As a child, I was always taught about the great country that we live in. I was taught to have national pride. The idea of “the American Dream” was ingrained into me at a young age. I listened to everything the adults of my small world taught me. I watched my family, friends’ parents and teachers elect government officials and my world was perfect. As a child, the United States of America was perfect.
In kindergarten, my utopia morphed into a dystopia in a matter of hours. My world was no longer like a scene from a Coke commercial. I began paying attention. I realized adults do not have all of the answers. I realized my parents and so many other parents were confused, angry, and afraid. I watched as airplanes struck down the Twin Towers. However, I also watched the country I love so much come together and stand up in solidarity against an enemy during a time of confusion, hatred and fear. In kindergarten, my country was invincible.
Since kindergarten, I watched as that invincibility crumbled around us. I have observed my country falling into a dilapidated state of self-worth. I have been watching the country I love so dearly lose its image of being a unified front. Since kindergarten, I have been told I am too young to understand.
In my lifetime, I have observed people sport accessories discrediting the country that he or she is residing in. I have observed people fight tooth and nail for illegal aliens and for a more lenient process for harboring refugees from the very area that we have been in a War on Terror with. I have observed people, of every religion, afraid to openly express their beliefs due to the ramifications of doing so. In a country where one was once proud to be a citizen and willing and ready to defend her against one wrong word, we have become full of people too afraid to offend our enemies at the cost of remaining in a stagnant downward spiral. In my lifetime, I have watched as my country has lost her glimmer.
I have grown up a patriot before anything else. I love my country and I believe America is the greatest country in the world. It has become increasingly apparent that this is not normal or even accepted in today’s society. We have illegal immigrants, illegal being the operative word, who do not feel comfortable reciting the pledge of allegiance, so in response, the governing body of our country has removed it from public schools. Suddenly, it has become politically incorrect if I get upset when I see a citizen of this great country sporting attire at their workplace that says “America Was Never Great.” When in actuality, the previous statement insinuates that the War on Terror is unfounded and that the terrorist attacks in our country are warranted. That statement implies that our enemies are correct in targeting our borders.
As someone who considers herself a devout patriot of our country, what I look for in a government official and the faces of our country is someone who will benefit our country’s current situation. I do not care what party he or she is necessarily affiliated with as long as they do their job and do it well. Recently, I have observed our country elect representatives and expect certain results of some sort from those choices. However, our elected officials have been nothing more than figureheads for the past several terms. So then we become unhappy with the first term, but we still continue to reelect the same representatives because we have become comfortable.
“We the people,” are the three words beginning our Declaration of Independence. We want freedom of speech and religion, but more importantly than that, we want to be able to grow old in a country where we feel protected from foreign enemies. We do not want to continue living in a country where we live in fear of not only our foreign enemies but in fear of our domestic ones as well. We, as a nation, do not stand up for the very rights that are defended in our Bill of Rights. We are not proud of what our country has become, yet we do nothing to change it. "We the People," can accomplish anything if we can find it within our ranks to band together and state what we want.
