What's Wrong With This Picture?

Reading the essay on this page may make you angry enough to get involved. If you do become angry and don't know who to point it at, let me know. I can help you write the letters/faxes/emails that will get attention and just may make other people ask 'What's wrong with this picture?'.

Essay by : Jan Noble, 'The Steel Magnolia'

John F. Kennedy said, "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." January 20, 1961.

African-American, Chinese-American, Latin-American. These are terms that I hear on a daily basis. They make my blood boil. I am an American. I am a citizen of the greatest country that this world has ever seen. Yet I see her citizens increasingly put their ancestral countries before the country that shelters and protects them. It is a shameful and unpatriotic practice.

The greatness that is America comes from the unity of her people. People from all over the world have come to America for the chance to live in freedom and make a better life for themselves and their children. They embraced the American way of living free from government intervention, political oppression, or petty warfare. These hard working people loved America and they gave to her their best and most precious gifts.

Freedom and citizenship in America are not free and did not come easily. During our short history, in the greatest moments of our despair, ordinary people from little towns have given of themselves to become extraordinary individuals. These ordinary men and women thought not of their personal sacrifices, but of the land that gave them their life. Freedom in America is based on sacrifice and the giving of yourself for the love of America. Too many people today have forgotten that.

There is a belief being fostered in this country that it is 'okay' to be African-American, Chinese-American, or Latin- American. I say for shame. Any citizen who will not put America first is contributing to the decay and destruction of the very country that allows them the freedom to speak without fear and to think what would not be allowed elsewhere. Again, I say for shame. There is nothing wrong with keeping family tradition alive, we are all from somewhere else. But, these traditions should never come before your allegiance to America.

If you can not give your complete allegiance to this land, then go back to where your family came from and try to live your life as you would here. No such country exists today that would permit this sort of behavior. Only in America are you free. Yet daily are these freedoms under attack.

On a daily basis you will hear class hatred coming from the pulpits of 'churches' whose only purpose is to destroy America. On a daily basis you will hear people saying that America owes them a living. On a daily basis you will see morally degenerate people eating at the fabric of our society. I say for shame.

I fear that my children will not have the freedoms that I knew as a child. I fear that the ignorant will allow the evil to overcome us all. I fear that the uneducated will become the models of our society.

But I also know that America is at her best when things are at their worst. When the hour is darkest, America shines above all. Why? Because I believe in the American people as a whole. The minorities of race, religion, or political persuasion will not triumph because America is stronger than they are. The strength of our people will overcome. In the little towns across America lays a strength of purpose that can not be beaten. This is my belief. This is why I continue to struggle for freedom.

Freedom is not easy or free. What have you done to earn your freedom today? Think, and be uncomfortable with knowing that you have not done your fair share as a citizen of this most wonderful land. This America the Beautiful.

Do you have a topic that grinds your cookies? Send it and I'll post it here if it meets my high standards. :-)))

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If you would like to trade stories, email me at steel_magnolia@mindspring.com

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