I recently received an email from a very good friend containing an essay purported to be written by Jay Leno. My favorite thing to do, when I receive email forwards of this kind, is to head over to Snopes and find out whether or not it's bunk. Despite my overwhelming feeling that the essay was a load of crap (as was the idea that it was penned by Jay Leno) I decided to let it slide. Perhaps out of love for and deference to my friend. I don't know.
This morning, I was visiting another of my favorite web locales, Obscure Store, when I came across this article. I clicked through, as I am wont to do, and read. And then I cried. I can't recall when a news article has ever made me cry. And then I started to think.
I was forwarding the article on to my girlfriends when I remembered the email I had received containing the "Jay Leno essay" and it made me angry. Not because of my subsequent discovery that the diatribe, in fact, had not been written by Jay Leno. No, it was because the author, for it is a real essay, had the audacity to tell the American people to shut the hell up and quit complaining. Combined with the article from this morning it was just too much.
So I got up on my soapbox for a quick minute. An act I will now repeat (with an excerpt from my email to the gals). I'm not trying to be a big downer for you all today, but I read this article this morning and it made me cry--news articles rarely do that to me.
It made me think about a lot of things. About the war and the real cost, a cost that we've become desensitized to. Just because young men and women volunteer to serve in our armed forces doesn't mean that when they die in battle their loss is any less tragic or that we don't have an obligation to question whether it was preventable.
I thought about the importance of participating in our upcoming election. And about how, sometimes, the most important thing you can do as a citizen is voice your dissatisfaction and never be complacent with the status quo, even when the status quo seems pretty comfortable.
We may have a lot of advantages here in the U.S. and for those things, I am sure, most Americans are genuinely grateful. I know I am. But having all of these advantages does not mean we don't have a right to complain and to protest when our government--a government of the people, by the people, for the people--does not heed the voice of its people. If anything, our advantages ensure our obligation to do just that because our government is nothing without its people. Our advantages become shackles when they're used to placate or silence our dissent.
Another Obscure Store reader put it thusly:I am patriotic, almost insanely so; my family have been warfighters for our country since its inception. Our government was designed to promote free speech and thought, and to be by the will of the people. But our government has made that difficult, maybe even impossible. Blind faith is for religion, not for government. I want people to stand up to our government, I want people to protest, I don't want "yes men" in the government. Burn my beloved flag if you must. Protest is what keeps a government honest (at least as much as that may be possible) or at least on its toes.
And now, once again, I step down from my soapbox.
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