What has happened to Americans?

What has happened to America? Or, more specifically, what has happened to Americans?

The preamble to our Constitution states that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Would someone explain to me how so many Americans die due to lack of medical care while illegal immigrants get it free? Why can’t we have a national healthcare system? Would someone explain to me who changed the definition of liberty? We are a country of “NO’S.” No smoking, no loitering, no trans fats in any foods in New York and soon it will be nationwide. “No, no, no” has become our national anthem. What’s next? Try to order a dessert at a restaurant and they make you step up on a scale first to determine if you are ALLOWED to have it? After all, obesity is a huge problem in this country and costs us so much in healthcare just like tobacco does. As time passes, rules keep being made by whoever “they” are. Like little ants, we all blindly follow the leader. Will we follow him to our own doom? If they stick their head in the oven, will we do that too?

And happiness. What is that? The pursuit of happiness comes with a set of rules that I cannot begin to fathom. Happiness is allowed only if you conform to some accepted national standard of behavior and anyone who steps out of that little box is labeled odd, or gay, or the wrong color, and persecuted and, therefore, denied their pursuit of happiness.And then, of course, there are those political and religious agendas. Everyone seems to have one. Unfortunately, they all seem to want to share theirs with me when I never asked for them in the first place.

One of our rights, as Americans, is freedom of religion. I never tell people what to believe or if I agree with their religious beliefs because, as an American citizen, I recognize that freedom and respect it. However, other “so-called” Americans do not seem to understand this concept and preach to me how they are right and everyone else is wrong and if I don’t believe it, then I am going straight to hell. Well, I guess I will have a great deal of company if that is true. I have lost track of the hundreds of religious denominations and cults out there. Or could they all be right?Many people deny other people their American rights based on their personal religious beliefs which is, if you think about it, a direct violation of the United States Constitution. If there is freedom of religion, doesn’t it apply to ALL Americans? I know the Constitution pretty well, and I have yet to see anything in it that states that any particular religion has dominion over another in the United States or that it should even be a factor in the governing laws of the land.

One of the great beauties of a democracy is the ability to vote. I am a voter. I research before I vote. I don’t vote a particular party – I vote the candidate on the issues. I am also really tired of the political propaganda – doesn’t matter which party – that clogs my inbox, whether it is from strangers or family members. The thing is that these emails are rampant with incongruities, lies, distortions, illogical reasoning, emotional or logical fallacies, misinterpreted statistics, or are just downright stupid.Isn’t it bad enough that the Internet loads our inboxes with a variety of sex ads, medications, the same tired, old email jokes that we have gotten hundreds of times, the get rich quick schemes, etc… without us also being assaulted by our own friends and relatives with their forwards on religious and political propaganda? If I pulled one hair out for each one of these that I receive, I would be totally bald by now.

I have a very simple political agenda (throw out the two party system and vote in a SMART party of the most brilliant minds in all areas of our knowledge base) and a religious belief which I won’t be sending out in a mass email to everyone in my address book. Perhaps NOT sending out my own personal religious and political beliefs could start a trend of others NOT doing it either.That’s just my opinion and I could be wrong, but this is MY blog, so I get to say what I want!

Thank God we still have freedom of speech. Oh wait. I forgot. “They” are trying to take that away too