Don’t Bash My Home

jakewgoldman12 years ago

With the 2012 presidential election coming up, there has been an incredible amount of mudslinging from both sides of the American political spectrum. The Democrats have been coming up with clever ways to label forcing a redistribution of wealth, and have an unorganized and currently irrelevant occupy movement that has yet to inspire anyone to actually DO anything in terms of discourse. Conversely, the Republicans are dead set on making sure the world knows Obama and Marx are synonymous names as far as political positions are concerned and the Tea Party movement has somehow managed to convince half the public that they are the “freedom” party without realizing the hypocrisy that is telling people how to live their lives based on a book that not everyone reads.

Both camps are very determined to make sure that the world knows their candidate of choice for the presidency will provide the answer America needs for all of their difficult questions, meanwhile demonizing the utter shit out of the other party’s poster boy. Folks, I’m not about to tell you I’m pissed off about all of this. All of this is to be absolutely expected during an election year and I enjoy the fodder it provides for comedic analysis. However, I AM The Dapper Dipper, and I certainly AM pissed about something. The thing that keeps continuously annoying me is not the run-of-the-mill trash talking between candidates, the onslaught of pointless four second misinterpreted sound-bites, or even the wave of uneducated voters that have popped up more recently in the electorate. No, the thing I have a problem with is the irreverence everyone seems to have when they decide to go shit-talking AMERICA.

I’m sure if you are a staunch party voter in either the Republican or Democratic voter pool, you are waiting for me to start pointing the finger at the other party like you probably would…but I’m not going to do that. I’m pointing my finger at all of you people that decided to put your political affiliation over your dedication to this country as a citizen. Apparently, a lot of you have forgotten you’re an AMERICAN first and a party voter second. If you have no idea what I am talking about, let me enlighten you.

Democrats, I guess I didn’t think much of your Occupy Wall Street movement at first, and I guess that was somewhat foolish of me. You are absolutely right; OWS has gotten me to really think about a lot of things I had never really considered. One of those things would have to be the degree of disrespect shown by the trendy left when it comes to my country. People ditching work to go protest people working their asses off in a market that is going down the shitter is the opposite of what is going to make this country better. How easy it is to make broad generalizations about how the “system” is broken and needs to be “changed” without offering any semblance of a solution. You honestly think America is broken? Take that sentiment home to your house in Queens that you somehow have managed to afford despite the fact you have taken a day off work to complain about how awful this country has become. Never mind that our poorest people live like kings compared to the poorest in other countries. America is BROKEN. You’re right; the country that provides you the rights to tell it how awful it is to its face and offers you the protection to do so via its constitution is broken. Have fun complaining about the market while you do nothing on the side of the road to fix it.

Republicans, you aren’t getting off easy here either. I know some of you are really pissed off about Obama and the job he is doing. You have every right to, just like the Occupiers have every right to be ungrateful, useless little shits. But livid is not even an appropriate amount of angry to describe how I feel when I hear remarks about how some of you wish Obama was no longer president. I don’t mean removal by losing an election; I mean people honestly wish the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA would be assassinated. Think about that. Regardless of what party you support, or what convictions you have; if you live in America, the president is YOUR president. I don’t care how much you disagree with him, how little you like his policies, or how fucking blatantly racist you pretend to be to convince people you’re a real southerner (which is pathetic). If you wish ill will on the face of our nation, how dare you call yourself a patriot. Does no one remember the national tragedy that was JFK’s assassination? It was a terrible and traumatizing day for Democrats and Republicans. Democrats weren’t upset that a Democratic president was assassinated; they were upset an AMERICAN president was assassinated. Republicans weren’t rejoicing; they were mourning the fact that our commander in chief had been taken from us. So, explain to me how wishing death upon the leader of our nation is supposed to make you seem more American again.

The point I’m trying to make is that we are American first, above and beyond anything else. We are allowed to disagree on our political views. It’s actually encouraged. But it should never make you disrespect the country that you live in and call home. To hear people say that my country is broken, and that my president should be assassinated, makes my red, white, and blue blood boil something hot. MY country is not broken, and regardless of how I register, the president will always be MY president as long as I am an American. The problem here isn’t this beautiful place that gives us so much. The problem is the spoiled people who take so much for granted, on both sides.