I have GOT to stop reading the newspaper. Every time I sit down and read about the things going on in the world, I get a little vomity. Reading about the millions of people in Africa who suffer degradation worse than I can even mentally imagine is probably the worst part of world events, in my opinion. But as an American (and a middle-American at that) all of the world events are so outside the scope of my everyday life that they seem unreal. I can’t possibly understand what it was like to be a part of any of those revolutions in Egypt or Tunisia or Yemen or Libya; I can only read about it in the newspaper. But as an American, what I can do is pay attention to what is going on in my own country and get pissed about it.
What is the United States government even doing?! I’ve already ranted about paying off other countries to be our “friends” so I’ll let that part go for now, but this whole shit storm in Libya is ridiculous. WHAT ARE WE DOING OVER THERE? Who are these rebels? Are we basically arming Al Queda? (Does anyone remember a little skirmish between Russia and Afghanistan in which we armed the Taliban?) I would like to cast a vote of No Confidence in the U.S. government. And no, I’m not on the I-Hate-Obama bandwagon, but I am definitely on the America-Needs-To-Pull-Its-Head-Out-Of-Its-Ass wagon.
Americans are faced with a grueling recession, but somehow the government has the extra cash to help some angry dissidents half way around the world to overthrow their shitty government? Certainly Libya is not the only country with a tyrannical man at the head of its government (North Korea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Iran), so is the United States going to step into all of those countries next and help the struggling revolutionaries? No. Why? Because it doesn’t benefit them yet to do so. You can bet your ass that as soon as there are natural resources to steal or strategic land grabs going on, the mighty U.S. of A. with be there will bells on. (Or grenades or sniper rifles or missiles – whatever these people need, right?) America seems to think its job is to monitor the world, but … NEWSFLASH! … we suck at it. The government finds puppets to run their colonial empire in other countries and then acts surprised when all hell breaks loose.
Let’s not pretend that America is intervening because of the terrible unemployment rate or human rights abuses in other countries, because if that was truly the case, we would have been in Somalia or Ivory Coast or Congo raining down missiles a long time ago. Or we might have stopped a little conflict in Rwanda which some people might remember. The bottom line is that people are butchered all over the world every single day, and America only intervenes when they can directly benefit from trying to stop it.
Life is unfair. The older I get, the more I see this simple truth. I bust my ass to get by financially, and the United States just burns my money in foreign conflicts. This country is going to fall, and I am going to be alive to see it. That breaks my heart. I don’t want my children to inherit this cesspool of an economy and/or the international derision being propagated by the American government. Kurt Vonnegut was probably not far off when he looked into the future and wrote about the Balkanized States of America. Eventually people are going to tell the government to go fuck themselves. Fight your wars with sticks in you need to, or – better yet – stop fighting your wars and keep that money here to make America great again.
I have a few modest proposals:
1. Let’s stop the war on drugs and embrace the taxation of marijuana. It seems problematic that someone dealing pot in this country could be given a harsher sentence than a rapist. People do drugs, and no law will stop that. Those who overdose and die are doing their part for social Darwinism.
2. Another war we can stop is the one being waged on illegal immigrants. I agree that everyone who lives, works, and receives services from the United States government should be naturalized. But rather than using tax dollars to imprison and/or send illegal immigrants back over the border, stop the problem where it begins: with the sleazy businesses who hire them. Fine offending businesses $10,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 for every infraction, and we won’t have illegal workers in America anymore.
3. While we’re at it, let’s get rid of this welfare state we’re in. Social services are a necessary part of any functional government, but once the government becomes an enabler of laziness and fraud, it’s time to gut the system. People should not be punished for working, and conversely, they should not be rewarded for sitting on their asses at home.
4. Next, stop pretending with the social security. Just give me my money back and we’ll call it even.
So if any politicians want my help, I’m ready to get started today. Or since politicians are the ones getting paid to solve such problems, AND they get paid their salary for the rest of their lives (a perk no one else in America gets) perhaps our elected officials ought to do something besides campaign and talk out both sides of their face.
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