One often reads on handmade signs, especially during
right wing protests marches…
“America: love it or leave it”
the implication is obvious, first you cannot live in America without
loving it and the second implication is that the sign holder loves
America… more then the target of the sign… and the target of the
various love America or leave it signs is quite often liberals…
once again, the implication is conservatives “love” America more then
liberals…a dubious statement at best…
and several thoughts should come to mind when reading something
like “America, love it or leave it”…
love it… what part are we loving? it is quite clear that there are parts
of America that conservatives hate. If you hate something that is American,
you certainly don’t “Love America”… Conservatives clearly hate anything
that is different then them… conservatives fight for intolerance of
people… for example, conservatives make their intolerance for
gay people well known…conservatives cheered when immigrants
were placed into concentration camps with children being separated from
their parents…the right wing was quite pleased…why?
Because the conservative believes in and practices bigotry and prejudice…
so according to conservatives, to be an “real” American, one must practice
bigotry and prejudice against anything that is “different” from you…
so let us see exactly what conservatives have cheered about IQ45…
He has engaged in bigotry and prejudice against black people,
the handicap, women, Mexicans, several countries in Africa,
homosexuals, reporters, the American intelligence agencies,
and several news organizations… the fake news mantra……
and still IQ45 holds a 90% approval rating among in the GOP…
quite clearly, the conservative base of the GOP approves of
bigotry and prejudice against a wide variety of people
and organizations…so, when a conservative person,
says, to either “love America or leave it” are we talking
about “love” and approving of bigotry and prejudice against
a wide variety of people and organizations?
Is part of the criteria for being an American as conservatives claim, by
engaging in the prejudice against others?
is this engagement with the lower emotions of hate, anger, prejudice,
lust, greed…all part of “loving America”? As defined by conservatives?
as of right now, the right is engaged in a love affair with Putin…
everything Putin does is great because IQ45 is Putin’s lap dog…
does that mean to “love America” requires us to love Russia?
is it also quite obvious that the right wing hates democracy…
the right wing has been actively engaged in denying millions of
Americans the right to vote by “cleansing” voter rolls but
only in area’s that have a black dominated voting area’s or
minorities based area’s… good old white suburbs don’t get
cleansed because that is where the GOP voters are and that is
what this is all about… making sure that people who might
vote against the GOP is prevented from voting…
is this also part of the “love America or leave it” part where
people are denied the right to vote…to vote, which has been
and is now the sole benefit of being an American… we hold that
by being Americans, we shape our future by being able to vote
and “throw the bums” out… but if we are denied the right to vote,
then we are denied the right to be fully Americans… is that the
part I am supposed to “Love it or leave it”…
Preventing millions of Americans from being able to vote? is
that the reason for our “great experiment” in democracy that
the founding fathers engaged in, to prevent people from voting?
no, at every step of the way, the expansion of voting rights have
become the stepping stone to a better America… as restrictions to
voting were lessen, from property rights being the sole ability to vote,
to women voting and then finally minorities being to vote…we have
seen the expansion of voting rights as making America a better place and
now? and now, the right has begun to restrict voting rights in some vain
attempt to hold onto power… is this the America I am suppose to love?
the point of a democracy is to have free and open elections in which
everyone votes… and if we deny this basic American right, then
how are we advancing the question of democracy? the advance of democracy
must be an increase, not in the restrictions of the number of people voting,
the increase in the number of people voting…
so, how else am I “suppose” to love America?
am I suppose to endorse this idea of income inequality?
in other words, part of to “love America or leave it” also
mean I must support the fact that 300 people own
90% of the wealth in this country?
I have state my support for democracy, a political system where the
majority rule… how can I support a system, an economic system where
the vast majority of wealth is held by a very few people… is that
the loving of America I am supposed to do? millions of people live
in abject poverty and a few hundreds live in wealth unimagined…
is that the majority based America that we live in?
oh, Kropotkin, the political system has nothing to do with the economic
system, two entirely different things… really?
the original basis of America was to create a country that wasn’t dominated
by the wealthy few or the autocracy/king…where we were free to
live in a majority based society where we would be free to make our
own decisions impacting our own lives………
but, do we live in a majority based system where we can freely
decide upon our fate?
that is the tyranny that our founding fathers spoke of…
when we cannot freely make decisions about the nature of
and what kind of lives we want… then we do not live in
a American that our founding fathers envision………
if we are held hostage by big business that buy and sell congressmen,
then we do not live in a America that has freedom of choice…
for the choices we have are given to us by those who own
the means of production…in other words, the choices we are left
with in our choice driven systems is simply the choice of what kind
of cereal I can buy or what car can I drive? I don’t have a real choice
in the political system because those who are suppose to represent me,
work for big business because big business buys these politicians for millions…
and my economic choices are limited by big corporations to the choice that
they will allow… I have no choice politically and I have no choice economically…
thus I have no choice… and choice was the basic, fundamental freedom offered
to us in the original system of America……
if we are not allowed to vote and we are not allowed to have abortions
and we are not allowed to have gay marriage… and this is the agenda
of the right, to remove choices, then what exactly are they saying,
“Love America or leave it”… once again they are saying, your choices
are only given if, if I conservative America agrees……
that is what the sign says…
“Love the America that I approve of or leave it”
that is the real message of those handwritten signs at rally’s
you can only love the America I approve of… so says the conservative
Kropotkin