America. The Land of the Free. It was the foundation upon which this country was founded. It was once the envy of the world. Could this very concept result in the downfall of America?
When the Founding Fathers envisioned a nation, they dreamed of an enlightened populace that would use their freedom to the better of all. As a check on these freedoms they instituted the Electoral College to insulate the presidency from an uninformed population by have the president chosen, not by popular vote, but by a slate of electors who would, presumably, be better suited to selecting the nation’s leaders.
Well, isn’t that working out perfectly!?
Anyone who has raised children knows the apprehension of leaving them to their own devices for the first time. Tales of wild parties, chaos and general mayhem run through our minds. If you live near any college you know that this possibility is real.
Thankfully, most grow out of this to become responsible adults, but there is still a segment of the population that lacks the intellectual capacity to comprehend that, to quote the first Spider Man movie, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Instead, they continue their carefree lifestyle, claiming it’s their right to do so.
We are a nation of laws. Yet there are those among us who would seek to distort these laws in the name of personal freedom. Instead of being law-abiding citizens, they find loopholes in the laws to their own outlandish ends.
They demand freedom of speech which has allowed them to flood the internet with hate speech and conspiracy theories. The rise of Donald Trump owes its popularity to this very distortion of this freedom. It has allowed unsubstantiated claims and out and out lies to become the force that shapes public policy. Instead of learned people, the enlightened populace our Founding Fathers envisioned, laws are being determined by Alex Jones, Stephen Miller, Brietbart, Q-Anon and Twitter.
Due to gun violence, America has been listed by Amnesty International as a country to be avoided. Yet there are those who insist the Second Amendment allows them unlimited access to any type of firearms they can lay their hands on. They view the phrase “the right to bear arms” as one of the inalienable rights protected by the Constitution. They conveniently ignore the “well regulated militia” phrase because it doesn’t suit their narrow-minded narrative. And they have their defenders among certain legal scholars who believe the Constitution is to be taken literally; that our Founding Fathers foresaw every inevitability and therefore should not be questioned.
And now there is the current pandemic and the issue of masks. By making this a political issue, Donald Trump is once again supporting a divisive topic that has resulted in the deaths of thousands. Because of this, there are those who are refusing to wear mask, claiming some nebulous freedom. So, while many countries are seeing an ability to control the pandemic, it is America, and its claims of freedom that are the cause of the illness running rampant.
Can America survive all this so-called “freedom” or will the desire to Make America Great result in our ultimate downfall?