Land of the who and home of the what?

Land of the free, home of the brave. Sounds good doesn’t it. Sorta stirs images of bold, steely eyed patriots looking off into the horizon as though awaiting the grand destiny that Americans are all entitled to. But when one super-imposes this admirable set of ideals onto our current culture, its hard to see things as any less than just a little off the mark.

At the risk of sounding overtly libertarian, our freedoms seem to have taken a vacation recently and have left a police state to house sit our once great society.* With an increasing level of required documentation for even natural born citizens, social controls which seek to regulate individual behavior down to simple communication and more recently a veritable police state clamp down on many civil liberties, all in the name of “protecting our freedom,” it would seem that our freedom is more of a slogan or tagline to reinforce our preconceived notions of national superiority in the world.

And yet regarding our “bravery,” this too seems to be out to lunch as from nearly every angle and every side of any given political standpoint there are cries for protection from boogey men. Be they the ever present terrorists who lurk in the shadows waiting to kill us and forcibly convert us to Islam,** the sex offenders who lie in wait around every corner waiting to snatch our young and molest them to death or even the undocumented latino workman who despite seeking only to build home additions so as to feed his family, is generally regarded as a drug dealing criminal who hates America, these constant fears and paranoia have driven many Americans completely batty.

No longer do we boldly look to the future, but rather now we insist on limitless “security” and seem willing to sacrifice nearly anything in our national character to achieve it. We trust no one, believe everyone to be a potential threat, insist on continuing the arms buildups which have gone on since the cold war***. There seems to be no end to lengths we’ll go to protect ourselves from threats that we personally have no direct knowledge of and threats which we presume via often faulty logical leaps.

Yet despite these failings and faults in our adherence to national principles, we still seem apt to wave the flag and stomp on the terra while we declare ourselves the freest, bravest, best people in the history of mankind. So…does anyone else see problems with these assumptions?

FOOTNOTES:

*regarding the “once great society,” it should be noted that much of our idealized past is little more than a self ingratiating fantasy. In truth our history has since our founding, been beset by many overreaching and often irrelevant trespasses upon individual freedoms ranging from religious, racial and ethnic persecution to authoritarian moral code enforcements which ultimately served little to no real beneficial purpose.

**regarding Islamic terrorists, it should be noted that while the simple bomb in a public waste bin in downtown Main Street America would be far more terrifying than yet another airline hijacking or bombing, this has yet to happen, even though it happens around the world on a regular and daily basis. Additionally, modern concepts of Islam by the more fear mongering of us are wildly off base as the religion itself shares more in common with the mainstream egalitarian Judiasm or Christianity than it does with Al Queda.

***regarding arms buildups, it is important to acknowledge that the proliferation of small arms and military technology has created greater security and stability threats throughout the world than any other natural or man made phenomenon in history.