Spoiled, ungrateful, self-centered. That’s how many in the world view Americans. While brave citizens in Ukraine face guns to save their democracy, we manage to squander our privileged democracy by fighting against it.
Spoiled, ungrateful, self-centered. That’s how many in the world view Americans. While brave citizens in Ukraine face guns to save their democracy, we manage to squander our privileged democracy by fighting against it.
Other countries long for a government with democratic principles to safeguard them. Here, entertainment media and money-making websites incite people to resist our government by claiming that mandates represent tyranny. As if the inconvenience of wearing a mask to protect your health is oppression. What an embarrassment these misguided people present to countries where citizens are imprisoned without trial, tortured and murdered fighting to attain a government like ours.
Other countries long for universal education. We ban books, try to sugar-coat our history, denigrate teachers and downplay the importance of intellectual pursuits. How little we cared to learn about Hitler or Communist dictatorships in history class if we swallow whole the right-wing media’s ignorant assertion that Democrats are Nazi Socialists.
Other countries long for clean air or water and quality medical care. We fight environmental concerns and federal safety/health monitoring. We fight trying to slow the spread of the pandemic while other countries beg for the vaccine. We don’t have the largest population. Yet we’ve reached the highest number of COVID deaths of any country, which demonstrates how little we value the medical expertise that other nations covet.
Other countries censor the media and kill dissenting journalists. We waste our freedom of speech on attention-grabbing sensationalized gossip, meaningless trivia and pre-packaged opinions funded by the 15 billionaires whose six corporations control nearly all U.S. newspapers, TV and cable networks, radio stations and the Internet. Fox and right-wing radio hosts (profit-making venues no different from the rest) exercise freedom of speech by claiming they have the right to lie and people have the right to believe it.
We have a well-trained military willing to sacrifice their lives to defend democracy in the U.S. and around the world. But extremist civilian militia groups think otherwise. The Proud Boys wave their guns around at peaceful protests and organize online to storm the Capitol and we don’t condemn them as domestic terrorists, as Canada has done.
The world sees Americans displaying minimal understanding of the governmental principles that protect our democracy and the lack of appreciation for them. Too many people believe that The Bill of Rights is there to serve the “me” not the “we.” What we misconstrue and squander, we stand to lose.
Martha Hodges is a resident of Kailua-Kona.
