The Land Of The...Free?
I sit in front of the television with a nice bourbon watching our national anthem being sung ahead of the NFC Championship game and don’t feel the usual pride that comes along with hearing it, only anger.
I feel anger about what is being taken from us. I feel anger about the lies from our elected leaders and their appointees, who all swore oaths to serve us, the people, and uphold our constitution.
It would be easy for me to ride the middle and say there’s good and bad on both sides. And while that is true, we are beyond such concessions when you take a step back and consider these specific current events from a human standpoint.
We are seeing people gunned down in the streets who posed no actual threat to the masked federal agents shooting them with impunity. We are seeing detainees dying in ICE facilities of neglect or at the hands of their officers and surviving horrible conditions with shocking hygiene and personal health standards. We are seeing agents grab people at homes, schools, workplaces, and immigration courts based on skin color and accents rather than breaking up the dangerous gangs and cartels they promised.
No matter which party was in charge I would condemn these actions and it just so happens that our current government is nearly unified in majority support across all branches for our President. I don’t write these words lightly, some of you reading this might be angry with me, and that’s okay. We as Americans have the right to disagree, as well as freedom of speech, assembly, and protest which must be protected at all costs. Maybe that’s why it is the FIRST amendment in our Bill of Rights.
We all should take a step back and stop using the names of these people for political motives. They weren’t domestic terrorists and they aren’t martyrs, they were simply people that deserve to still be breathing and staying warm with their families during this frigid winter for our country.
Dedicated to the memory and families of:
Alex Pretti
Geraldo Lunas Campos
Renee Nicole Good
Keith Porter
Victor Manuel Diaz
Genry Ruiz Guillén
Leo Cruz-Silva
Santos Reyes Banegas
Silverio Villegas Gonzalez
Chaofeng Ge
Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas
Maksym Chernyak
Ismael Ayala-Uribe
Marie Ange Blaise
Roberto Carolos Montoya Valdes
Isidro Perez
Jocelynn Rojo Carranza
And all others who have wrongfully lost their lives.