No, I didn't mean that. Although, that may be a blessing in disguise. I simply meant that we were on the verge or tearing our own society apart, and if that were to happen, we would have no one to blame but ourselves. We are letting this happen. After all:
We live in a country where paranoia runs rampant. 78 years after his suicide, Adolf Hitler is still America's biggest boogeyman. Any unpopular act by our government is immediately associated with history's greatest monsters by media and citizen alike. Invading a country? Hitler did that. You know who else took away guns and organized the people? Stalin. My favorite one so far has been, and I quote, "I saw a movie where only the police and army had guns. It was called Schindler's List."
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| The difference? Moustache. Oh, and a lack of genocide. |
Let's get a few things straight here. Obama has done good things, and he has done bad things. Bush did good things, and he did bad things. The same can be said of presidents, prime ministers, and monarchs throughout history. However, tax hikes and gun control do not warrant comparison to a mass murderer who tried to wipe out entire races and cultures for having inferior genes. Not only is it ignorant and frankly disrespectful, it's dangerous. Our paranoia has grown to the point that nothing our government says is taken at face value. I don't know if it started with the Kennedy assassination or what, but it seems that nothing can happen in this country without a contingency accusing the government of involvement or conspiracy. See 9/11, Benghazi, Kennedy assassination, Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, the BP pipeline rupture, etc. I've always thought it was rather funny that in an age where we know when people go to the bathroom and the POTUS getting a blowjob in the Oval Office becomes national news, anyone could think such a large conspiracy could go unnoticed. The same guy that couldn't pronounce nuclear or strategy organized the greatest false-flag operation in U.S. history? I don't think so.
We live in a country where might makes right. Don't like my opinion? I'll kick your ass. Criticize this country? Our army will come kick your ass. Power in this country no longer derives from the wealth or intelligence of its citizens. It derives from the size of the military and what said military did in X war. Remember when Alex Jones told Piers Morgan that "1776 would happen again?" Case in point. On a side note, here's a riddle. An invading army attacks a country across the ocean. The natives know the land and use that to their advantage to fight off a superior and well-trained fighting force. Meanwhile, on the home front, the war is strongly opposed as some do not want to pay the cost in terms of money or human life, and some even identify with the enemy. The question: did I just describe America in Vietnam or Great Britain in the American Revolution?
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| The original hippie. |
Most of this comes from the anonymity provided by the internet. It's very easy to be threatening or imposing when you're talking to someone on the other side of the world while safe at home in front of your computer. You may not have said anything, but asskicker69 is gonna beat the shit out of that guy. We think it's harmless, but it's not because there is a growing number of people who cannot separate the virtual world from the real world. We can be anyone or anything online, but what have we become?
However, the greatest threat to America, at least in my opinion, is ignorance. Ignorance of history, ignorance of the world around us, and ignorance of other people and their cultures. We live in Huxley's dystopia where the people are passive and obsessed with trivial things like the centrifugal bumblepuppy. We have "news" programs that cover what celebrities are dating, what clothes they wear, and where they're going on vacation. Turn on the news and watch while the ticker mentions riots in Greece and Egypt, civil war in Syria, floods and earthquakes in China, famines and droughts in Africa, and tornadoes in the American Southeast, while the "anchors" gab about food and awards shows. We pray for children in other states that are dying of cancer not because we know or care about them, but because of this invented sense of nationalism. I ask you, who prays for this child:
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| Child killed by military forces in Syria, 2012. |
It's because we don't care. We simplify things, and we ignore them because that's the way the world is supposed to be, according to the general public. Africa is supposed to be full of disease and suffering. People in the Middle East are always fighting and rioting. It's true that such occurrences are common in certain parts of the world, but that does not make them normal or right. But as long as it doesn't affect us and our way of life, it doesn't matter, or so it seems. One of the most offensive things I have ever seen, and I have sadly seen it or more than one occasion, is a bumper sticker that reads "Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11." By that logic, a Muslim would not be wrong in saying "Everything I need to know about Europeans I learned from the Crusades." History provides a much broader perspective on so many walks of life, and a little self-education would go a long way. Instead, we let our preachers, our parents, and our media personalities do our thinking for us. Meanwhile, we meander through our daily lives, concerned with Facebook, swag, and the club. This is not to say that those things are bad; they are a break from the depression that is the real world. More and more, however, the real world is becoming a break from them.
The American Empire will eventually fall, of that I have no doubt. The question is how far that fall will be. History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, and every empire, from the Greeks and the Romans to the Ottoman and the British, has eventually lost its dominance. Who will be our successors? Where will we fit in? I don't know the answers, but I do know that we will get to that end a lot sooner if we don't try to strengthen ourselves from the inside and do away with foolish notions of partisanship, ignorance, and fear. Maybe we need something we can all unite behind. Maybe we need a big wake-up call. Maybe Adrian was right. Maybe we need a giant squid.
"The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury."- Marcus Aurelius
