Like many American’s, I have lately been giving a lot of thought to the question, “ What is wrong with America?” I’ve read a lot about where we supposedly went wrong and brought about our own doom. One set of beliefs is that “Liberals” over spent and have bankrupted our great Christian Nation. Since most of the liberal spending has been to ease the plight of the sick and elderly, it may be impractical, unaffordable or even naive, but I find the idea it is Unchristian confusing. Especially when the counter argument is to protect the rich and powerful because they will look out for the little guy, just like they have done throughout history.

There is also the argument that much of our troubles, especially the natural disasters, are because God is angry at us for Gay Marriage or some other perceived moral failing. I reject the idea that God is punishing us. If that were true Washington DC would be the target, not rural New York. I doubt God’s aim is that bad. But if he is angry and this is his way of showing it, why is it never because we spent billions blowing up innocent people in Iraq? I know, we killed lots of really bad people, but we also crashed a number of wedding feasts and had to apologize afterwards.

Personally, I think the argument that George Bush spent us into the mess we are in now, is just as wrong headed. It took lots of people, including many Democrats to vote through the things that went wrong. “We were lied to” just means you were stupid enough to not do your homework.

So why is America so messed up and so angry? Well, if Anger is just fear in disguise, then we are not really angry, just scared. We are terrified of the other guy, the other idea. So how did we become so frightened?

I think it all traces back to 9/11. We were attacked and unlike World War II, when everyone was given a chance to fight back, to enter the military or the work force, to sit on hill tops and watch for enemy aircraft or at the very least buy War Bonds, we were told to go shopping and ignore the event. People needed to be involved, to be useful. After 9/11, George could have asked everyone to send him $1000 bucks to help pay for the war, and he would have gotten it. The big failure of Bush’s Administration was to not give the American people an outlet to serve. It could have been a totally stupid and useless job, but it would have put us all in the position of sharing the burden. Instead we were shut out and told to go about our lives as if nothing had happened. With nothing constructive to do, we turned to fear.

And then Hate radio took over. Everything the other side did or said or thought was torn apart and explained in the darkest possible motivation.

And Television added to the level of fear in a strange way. Every night we were bombarded with advertisements for medicines. All these did were to remind us of all the horrible diseases out there waiting to kill us in horrific ways. Sure this medicine slows Alzheimer’s or CODP or incontinence or insanity or depression or cancer or heart disease, but it does have a few side effects – like death.

Gee, I wonder why people are feeling insecure about the future?