Josh First's Blog

I love you, America

Writing negative headlines and about negative subjects burns out a person. Tough to outswim the drowning pool of negative politics, negative culture wars, negative attacks on individual liberties.

We naturally want to be positive, to enjoy some humor, to laugh, to be human, natural, not consumed with unhappiness and unease.

Tough luck, as our civilization wallows in materialism and the fantasy that the bank account is always full. Fact: Our national bank account in every way is empty, and the overdrafts are eating us up. Result: Unhappy people, anxious people, worried and fretful people. All they built and contributed towards is being pulled under in the drowning pool.

The fact that a black president is leaving office with a legacy of racist riots he has stoked is really sad. How can we get excited about politics and culture when every day we see this man, Hussein Obama, so full of love for himself, and yet so full of acid hate for America?  He hates my love. He hates what I love.

See, I love America. When I see our flag waving passion wells up in my chest and my throat, because it fills me with pride. When I see people so consumed with hate for all I love, well, it leaves me unhappy.

And yes, I categorically reject that most racist of all racist assertions: I am happy because of my “white” privilege. My skin tone has nothing to do with my thinking. The only people who think it does are racists.

Have you seen the video of the Black Lives Matter racists swarming a college library, assaulting Caucasian kids and attacking them for being racist, because they are “white”?  That right there is the very definition of racism. Pretty much only one place this can all end, and it isn’t good. Racism is just bad stuff. When the racists themselves accuse others of racism, then it is doubtful that the love can flow. The hate is, well, it is the old racialist hate that is tough to stamp out.

Where the heck is “Let the Love Shine“ from Aquarius, with those big Afros? What happened to Cat Stevens‘ Peace Train?

True, I am add libbing here, taking some liberties with the words and metaphors, but if you are reading this, you know why. That 1970s sense of universal love being just around the corner was pretty strong then.

Loving people know this, and they know better, but they seem to stand by and say little, if anything, while the drowning pool picks up momentum.

I love America. I love my fellow citizens, with all their various skin tones and viewpoints. Genuinely, I love them, because their optimism and hope for a good future is the righteous inspiration America always ignites.

Hopefully, one prays, the old Biblical passages about hate turning to love will come true, soon. America is a wonderful nation, pretty close to a perfect nation, certainly the best nation of all that ever were or ever will be. It is worth holding together.  I hate hate; I hate racism.

I love you, America.  Good luck, honey.