In our national anthem, America is proclaimed as "The land of the free and the home of the brave." This may have been true of the War of 1812 when most of the world was not free and a true American was willing to die for his country. Over time "The Land of the Free" has become a faded place in the imaginations of modern patriots. In place of where the old America was, a new land has sprouted up. This land is not a place that the people are willing to die for. This is a place where the east road is the only road and the fighting is not fought with weapons or bombs, but with lawsuits and rules. This place is not even fit enough to be called "America" by those who choose to live there. It should be called "The land of no and the home of the lazy."
At some point after the Second World War, America lost the idea of freedom. There was a population boom and the suburbs exploded like the Ebola virus. There used to be open fields of land as far as the eye could see. Nowadays, you can’t see anything that doesn’t have a fence around it. Everyone lives on private property and is ready to shoot on sight. Modern Americans are no longer all for one and one for all; it’s every man for himself and all for the money. If the people of the Land of No dislike their lives in which they’ve failed so many times they sue, like the people who filed the class action lawsuits at cigarette companies. These are the people who’ve wasted their entire lives smoking products they knew were bad for them, failed to change their bad habits and lead a life that was so disappointing that their only recourse was to sue them because they were dying. Since when are people given money because they’re going to die? Is the dollar any possible remedy for a person who’s led a miserable life? In the Land of No, it is. The plaintiffs who won hundred million dollars from Phillip Morris, will spend the last days of their miserable lives in luxury because they’re going to die, along with over a million people last year who’ll get nothing from their suffering. The only weapon you need in the Land of No is a good lawyer, and no fortification no matter how strong can stop him.
The Land of No, is not a place where rights exist. In place of rights are rules, regulations, loopholes, and outright violations. The Land of No is a place where the leader is chosen not by the majority of the people, but by a system that defies the idea of democracy that people of the Land of No foolishly believe in. The Land of No is a place where the truth can only be seen in a movie theater when accompanied by a guardian. The Land of No is also a place where the smallest originality in any art form is criticized, scrutinized and vilified because it defies the ethics of art they sought out to destroy from the beginning. In this place, policies are made for the rich, by the rich and without care for anyone else but the rich. The media controls people’s perceptions about reality and misleads everyone to believe that you can be rich and be a part of the "civilized" world. The Land of No is where a person’s actions, beliefs, opinions, and thoughts can be made illegal by the government, ignored by the public or swayed by the force of the all powerful media. In the Land of No, the only true freedom is death.
However, worst of all, in the Land of No, individual does not exist. The rich make the laws for the poor to live by. The beautiful people fill up the billboards and TV screen and the ugly people fill up the gyms and plastic surgery clinics. The trendy make millions and the truly original struggle to make ends meet. There are a few hundred movie stars and a hundred million people at desk jobs. Everyone is part of a group, a party, a clique, a faction, a race, a sex, a nationality, a team, or species, but no one is an individual because in the Land of No, you cannot survive without having someone to complain to. The ironic part is that no one is listening. The bum on the city corner has an empty donations cup and the rural farmer has lost his farm because of the government’s regulations on him selling tobacco. We are all numbers in a system of ones and zeros being processed until we die and are recycled into new numbers, a grid for a plot in a cemetery, only two plants per grave.
However, the perception of this country as the Land of No is only looking at America though a dark glass. If we, as a nation are too apathetic to get involved with our government, it is not effective. Instead anarchy should be the philosophy of the individual. Anarchy is not living without any rules, anarchy is living by your own rules, not the moral majority or the public opinion.
It is our responsibility to speak out and to have our voices heard. It is our right and our duty to take a stand for what we believe in because our minds are something that can never be taken away from us. We can stop America form becoming the Land of No if we take a stand so that others will take feed. This is still the home of the brave, so stand.
~Bill R