We Are Failing at Freedom Yet Succeed in Spite of the Failure

Ah!  The Land of the Free!  Milk and Honey and Racial Profiling and Economic Disparity!

Everyone wants the freedom to express oneself but we don’t want to have to deal with views that may upset or offend us in any way.  We can offend others but have no patience with being offended ourselves.

We want freedom of enterprise but bitch about paying the taxes (or, better yet, refuse to pay them) that support the opportunities to do so.

We want the freedom to choose our leaders by election but refuse to play along should we find ourselves on the losing side. 

This is a country of 300 million individuals who want their goddamned way and are not interested in affording the necessity of compromise or the responsibility of conceding zealotry in order for the machinery to function.  This is a nation of children, content to scream and stomp their feet until it becomes so onerous that the frazzled adults in the room give way just to have some peace and quiet.  This is a sovereign land filled with millions of minute versions of The Jerry Springer Show.

This is a place of 300 million Others.

Americans buy lottery tickets that pay for public schools in the hopes that they can send their kids to private schools. 

Americans wear sexy, revealing clothing but shame you publicly and call you a part of rape culture if you notice.  

Americans socialize their children to compete in sports and disdain the learning of facts and then shriek in surprise that the school system squirts out jocks who can barely read.

Americans kill each other in record numbers 95% of the time then focus all of their attention on the less than 5% of the gun murders committed by less than 0.08% of the police.

Americans complain about immigrants taking the jobs they wouldn't do in the first place. 

Americans elect a politically savvy but unlikeable woman and a fucking moron with charisma to compete for the highest land in the country yet blame the media for it.

Americans work eight to twelve hours a day and still find time to volunteer at a local food pantry. 

Americans march in the streets in either celebration of holidays or ethnic culture or in protest of injustices in need of addressing.

Americans create art and write poetry and perform plays and musicals that mean something and reflect both the times and the timelessness of great artistic pursuit. 

Americans are the authors of chattel slavery and the last hope against the Third Reich, the designers of both the Atom Bomb and the Civil Rights Act, the thieves of native lands and the inventors of the Internet.  They are Studs Terkel and Roger Ailes, Hedda Hopper and Maya Angelou, Charles Bukowski and R. Kelly, Ann Coulter and Melissa Harris-Perry.

Americans are both the failure of their Grand Experiment and the success in spite of the failure.