A Stranger in a Strange Land

I got back from a weeklong trip to Canada just this past week, and while I have crossed in and out of this country a great many times this re-entering was different. This time something was wrong. I experienced a lot of things when I was in Vancouver that made me think about my own my country. Where things probably all began was when I was having a discussion about the U.S. with my Canadian and newly acquired French friends. I was having to defend the U.S. (as I usually in some way or another have to do when I am with non-Americans) when everything started to change. At first I readied my normal response: The U.S. (in theory) is a wonderful place that at its heart believes in freedom, responsibility, and good will towards the rest of the world. In essence, it is a good place with good ideas that has been hijacked by crazies. But that started some thoughts going in my head. They were things that had never crossed my mind before and I as crossed the U.S./Canadian boarder it struck me: I am in no way nor have ever been a lover of my country. Now this may sound inflammatory even treasonous; but I assure that it was not a happy or malicious realization. It made me very sad actually.
I still hold by my original “Pro U.S.” argument, about this wonderful ideal that is supposed to encompass the people that live here. I believe whole-heartedly that this idea of unimpeded freedom, universal suffrage and thoughtful responsibility. It is an incredible idea that there could be a nation that embodies all of these things and brings its people regardless of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation and political leanings together and provide them with a space where they can work out their differences, solve problems and build a better place for themselves and their children, but it is just that, an idea. I began reviewing my American History and found that I was right; it had never been that way. I live in a nation that pretends to embody this ideal while proactively suppressing others because of their race, sex, religion, etc. and greedily imposing itself on the have-nots of the world for its own ends. And this is not just a symptom of the few or the powerful. The apathy and inherently hateful attitude that I used to believe was only found in a few Americans is actually found in the majority of them. Even liberals are content with what they have and benefit from the system which, when they are at parties, they say they hate. They still buy brand-America. They still have no problems guzzling gas. Many of them don’t even believe in equality with homosexuals. They do so little, the never fight the fights worth fighting, just the ones that they think they can look good fighting.
There is no magnificent ideology moving America forward in history, just a thirst for more and power that is unquenchable. We hate paying the lowest tax rates of any first world country because it helps people who have not had the pleasure of being able to fuck as many people over to make as much money as we have. We have always fought the expansion of rights. The poor, non-whites, women, homosexuals, non-Christians have never just been handed any political freedom. If this is the greatest democracy in the world, fueled by the wonder of freedom why where these groups not just given the same rights that are endowed to all of us who were “created equally.” The answer is because we are not a country founded on freedom, we never were. If we were this nation that we claim to be our history books would be a lot thinner and there would be fewer dead strewn across the road to liberty. All of these things came to me in an airport in Bellingham, WA. Just 20 miles south of the boarder at 8 in the morning, in a country where someone is hungry, where another species just became extinct, where another person is hopelessly stuck in the chains of poverty, where someone is cold, where someone is sick and doesn’t have access to healthcare, where someone doesn’t have access to a good education, where someone cannot speak their mind for fear of being arrested, and across the globe where another guy my age just got blown up wearing the flag of America on his sleeve.
I am not American, not because I hate anything (or anybody) or out of any kind of affinity for “terrorism”, but because the country I love doesn’t exist and never has. But it was a good idea.