I've liked most of what I've read from you, but we part ways here.
I didn't like what America had become, and expected to like it even less as the years passed, and chose to expatriate in the early 2000s. By 2009, we were ready to retire and leave. Staying there would have been a sacrifice. And voting wasn't an option for a registered Democrat in rural Missouri. I was purged from the voter rolls the last two times I had tried to vote.
I really didn't want to stay, and obviously voting is even more pointless when you're turned away than when you're not, which I also consider pointless except at the local level. You can still decide on a bond for your county democratically, or the library's hours, but voters have no say in national politics anymore. Nobody cares what the American people want at the federal level.Do you want a war ended.Tough. Do you want the Senate to call witnesses? Too bad. Do you want the national debt reined in? Good luck with that. It's just a dog and pony show now to give the appearance of democracy and the false impression that the voter has a say so he can feel included and empowered when he is neither.
Even if I was allowed to vote, I wouldn't any longer since I just don't believe that the elections are honest any longer, nor do I believe that the voters choose the president, for example. I am extremely suspicious of what it means that Congress has not done its due diligence to secure the election since the Putin thing. You have to ask yourself why. I think the answer is obvious, and I just am not interested in playing that game.
And you are literally asked to pledge allegiance to that piece of cloth. Consider the words: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America" You might say that that is not meant literally - that the flag is a symbol of the nation, and you are actually pledging allegiance to the nation, not the cloth symbol.
But then, a few words later, you're instructed to pledge allegiance not just to the flag, but also "and to the republic for which it stands."
Even when I felt allegiance to America, I never felt allegiance to the flag, and I felt ridiculous saying otherwise.
And I also think it's unwise to assume that America will tolerate an immigrant exercising the right to protest for much longer. One cannot use the examples of the past to predict the future. The number of people willing to die for her right to protest is waning as the number that would ask her too die for attempting to exercise it is on the rise.
Those people fought for and died for a different country than what America is now. I loved that country, but not this one.
Perhaps this America should have a new anthem and flag so that people could show their disrespect for what America has become without including disrespect for what it once was.
