Crying For My Country

By Semperpapa

July 4th, 2012.
This is my 32th Independence Day celebration since I had the immense blessing to be able to come to the United States as just another immigrant, a legal immigrant.
It was a year long grueling process, but worth every minute and every cent of the effort, because the prize at the end of the story was the fortune of becoming an American.

In the time preceding my departure from Italy, there was another aspect of my effort I had to deal with on the part of my peers: derision.
It was the days when Jimmy Carter was President, and throughout the world, and in Italy too, United States had lost the respect it had taken so much blood and treasure to gain. Many arguments were started and finished with friends and family about why I would want to leave Italy and come to the States.

In reality, the prospect of being able to build a life for myself was the driving force. Building a life where I would be able to reach the level of comfort and self reliance I wanted according to the amount of hard work I was willing to engage in. The alternative was to remain in a country where any potential future was tied to luck, cronyism and a class position dictated by false social standards.

But my fortune did not stop there. The year following my arrival into a country with double digit inflation and unemployment, America elected Ronald Reagan as President.
I was not able to ever vote for Reagan as I became a U.S. citizen in 1985 after his re-election, but I wish I could have. During President Reagan's time, this young man who spoke no English and who came to a new world with less that $200 in his pocket, was able to find employment, get married and have a daughter, and start a family and a truly meaningful and self reliant life.

And the United States was once again respected in the world.

In comparison, almost all those who had expressed their derision toward my choice back in Italy, were still living with their parents unable to find meaningful and sustained employment. The handful of those who did accomplished it via cronyism and in any case leaving Sicily for northern Italy anyway.

Today I cry for my country. The changes I have seen in the last 32 years are astonishing and depressing.

In those days, no person would care if the celebration of the 4th of July included fireworks. Today we have radical individuals who accuse the behavior of being war-like and therefore should be abolished.
All the while, an out of control federal regime is preventing a city in Oregon to conduct their annual firework display because some sea birds may be affected.

In those days, the produces we bought at our supermarkets were grown in central California, just as were the produces being enjoyed by millions of people across the world.
Today, the same areas have been reduced to mere arid deserts by government environmental terrorism that placed the discomfort of a two inch fish above the livelihood of millions.

In those days, our school children recited the Pledge of Allegiance as a mere form of respect toward the history of our Nation.
Today, just trying to show a child the need to respect our country is called indoctrination.

In those days, the presence of the Ten Commandments, or the Nativity at Christmas, or even the Christmas tree was just a distant historical reference to the Judeo-Christian roots of our Nation, while today the same symbols are used by radical individuals as a tool to erode the very fabric of our country.

But possibly the most disturbing difference I see is the classification of our society.
In those days, I never felt that our population was distributed into social classes. One of the most attractive aspects of American society for me was the absence of such compartmentalization.
I come from a country where social classes are diseases people live and die from. Being born in a certain class is a stigma that follows the individual from the moment he/she comes out of the womb to the moment they are put in their grave. It is a prison that no amount of hard work, intelligence and dedication is able to eradicate.
If one was born within the high class, regardless of the level of dysfunction they exhibited, they would be revered and respected. Being born in the middle class kept you pretty much confined within the boundaries of that class, never capable to aspire to anything that did not conform. Being born in the lower class meant a stigma that would follow you for ever.

When one is born into such environment, it is very difficult to look at the issue with a discerning eye. We are used to the system and to survive within we must accept it. My personal problem was that I could not accept it and fought against it every occasion. Of course, I could not influence such an embedded dysfunction, so I had the chance and fortune to come to a country where I could escape from it.

With time and much learning, I have reached my understanding of what the whole purpose of that system was. The government and the power forces of that country, from the local to the national, thrive on such classification, because the old strategy of "divide and conquer" is absolutely a must in order to control the masses and impose your will on them.
If you want to gain the favors of the lower class, you pin them against the high class.
If you want to gain the favor of the middle class, the most populous, you pin them against the high and the low classes.
There has never been, to my knowledge, any socio-political force in Italy that has attempted to bring down the walls of social division between people. No government wants that, because a united people will not stand for the abuses that the corrupted politicians perpetrate against the people.

So today, July 4th 2012, I cry for my country, the United States of America.
The changes I have seen in the last 32 years are said to be "progress" for our society. And I cringe. And cry.
Is it progress that patriotism and love of country is continuously attacked as jingoism?
Is it progress that any religious symbolism is attacked and removed, regardless of its innocuousness?
Is it progress that the political leadership creates, fosters and exploits hatred between groups of Americans just for the mere seeking of political power?
And is it progress to systematically attack and circumvent the Constitution?

I am sorry, but if racial hatred is progress, than I want nothing to do with it.
If pinning the less financially endowed citizens against those who are called rich progress, you can keep it!
Why do I cry for my country? Because I have seen the results of divided citizenry on the lives of the people, I have seen the mediocrity of life such divisions bring and it is destructive.
Allowing the government to put a wedge between groups of people is subscribing to the demise of a society.

America was somewhat immune form this menace, mostly because our system used to place greater importance on the power and freedom of the individual.
When the individual is free to live his life in the manner of his choosing, with minimal intrusion from political entities, the individual is more apt to come together with the community when it is necessary, when the Nation requires it.

Today we have a government that thrives on blacks against whites, citizens against illegal aliens, rich against not-so-rich, men against women, and all for the purpose of gaining that block of people votes and gain power.
We have a government that boasts of the record number of Americans who are forced to depend on government aid. Is this progress too?
The main purpose of a government should be the protection of its citizens from foreign and domestic enemies and the creation of an environment that would foster the self-realization of each citizen.
That was the truth behind the Constitution, and that is the goal of the current regime for dismantling.
And I cry for my country
It used to be a stigma to be considered a Marxist in America until we elected one as President. I guess it is also progress that people affecting the lives of American citizens on a daily basis, are openly embracing Socialist ideology and vehemently try to impose their anti-American ideology upon the rest of the country.
Well, not the progress I want for my country.

Yes, I cry for my country, as my and everyone's liberties are taken away with the excuse that it is for my own good, that some pompous, elitist politician knows best what mine or my family needs are.

And I cry for my country because so many of its citizens do not see any problem with such a large percentage of Americans being forced to be dependent on the government for their livelihood.
The government is destroying the individuality of the American people, a gift that the Constitution gave us and a trait that has allowed this Nation to be exceptional in spite of its short history.

Just my thoughts!