Should We Be Proud

How can we take pride in a country that is sliding into dissolution and chaos? We praise ourselves for ending slavery. yet racial prejudice is still much with us. We pay slave wages and refuse to change the minimum wage to a living wage. We call all people equal under the law, yet privilege and money or the lack of it make legal decisions unequal every day. We have liars, cheats and criminals in our supposedly democratic government, chosen primarily by a voting system that is funded by moneyed corporations with a vested interest and the wealthy. Goal: to remain in power. We declare all are entitled to liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness, yet how can a people be happy without security that they will not go bankrupt because of hospital and medical bills? How can we be proud of a country where the supreme justices of the land arbitrarily take away our rights to make decisions about our sex lives and personal decisions about our bodies? Who choose to exercise the power of a ruling class against the will of the people? In a country founded on freedom of religion we are more and more governed by those who propound a certain religious mindset. We are not yet living under a dictator, and have freedoms not dreamed of in dictatorships, but for how much longer? Our freedoms are being taken away, unilaterally, without recourse. Our democracy is in mortal danger, not from enemies abroad, but from within.