If there's one thing the political right prides itself on is love of country. Come the Fourth of July, no group sings Lee Greenwood's "Proud To Be An American" louder than conservatives. It is the right that thanks a little louder, bows a little deeper every Memorial Day or Veteran's Day, somehow having taken ownership of all things patriotic. But as is so often the case with conservatives, their speech is rooted in a moral void, their words lacking the very same actions which should be carried out to back them up.
At a time when our country is technically inching its way out of a recession and dangling on an economic high wire perhaps about to fall right back into another one, with unemployment hovering just above 9%, the extent to which conservatives protect the corporate giants - the so-called "job providers" - from contributing their fair share to this country's economy (the country they claim to "love") is astonishing. Revolting, and astonishing.
And why? Because dare we not hurt the "job providers"? As the masses of average, working Americans await to figure out how to put food on the table, wade through stacks of unemployment paperwork - if they can even get unemployment - and try to find jobs that aren't there, we dare not hurt the "job providers" who are providing jobs that are as tangible as Mr. Snuffleupagus was to everyone on Sesame Street whose name wasn't Big Bird. At least in this country. For yes, they're job providers, alright - to the citizens of India, or Instanbul, or Costa Rica, or China, or wherever else they're choosing to outsource the very jobs they should be providing to their own people right here in America. Labor is cheaper there, and requirements such as health care provisions and such are nonexistent - what a sweet deal it is. And this is how these so-called "job providers" are showing us that they... care about American jobs? By outsourcing them? While our people continue to hope for these elusive jobs from the so-called "job providers", the political right continues to ferociously build them a contribution-proof, impenetrable protective bunker, the mother of all tax nuclear fallout shelters. Ah yes, the so-called patriotic, conservative, do-all-that-is-right... "Americans".
Hurt? Would it really hurt these corporate giants if they contributed an amount commensurate with their profits for the benefit of their country? Would that not be the real trickle down? How many more decades are average Americans supposed to continue to wait for the rich and for corporate to turn on their faucets? Could this not be the panacea for our economic ills? Alas, corporate plumbing was never supposed to work that way in the first place. It's all been a conservative fallacy from as far back as the late 19th century. There's been trickling, alright: profits have trickled from the big corporate giants' hose bibs right back into their own pockets. All we have seen is the richer become richer, the poorer become poorer, and the middle class struggle in between. Ever-enlarged, deeply-soaked pockets - the pockets of these so-called patriotic, conservative, do-all-that-is-right.... "Americans".
It's interesting how everyone has their own idea of what love is or is supposed to be. Here I was thinking that love of country might perhaps have to do with a legitimate concern for your fellow citizens, an earnest interest in the needs of others, an honest desire to help your fellow man, a sincere want to make the country a better place in which to live, and that people that elected to work in public office made it a point to live up to these values. I thought that people that felt a calling to work for their country did so because they felt in their heart a true-blue love of... country.
Instead, all I see are these so-called "job providers" not only not providing nearly enough jobs right here in America as they should and not being held accountable in the least, but them being fiercely sheltered and protected from contributing their fair share to their country's economy under the umbrella of a failed, flawed economic theory by the very same group who proclaims to be the poster children of all that is patriotic, of all that is love of... country?
I'm sorry, but no. This is hypocritical love of country. Love of self, but not love of country. This is an insulting farce lacking in moral fiber. Next Fourth of July they'll sing Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" off the top of their lungs, a charade that once again will be about anything but love of country.
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