American values

Here's a post on his feelings for this country from Dan Simmons (www.dansimmons.com), who, as a writing demigod, naturally says it better than I could:

"I said earlier that I loved the United States of America, but that’s a bifurcated love – one part of it for the physical places and people I’ve known, the other – deeper love – for the ideas upon which America was established and which so many have sacrificed to maintain for more than two centuries now. Those ideas and ideals – the primacy of individual human liberty over the power of any state or aristocracy, the attempt to provide real equal opportunity for all people, the need for real freedom to choose so many things including one’s religion (or lack of) – all expressed in the Declaration of Independence, in the U.S. Constitution, in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and in other indelible statements and actions -- are what make me love the United States. As interesting as other nations are in their diverse ways, I’ve found no other nation on earth that was established to create, and which continues to embody, a set of universal principles of human freedom and opportunity and dignity the way the United States does."

What he said. Which is why I've been so unhappy with the "leadership" of this country for such a long time. Instead of being what we should be, a shining beacon of reason, justice and freedom for everyone, we now torture, kill, and destroy in places where we have no business being. It offends decency. It is shameful. We need to take our country back from the ugly powermongers who have hijacked it, and have those at the top represent the wishes of the people, instead of their backroom moneyed agendas.