That Country

This Fourth of July I pray that we stop being "that country". You know, the kind of nation that we always pretend we're "liberating" others from.

We spend more on war - not defense, war - than any other nation on Earth. We spend more on war than the next 25 highest war spending nations combined. And 24 out of those 25 are our vassal states.

We occupy more nations than any other country on Earth. You weren't aware of that? Google "American Military Bases", it will show each nation that we occupy.

Oh, didn't realize that we occupy German and Japan? You thought those were our allies, with we having bases there because we're so gosh darn nice? Care to guess which state those nations have their bases in over here? Don't know?

That's because our "allies" do not get to have military bases here. That would infringe upon our sovereignty.

This always says so much more about those who do it,
then those who have it done to them.

We regard the oceans, and atmosphere and orbits of the planet as ours. We get to go and conduct war exercises any where we want. And patrols and inspections. And incursions. Other nations, were they to approach within 500 miles without our permission are engaging in "aggressive war-like actions" that demand an "immediate response".

We kidnap and hold without charges, and torture and detain, not only any one on Earth we care to, but our own citizens as well. Without trial. Up to, and including, executions. Like the Soviets and the Nazis did. Two other examples of "that country".

We let the citizenry have no rights that the government is bound to respect. Oh, yes, lip service, sure, like the Soviet and National Socialist constitutions had, but the only time you really get to speak or act freely is if you are too small, or they don't notice you.

Block a road, resist in any fashion, or be too loud, and you'll be noticed - and dealt with by black clad armored police using chemical warfare outlawed by the Geneva Convention. Yes, even on students.

I pray for an end to the tyranny of every activity needing a license, every citizen needing papers, everyone needing to have such papers while traveling any where by any means. I pray for the end of everyone needing a number, of no one being able to work or buy or sell without it. I pray that one day we live in a nation where to not comply with that is not to be subject to arrest, detention, and torture.

I pray that we can stop with the modernized camps we call prisons that house a higher percent of our population than the Soviets did in their hey day, or the Nazis did in their hey day, or the PRC and North Korea do in their hey day. I pray that sexual torture and solitary confinement of such who are sent there stop being a national joke and start being a thing of the dark past.

I also pray that I can one day read the Declaration of Independence, and not see that all the complaints we had against King George are now ten times worse under any administration that has ever ruled in my life.

Today, I would encourage everyone to read the Declaration of Independence, and try and find a complaint against King George that could not be levied against our own government over the past 50 years.

And then ask yourself why what they had the right to do back then is something that apparently no one has the right to do now - secede and form their own state. With their own freedom. With their own dignity.