It's never too late to become the country we once thought we were

Some of us have been very naive for a very long time. We believed all that truth, justice and American way stuff we were taught in grade school. One thing I still believe is that the people who founded this country were among the most brilliant men who ever lived.They set up a system of checks and balances because they were very aware of the potential for corruption of the powerful. Personally, I thought a couple of major philosophical mother lodes separated us from the run-of-the-mill empires, countries, kingdoms, city-states, whatever that had existed before and they were:

1. Separation of Church and State

2. Civil Rights (all men created equal and all- although it took us a long time to recognize women and minorities, at least we finally did it)

3. Protection from unreasonable search and seizure


Number one disappears as the right-wing Christian fundies are trying to shove their personal religious beliefs down everyones throats everyday, whether it be denying legal medications, teaching creationism under different names, demanding that we wish everyone a Merry Christmas whether it is reflective of our values or not, defining civil marriages, . . .

Number two is effectively dismantled when we (a)install insecure, hackable voting systems and (b)gerrymander voting districts at will and don't give a shit even if the GAO verifies (a) and every career lawyer in the Justice Department decides against (b)but is overridden by a political appointee.


Number three began to disappear a few years ago when our Justice system decided it was ok to seize and sell property of accused drug offenders BEFORE they were found guilty. Not just "freeze" assets - but seize and sell before or during trial. Honestly, that is when I knew that it was all an illusion. The Kelo decision reinforced the disillusionment - it's ok to give away my stuff if someone else can get richer than me with it. Suspending habeas corpus - that concept is just so INCONVENIENT for law enforcement in the age of terrorism. So, when we have news events like the domestic spying issue,why would I be surprised when the unreasonable search stuff kicks in , when the unreasonable seizure stuff has been around for awhile? Can't have one without the other.

The biggest optimist in the entire history of the world has to be Ann Frank, who stated, "Despite everything, I believe that people are basically good." I hope to emulate her by saying that in spite of everything, I believe that we can still become a "good" country. By good, I mean morally good. We do not have to torture in the future, even if we have in the past. We do not have to deny civil rights in the future, even if we have in the past. We still have the ability to become the country that the founders dreamed they were creating. But, we would have to have the right people as leaders. Currently, we have the worst leadership in the history of this country and we are teetering on the brink of either : oligarchy or theocracy or dictarship or fascism or some new hybrid that has sucked up all of the worse traits of these proven failed political systems.