We Are Our Enemy and the World Knows It

So a nation:

• Tortures people.
• Rapes women in front of their children.
• Abuses those of a different faith.
• Jokes about all of the above.
• Kills tens of thousands of innocent people.
• Attacks and occupies a nation based on lies.
• Spies on all its allies.
• Destroys its own freedoms.
• Has a government that care about nothing but their own ends.

30 years ago you'd be describing the enemies of the United States throughout history.

But now you're describing us.  We have become our enemy.  We have become the very thing that our soldiers and people have sacrificed and died throughout history to stop.

And people don't think we, or those who say they are our allies, won't be the targets for doing what we are as we once targeted others?

And how long until our allies pull away? Germany has already started talks with Russia. France has been distancing themselves from us. The people of the UK are forcing political change voting in politicians not friendly to the U.S. Scandinavia is no longer acknowledging us. Japan and South Korea are not happy how we're handling things. We betrayed Ukraine. The only nation we support and uses us is Israel.  If you read foreign press, we are the new USSR, and it's depressed and upset the people of the world.

The United States was a symbol of power for freedom. Now we're a symbol for greed, bigotry, and lies. We have politicians and a portion of our citizenry that is ignorant and vocal, that betray all we stand for in advocating war (not defense), guns (not peace), bigotry (not unity), isolationism (not international cooperation), and Christianity (not all faiths).  In other words they betray everything that is founded in our Constitution and for which this nation stands.

These words mean nothing for those people (highlights mine):

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

They even go against the teachings of Jesus, whom they hold so high.  Did he advocate war?  Violence (guns)?  Bigotry?  Or did he teach acceptance, love, caring, healing, and peace?

Romans 14:17-19
New International Version (NIV)
17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 
18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.
19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.

Our fall is having an international cascade effect morally, fiscally, and strategically.  We, more than any other nation, were the hope of all nations, the one they looked to as an example of all that is right with freedom and democracy.  All that was good about diversity in religion, race, and ethnicity was seen in us.  Nations fought wars to emulate us, or fought by our side to work with us.

But now, due to an unheard of level of greed and selfishness, the hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens are letting their nation collapse under them.  They aren't even trying to vote anymore, to make change.  If we give up, not only will we suffer, our children suffer, and our grandchildren suffer, but the entire world will end up suffering.

We all know these words from the Declaration of Independence, words we must now take to heart:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

But now, in this time, we need to heed these words from that same revered document that mean so much more at this time:

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

We must now separate ourselves from the evils that have pervaded our government and return the government to the people, not the corporations or special interests. We must once again put forth for change in our nation and dissolve those political bands who are destroying it in all for their greed and those who care only about serving their selfish ends.  Only by doing so will our Republic be saved.

We must never, ever give up.  No matter how tired, no matter how impossible it seems, no matter what the haters, bigots, greedy, and selfish put before us, we must fight on.  And we must win.  This nation didn't fight wars, didn't see hundreds of thousands die or suffer in wars, for a small group of selfish and greedy people to take control for their own ill gotten ends.  The people must rise up and be heard, be seen.  They must vote.  They must become involved.  They must support the best possible people to surpass the greedy and selfish.  And they must be united, as in our name - the United States of America.