019t like it, well, who was the one with the swords? Having been guaranteed the right to a trial to protect the rights of the downtrodden, they gave people the right to bear arms to defend those other rights from anyone who by conspiracy or by force would take their rights away.

In this current age the ideals are far from the reality. The right to the trial happens, and mainly works well in the criminal sense, but our grossly inflated lawyering industry makes it so that the richer can often win simply by outlasting their enemies%u2019 cash supply. We have the right to free speech, true, and we practice it regularly among ourselves, but people also have the right to ignore us. All of the media is owned by two closely related companies, and they stifle or redirect all news that goes towards rocking the boat. Just look at their coverage of Iraq, and the %u201Cdebate on torture%u201D.

Both of those are horrible fuck-ups that they portray in an unfairly rosy light. It%u2019s only because the opposition is so fierce that they are now showing people opposing it at all. In a sensible, just world there would be no %u201Cdebate on torture%u201D. In addition to it being inhumane and making far more enemies then it destroys, all of the experts also agree that it is utterly ineffective. What information you obtain cannot be trusted, and many times would have been obtained faster by other methods.

To be heard, to be elected, to change anything you need massive amounts of money. To get massive amounts of money, 90% of the time you must compromise your morals. When you finally get into a position to improve the world you are so caught up into improving your own position and protecting what you%u2019ve already got that you are unwilling to risk anything. That is the essential flaw with a capitalistic democracy.

Even the right to bear arms is ineffective. It%u2019s mainly practiced by either harmless gun collectors, psychotics, or people who want to hunt rabbits with sniper rifles. Anyone who actually attempted to organize an armed resistance against the government for whatever reason would be torn apart by the near fascist sense of %u201Cpatriotism%u201D currently infecting our country. Not to mention that the disparity between military weaponry and civilian weaponry has reached such a disparity that any revolt would be doomed before it started.

1000 peasants with pitchforks didn%u2019t stand much chance against a group of knights, but they stand more of a chance than 1000 people armed with Ak-47s against a barrage of tear gas. In a more serious battle the military could deploy normal bombs, fuel-air burst bombs, napalm, white phosphorous, even nukes. There are hosts of weapons that civilians can never dream of getting, let alone retaliating against, making it so that any rebellion could never have any chance unless the military itself revolted, and history has shown us time and time again that military coup leads to nothing good...

More than that, the new Homeland security act secures power for those who have power even more. Harmless activist groups are being investigated for terrorism, ruining any chance for those driven individuals to get a chance in government. Even if your club was harmless, earnest, helpful, and baked cookies during meetings, if you are running for president and they bring up that the group was investigated for terrorism and infiltrated for months at a time%u2026 It would more than ruin your chances.

Homeland security is a useless and harmful tool, made purely to be a sap for the public opinion. With it and its oh-so comforting name, people believe that they are safe from the scary %u201Csand-niggers%u201D and %u201Cwhacko-commy- liberals%u201D. Never mind that the organization is headed by cronies and hopelessly ineffective in its policies. Airport security is proven to do nothing but waste money and act as an extremely visible symbol of protection. Look how hard we are working, how smart we are, how we even take into account that the grannies may be suicide bombers. I mean, it%u2019s not like they are going to live much longer anyhow, maybe they want to go out with a bang? Our security uses discriminatory racial profiling, which even Israel with its intense hatred of the palestinians and decades of experience believes is hopelessly ineffective.

Internationally we are known as a paranoid bad joke, the first democracy gone crazy. It%u2019s well known that our policies make two terrorists for every we eliminate, but we continue in them. While we wage a cripplingly expensive and pointless %u201Cwar%u201D, we argue about allowing creationism back into the classroom, a debate the civilized world ended long ago. We vote an ineffective and harmful president back into office based on the fact that he hates both gays and abortion, and so appeals to the powerful and idiotic religious right.

While we spend trillions of dollars to kill thousands of people, we deny our scientists funding that may save millions of lives on nonsensical moral grounds. To hold innocent citizens uncharged for months on end is alright in America, but to take stem cells from an aborted child that will never see the light of day%u2026 It is a sin indeed. It%u2019s possible that the outside world believes us dieing, dead, and simply hopes that we will not drag them down with us. Homeland security is a typical measure that semi-failed states make before they become failed states. It establishes a secret police with few limits and enormous scope.

In America, we think it%u2019s different. It%u2019s AMERICA, after all. Home of the free. We%u2019ve got baseball and apple pie, never mind that the rest of the world does too. We think that we are immune to corruption, that our country is immortal and blessed by god, that whatever our glorious leaders do is right because we elected them, after all. Those that don%u2019t agree don%u2019t have a voice, not because they can%u2019t but because the only ones willing to listen are the ones who have already been convinced. We must remember that we are a country like any other, with a system like any other, made of people like any other. Actually, if you count the religious right we're worse.