No more flag waving

The political forces propelling Donald J. Trump to the White House have been percolating for decades. Seven years ago my employer sent a patriotic email to the faculty. I responded:

Thank you for your patriotic message.

However, I must respond that patriotism, for country's sake alone, is neither moral nor virtuous. Are the people of North Korea or Cuba "good citizens" because they support their government? I don't think so. Patriotism, falsely exercised, is allegiance to despotism.

What of American patriotism?

I refer you to the following website.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15947  

The first essay is very informative. I just perused it this morning. While I do not agree entirely with its every premise, MOST of what it says seems true, to me.  

As a former Boy Scout and one who wore his nation's military uniform for several years, I'm no longer enthralled by the act of saluting the American flag. In fact, I am repulsed by it. I KNOW for a fact that our nation has been hijacked; its virtue corrupted; its treasure squandered; its people deceived; its government lead by traitors, scoundrels and thieves. And I am supposed to SALUTE this symbol so perversely masquerading as an emblem of "liberty" and "justice"? It is absurd! I'd just as soon pledge allegiance to the hammer and sickle of the old Soviet motherland! (At least there was HONESTY in that symbol – as sick as that sounds). Here, in America, we are masquerading as a nation of "freemen", when in fact we are being sold into slavery.

Can you refute this?

He replied:

I am truly sorry that you feel that way but you have the freedom to express your views and thoughts without oppression. God bless America, may she always be right.

Wishing it so does not make it so. I replied: 

That's the irony.... We DON'T have the freedom to express our views and thoughts – except in certain "politically correct" ways and venues. Our 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, 4th Amendment (and 9th and 10th Amendment!) rights have been perverted into absolute restrictions against exercising those rights!

You want to practice “the free exercise of religion”? Go ahead! Just don't do it on public property!

You want “to keep and bear arms”? Great! Just don't do it in any federal building, most public places, and – in some cities – even in your own home – or anywhere else you otherwise might need to use a gun for self-defense! And certainly don’t carry a gun concealed. Or own one with any capacity equivalent to what government agents might bring to bear against you! 

You want to be secure in your “persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”? Great! But don’t drive. Because you can be pulled over and searched at any check point. Or fly. Because you can be strip searched, if they deem you “suspicious”. The (ironically titled) “Patriot Act” authorizes government agents to invade your house, inspect your personal effects (including your computer files), monitor your communications – all without a warrant, or even informing you! You can even be arrested and held, without trial, INDEFINITELY, if government officials label you a “terrorist”. Some “freedom”! Some “right”!

“Land of the free and home of the brave”? Why is it that the “land of the free” has more people in prison than all other countries COMBINED? If we’re so “brave”, why are we afraid to let others exercise their God-given rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” unmolested? Why are we invading other countries and killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians?

Fruit-bearing trees routinely need pruning, if they are to continue to be healthy and productive. Our government has metastasized into a megalithic oppressive regime run by global corporate interests. EVERYTHING OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOES is designed to exert control over people and insure success for these global interests. Our representatives in Congress have been corrupted and, by and large, serve themselves. They act as unwitting pawns to this massive regime.

The Federal Reserve (which is neither federal nor a reserve) is a PRIVATE Mafioso-type organization run by unelected, unaccountable global profiteers. By controlling the purse strings of world commerce and the halls of Congress, these “banksters” DICTATE how Americans live their lives. THEY elect the president. THEY control the media. THEY write the laws by which we all must live. THEY cause the “boom and bust” cycles – which lead to massive redistributions of wealth (ie, profit for them). THEY wrest control of property (and thus freedom) from ALL of us.

How did “free” Americans go from paying essentially NO taxes 100 years ago to where we are today? How did our dollar lose 96% of its value over the same period? Answer: the Federal Reserve.

We are not free.... We merely get to put on the uniform and masquerade as free men and woman on stage. We serve THEM. We fight and bleed and die for THEM. We go where THEY want us to go and do what THEY want us to do. How else can you explain our continuing involvement in hellholes like Iraq and Afghanistan? THEY control U.S.

I love what America once was.... I love the peoples and events surrounding 1776 and the ideals embodied in the U.S. Constitution. But those ideals have only faint expression in America today. Anyone who would claim the privileges of a true “freeman” would be branded as an enemy of the state.

Try leading a prayer in public school or reciting a Bible verse to students in a classroom. You might be sued. Imagine if one of those soldiers on stage actually bore arms. They would be arrested! Try defying the current regime and living the way Americans USED to live. You might be killed!

I cannot pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands...only to the republic for which it STOOD. We have lived to see the day when "patriotism" has become parody and parody mockery of what it means to be an American.

With the ascent to the presidency, against all odds, of God-Emperor Trump, I just may have to re-think my thinking. 

America may be poised, for a little time, to experience a "re-birth" of freedom.

Thank God!