I Love America. This includes many pieces of America that, taken individually, I don’t like so much. Some, I loath. But altogether, put it in a big pile, and I’ll keep it. Fight for it. Whatever. Here are just a sampling of the many pieces of America:
- Giant balls of twine and three-story lava-lamps, huge fiberglass dinosaurs in the middle of nowhere. A ranch of Cadillacs half-buried.
- Religious fundies who hate the “War on Christmas”. Other religious fundies who believe Christmas is a tool of the devil. (Satan/Santa)
- Gun-toting rednecks
- Hippie chicks with un-shaved arm-pits
- Courses in multi-culturalism that reduce each culture to pop spiritualism
- Courses in home management in college
- Republicans who have integrity and really believe their economic religion helps more poor people than any other method
- Exploiters of every stripe who whip up American sincerity and make a buck
- Democrats who served honorably in every branch of the military
- Chickenhawk politicians who sound righteous as they send people off to war, having never served themselves (this started long before the current Neo-cons)
- Strident athiests
- Flag burners
- Get-off-my-lawn old veterans
- Illegal immigrants
- First, second, and third generation immigrants
- Racists
- People who claim not to be racists, but always find other reasons to hate people from other cultures or ethnic groups
- Â People who you assume are racist, but turn out not to be
- Dennis Hopper
- John Wayne
- Martha Stewart
- American Idol
The exact mix keeps changing, but it’s still my country and I always want the best for it. When President Bush decided to invade the wrong country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, I wanted something better. But, like most people, I did not root for failure. I wanted the war to be over quickly, I wanted stability to return. I wanted few casualties. Because, though it was a bad decision, the best thing for our country was an easy resolution. I also knew that was not likely.
A lot of sock-pundits on the right accused liberals of rooting for the failure we eventually felt. No, we just foresaw it. Nobody wanted it. But, they project thoughts into our head. We can play that game, maybe THEY were rooting for failure so then they could prove that we were rooting for failue! Who knows what dark threads take hold in the human soul?
Now Rush Limbaugh is openly rooting for failure. Why? Because he doesn’t love America. Not all of it. He has picked the parts he likes, and will only love an America if it fits that model. That’s sort of like only loving your kid if he goes to the same college you did. Rush believes in “Individualism and Capitalism” and whatever. As if those things are going away. We haven’t been the capitalist country he espouses since before WWII. And we aren’t any closer to pure socialism than we were eight years ago. But the diseased economic religion of tax cuts and minimal regulation has produced a huge bill. If we don’t pay it now, it will only get bigger. Rush is apparently rooting that our efforts to save the economy will fail. That is the most unpatriotic thing I’ve heard in a long time.
