What is it like to be an American?
Have you ever wondered what it's like to be an American at this point in history? Allow me to help you form an image.
Close your eyes and imagine the following:
Imagine that you are young. You are probably around thirteen, and, for the first time, you realize why your country is special in the world. You realize that no other place on Earth can boast such a profound blending of cultures, such a modern ideology, or such powerful leaders. Suddenly, for the first time, you are excited about politics - just in time for the first presidential election you are aware enough to follow!
The wrong man wins and you are genuinely disappointed, but life goes on; high school politics are far more complex than anything that goes on the White House.
Then everything goes wrong.
You watch the Towers fall in a blaze of smoking horror, leaving a huge scar in the face of the country you thought you knew. And the President - rather than being the responsible father who cares for his people - begins throwing an epic tantrum.
They say that, when psychologically profiled, conservatives tend to think of government as the authoritarian father that must be obeyed. Liberals tend to think of government as a loving parent who is there to work with and take care of the national family.
What should we think of a government who reacts to its people with puerile impetuousness?
Any child with such a parent (say, the child of a schizophrenic or a manic depressive) would go insane. When the parent refuses to be either an authority figure or a caring safety net, then what kind of unstable environment does that create? It's the kind of parent that responds to a scraped knee with "go pay for your own bandages;" who responds to bullying from other children with "well, then, you must go bully him back;" who responds to each moral dilemma with "if you don't tell anyone, then it's as good as if you didn't do it!"
Do you think a child with a parent like that could grow up to live a normal life?
Now imagine you're finally old enough to vote, and you are terrified for the future of your country. The infusion of new blood for a government in disarray seems like the only possible way to save those good things you remember from before. But the men in power are strange, occult, and have ways of winning so far removed from the public that you feel thirteen again.
But you win.
Everything is going to change, you say to yourself, we will finally be healed. The order of things has been restored, the caring parent will come clean up the mess of the stormy pretender. But you wake up one morning and realize - the damage is too great. There's no going back. The home you once loved is dying, and nothing can save it. You loved it, then you hated it, and, just when you were prepared, no, begging to love it again, you realize that it has become ridiculous and faltering. The best of humanity could not save it. It will fade into its personal twilight, doddering stories about its former greatness while upstarts destroy it with the strange and violent ways taught them by a negligent authority. The childhood dream of Democracy and Freedom is over.
That is my experience of being an American. Other Americans will surely disagree with me, but, having grown up in America, I feel my personal experience is valid. I do feel betrayed by an authority gone haywire, the same way I feel betrayed by my parents for allowing my childhood dreams to be eviscerated by one small group of madmen.
After all, when a child feels powerless, is it not the job of the parents to step in, not only to protect it, but also to give it once more a voice?
Close your eyes and imagine the following:
Imagine that you are young. You are probably around thirteen, and, for the first time, you realize why your country is special in the world. You realize that no other place on Earth can boast such a profound blending of cultures, such a modern ideology, or such powerful leaders. Suddenly, for the first time, you are excited about politics - just in time for the first presidential election you are aware enough to follow!
The wrong man wins and you are genuinely disappointed, but life goes on; high school politics are far more complex than anything that goes on the White House.
Then everything goes wrong.
You watch the Towers fall in a blaze of smoking horror, leaving a huge scar in the face of the country you thought you knew. And the President - rather than being the responsible father who cares for his people - begins throwing an epic tantrum.
They say that, when psychologically profiled, conservatives tend to think of government as the authoritarian father that must be obeyed. Liberals tend to think of government as a loving parent who is there to work with and take care of the national family.
What should we think of a government who reacts to its people with puerile impetuousness?
Any child with such a parent (say, the child of a schizophrenic or a manic depressive) would go insane. When the parent refuses to be either an authority figure or a caring safety net, then what kind of unstable environment does that create? It's the kind of parent that responds to a scraped knee with "go pay for your own bandages;" who responds to bullying from other children with "well, then, you must go bully him back;" who responds to each moral dilemma with "if you don't tell anyone, then it's as good as if you didn't do it!"
Do you think a child with a parent like that could grow up to live a normal life?
Now imagine you're finally old enough to vote, and you are terrified for the future of your country. The infusion of new blood for a government in disarray seems like the only possible way to save those good things you remember from before. But the men in power are strange, occult, and have ways of winning so far removed from the public that you feel thirteen again.
But you win.
Everything is going to change, you say to yourself, we will finally be healed. The order of things has been restored, the caring parent will come clean up the mess of the stormy pretender. But you wake up one morning and realize - the damage is too great. There's no going back. The home you once loved is dying, and nothing can save it. You loved it, then you hated it, and, just when you were prepared, no, begging to love it again, you realize that it has become ridiculous and faltering. The best of humanity could not save it. It will fade into its personal twilight, doddering stories about its former greatness while upstarts destroy it with the strange and violent ways taught them by a negligent authority. The childhood dream of Democracy and Freedom is over.
That is my experience of being an American. Other Americans will surely disagree with me, but, having grown up in America, I feel my personal experience is valid. I do feel betrayed by an authority gone haywire, the same way I feel betrayed by my parents for allowing my childhood dreams to be eviscerated by one small group of madmen.
After all, when a child feels powerless, is it not the job of the parents to step in, not only to protect it, but also to give it once more a voice?