THIS AIN'T MY AMERICA!

This ain't my America!

            Today I watched what was probably a platoon of baton-armed police in Washington DC, the capitol of the United States of America, forcibly try to keep veterans from going to someplace in the district.  Although I didn't live through the experience personally, I know a lot of people that lived through the years just before World War Two, in Germany.  What they have described over the years sounded exactly like what I saw on TV today.  THIS AIN'T MY AMERICA!   A government, driven by the most spiteful person ever to claim the title of President of the United States, and to succeed in inflicting pain upon Americans, to either prove a political point, or to gain a political advantage.   THIS AIN'T MY AMERICA!

            Our first president, George Washington was offered the title of King, and he turned it down because he, and the other Founding Fathers, knew what life was like under a king, under a person who had little or no regard for his subject.  Washington said, "A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."  He knew that ignorance and apathy would allow a despot to gain control of the government, and that the Republic for which he and others had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, could be stolen away.  We, the people, are responsible for what happens, and what has happened to this country.  What we have now...THIS AIN'T MY AMERICA!

            It seems that almost any display of patriotism is either frowned on by officials or, as has happened many times already, it's been made illegal!  There are places where American flags, even when they are displayed inside the house, if they are visible from the street, may be against some homeowner's association's by- laws.  Open-air monuments, even those where there is NO security ever, have been barricaded, or as one guy put it, those are "barry-cades".  This wannabe-dictator has even closed off portions of the ocean!  You cannot drive near enough to Mount Rushmore to take a decent picture, and it's obvious that the closures are selected

to inflict the most pain on my fellow countrymen.  I salute the veterans who went to war, gave their lives, or came home wounded...and then are treated rather shabbily by a president who is, in my opinion, the most despicable of men.  THIS AIN'T MY AMERICA!

            On the show I sometimes refer to a Latin phrase which is the unoffical slogan of the US Navy.  It is Non Sibi Sed Patriae, and it means Not Self, But Country.

and if more of us thought of the country first, and ourselves second, and our political affiliation last, we would have a chance of regaining the glory and the prestige

that this country once had.   To see once-magnificent cities, like Detroit, become like war zones in Europe following the war, because greed overcame integrity and

cronyism overcame common sense and courage makes me ill.   Our current president has shown that he is not the man for the job but acts like a little kid when the game doesn't go his way, so he wants to take his ball and go home.  Frankly, I wish he WOULD go home...wherever that really is.   What's going on now, when history is written, people will say "how did you let this happen?"   I say it again Folks, hoping it will bring you to your feet.  Like that actor in the movie "Network", go to the window, stick your head out and yell "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"...because THIS AIN'T MY AMERICA!

            LARRY USOFF, US NAVY RETIRED