The Highway.com

“If you don’t like it, leave.” the words always cut to the core of my being. The cold cruel arrogance of a person stripping another of a voice, an opinion, I always believed was in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of our great nation. Yet whenever I express my concerns for the government, my government, waging an unjust war against an insignificant despot half way around the world in revenge for the actions of another, I am typically shown the door, the border, by its more conservative elements.

The Door

(March 16, 2003)

Three years ago I embarked on a journey of faith against a “my way or highway” religion calling itself Christianity. I took the latter out of deep conviction and love for God and respect for the message of the man I gladly call Christ. In my wildest dreams I never expected to be asked to do the same in my country, yet this is exactly what I am being told against everything I have been taught.

Am I not an American citizen?

Do I not pay my taxes?

Do I not have the right to complain about my government as I feel it is necessary ?

Yet I am told I am a traitor no longer deserving to live in the country I love. I am likened to the a spoiled, selfish, soft, wishy-washy liberal who is never satisfied. I am told I am a chronic complainer, who has nothing better to do with his time. I am told my voice does not count. Is this what The United States of America has become, a reflection of the very things that compelled me to leave an oppressive religion bent on world domination? Is my country no longer the place where one of the “huddled masses can yearn to be free?” Am I to surrender my good conscience for the sake of social conformity? Am I to be taxed without feeling properly represented, told that I am too stupid to know what is for the greater good?

The very thing that has made my country great are the people who live here, not afraid to say what is on their minds, to argue, debate, protest injustice wherever it may be. I for one will never leave its borders, will always pledge my allegiance to the most basic of principles represented by its flag. I will forever endorse and support those that will fight and die for it, as I would do if asked. I am proud to be an American, even when not proud of my current government that would call me ”the unwilling,” its conservative right who would tell me to leave. This is my home, and here I will stay. This is my voice, and I will use it as my good conscience dictates. This is not religion. It is politics, and in the United States of America no law abiding citizen should EVER be shown the door.