Author: Anon No Mouse
My family and I have been living in Portugal for half a year. In that time, I’ve never once even brushed against the feeling of regretting my decision to come here. If I have any regrets, it’s that I didn’t do it years ago.
However, years ago, America’s shine and luster was still visible. Scratched and soiled by the 45th President’s administration, surely, but many people still held hope that better days would be ahead. How quickly are illusions dispelled, and with such finality. However, as we’ve all sadly witnessed, America’s promise was just a veneer, a touch of smoke and a dash of mirrors.
America’s Most Important Export
America’s most important exported artifact is not culture, not technology, not even military ordnance, though those might be the most visible and problematic given the situation in the Middle East.
America’s most important export is that aforementioned illusion.Or, to put it bluntly, lies. America enthralled the world with the moniker, “the land of opportunity,” where an indigent immigrant can climb the social ladder fuelled only by their own determination. “Land of the free,” where we hold the record for the total incarcerated individuals per https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country, above even China. “Equal justice under the law” was never more than a good idea for non-Caucasian residents, citizens or not.
President 45/47 didn’t change America. What we now see is America, the America that was always the home for those who are not members of the majority demographic. Queer. Non-white. Non-Protestant. Poor.
President 45/47 merely gave the bigoted, the racist, the homophobic majority leave to finally speak their mind. Until then, the feeble constraints of “polite society” shamed them into silence, or at least into voicing their true natures only in hushed voices, in surreptitious gatherings, or on social platforms of limited reach and scope.
America’s biggest error was believing its own lies.
Deathworld
The internet is full of memes and jokes about Australia being the equivalent of author Harry Harrison’s science fiction series, Deathworld. “Australia, where every living thing either is trying to kill you, or trying to evolve to the point that they can kill you.”
America is far more the analog to that than Australia. We have 390.000.000 firearms and only 330.000.000 residents, many of them military-style longarms. Public firearms discharges are not newsworthy because they are considered so mundane and pedestrian. Someone, some single individual, suffering a non-fatal gunshot wound is considered “local” news should they not be a person of note. The only times national news outlets cover a firearms incident are when more than three victims die and/or more than six bystanders are wounded.
America is also likely the only OECD nation where people die because they cannot afford medical care or life-essential prescriptions. The uncomfortable truth most Americans avoid even thinking about is that everyone is one serious car accident, one broken arm or leg, one life-threatening illness away from homelessness. Of course, this is also because America is the only OECD member without universal health care. Why not? Because dollars matter more than sense.
Americans are completely inured to the possibility of random death and calamity. Why? Because we believe our own lies.
It’s been oft-said that the first rule when selling illegal drugs is to not consume your product. Sadly, America as a collective whole is showing the world why this is so.
So, when you bemoan America’s sudden self-immolation, remember that this is who we collectively were all along. We were just masters of deception and illusion.
