If I can rant for a minute - I LOVE THIS COUNTRY

There. I've said it. With all of its quirks, idiosyncracies, and inconsistencies, I love the United States of America.

But maybe I should explain myself a little further. America, to me, is more than just some geographical region politically divided into 50 states that invest their collective fortunes in a centralized federal republic. It's an idea, a dream, a quest that we may never truly fulfill, yet it constantly beckons us to take that next step ahead.

I love Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and George Washington. I love the "first nations" that were here before the white man put down permanent roots.

I love Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee - both abolitionists, but both also pledged to defending that which they called home.

I love both Roosevelts, even if I consider what FDR did to Japanese-Americans to be a profound violation of human rights. I love the Japanese-Americans, too.

I love John F. Kennedy and his idealism. I love the labor union and those corporations that try to do right by the American worker.

I treasure freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to be safe and secure in my own person.

In short, I am an American.

And if the enemies of freedom who walk among us want to take this nation, this ideal, this dream away from me - let them walk up to my face and try to take it.

I'm not sure anymore.

It's hard watching a great nation be hijacked by fascists, but that is what has happened since the supreme court handed Bush his presidency in 2000.

...where are you at this moment?

Me, I'm working on sending more Texas Democrats to the Hill.

It is the government I despise.