The world according to me

First of all, who is this Scott Moses guy, and who in the hell does he think he is? I mean, what is this nonsense about “not wanting to go to war” and “being opposed to people dying”? To boot, what is all this “people should be held accountable for their beliefs and opinions?” I mean, where does this guy think he is? We’re not talking about accountability. We’re not talking about saving lives. We’re talking about the American people.

We’re talking about saving freedom. We’re talking about the right to the American way of life: the right not to read if we don’t want to, the right not to like colored people if we don’t want to, the right to support our president and our military just as long as we don’t have to go do it ourselves, the right to fatten our kids, the right to hate people from other countries when they think different from us, the right to stone, to drag through the dirt, to shoot at point-blank range anyone who says anything against the American way, the right way, my way.

George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, FDR – they were great Americans, and they gave us this country by giving us freedom, by giving us the right to live in a free society. Scott Moses – he’s just a communist and a no good traitor. He hates America. He just sits there in his little room, typing away on his little computer, whining about the stupid environment, crying over the injustices of the world, enjoying the freedom that our boys are fighting for in Iraq.

Scott Moses, why don’t you just pack up your bags and head on over to France where you belong. Head on over there and don’t come back, because if you don’t want to go to war, if you aren’t willing to kill some Iraqi’s who are just waiting to bomb the U.S. of A., if you aren’t willing to be patriotic and declare that the United States is the greatest, most righteous and God-fearing nation on the planet, a nation with more love and hope for the human spirit than any other place in the universe, then you don’t have the right to be an American.

If you’re not willing to change your ways, Scott Moses, if you don’t put a flag outside your front door, if you don’t buy a Ford, eat steak and drink beer everyday, why then you’re the enemy. You’re one of Saddam’s little henchman, just waiting to destroy America, just waiting to blow up everybody.

I realize it is virtually impossible to be sarcastic; therefore, I would like to state that I am not anti-American, I am not a supporter of Saddam Hussein, I do not believe all pro-war supporters to be as ignorant as I made them out to be above, and, most importantly, I am not opposed to the ideals on which the United States was founded. In fact, I hope that one day a real America, an America that embodies that which it has written down on paper, will emerge from the crumbling structure of the present-day Western world.

I am scared, as we all should be. Last week, I read an article discussing the indifference of SMU students to the war, and I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke. I wondered how (even in this Highland Park cesspool of luxury) could anyone be indifferent or, even worse, unaware of what is going on in the world right now.

Everything, and I mean absolutely everything, has the potential of being destroyed. Everything that you and I take for granted, all the little and seemingly insignificant daily experiences of our lives, are being put at risk as we speak. What is one way we can fight against this impending destruction of civilization? We can choose not to go to war. We can repress our arrogance and apparently strong desire to exert our superiority over the rest of the world (including our allies).

We can listen. We can take a step back and decide on a new world order, a world that does not allow war. We can even make it our mission to end war around the world, to end genocide, to end hunger, to end the destruction of Africa and the Middle East – and not at the risk of the American people, but for the sake of the American people, for the sake of America, the very idea of America.

If anything, we must not submit to ignorance. We must not submit ourselves to creating black-or-white binaries. We must not create more enemies; we must unify ourselves in the common goal of freedom, not freedom for the American people, freedom for everyone.

You think I’m ridiculous. You think I am foolish and naive. You think I’m an idealist, that I live in a fantasy world. But I live in the same world as you, and I am scared just like you. I worry just like you. I also believe in something better, just like you.

If we hope to progress, if we hope to enjoy rich and fruitful lives, lives spent in freedom and justice, we as Americans must realize that we are our own worst enemy. The inability of Americans to join with each other and with the rest of the world in an attempt to improve and to protect the lives of all human beings is our greatest failure, and our greatest weakness.

In closing, not wanting to go to war and not supporting an administration that I, as a citizen of the United States, do not perceive as fulfilling its role as the leader of the free world, does not make me un-American.

We must go to war, the war against our own ignorance.