Too Much Is Never Enough

You know, I love the Americans who read here. But I am sick of hearing about your bloody country. This is a rant about certain things that are infuriating me, so if you are sensitive in this area, probably best to stop reading now, okay? If you wonder who the hell am I to have an opinion, if you find it difficult to read anything that does not have a right-wing focus, if you continue to believe what an amazing fair eagle your country is, then stop reading now. Because this is my blog, and I get to rant, and I am not ranting against you people here personally that I love, but I am going to rant anyway. So really, go away if you don't want to read it. But I get to say it.

I am sick to death of hearing about America and the evil antichrist Obama. So many people the world over are dying, and all we hear about are the eroding freedoms under the great evil socialist. (Which is not to say that your freedoms perhaps are not being eroded, or that Obama isn't in fact a socialist or even that he is not the antichrist. But I'm not sure what I think about all three of those words, freedom, socialism, antichrist. And my focus isn't so much on what might be actually happening - of which obviously I know very little apart from what I am told - but my focus is more on what America seems to be encouraged to believe about herself, and what she is therefore discouraged to believe about herself. That's the part that interests me.)

I am sure many believe Obama is the antichrist. There is no end to the fear available to fuel end-times scenarios, is there? And there is so much extra fear around these days, surely there must be multiple more end-times scenarios. Such an easy way to divide the wheat from the tares. And anyway, we all know the book of Revelation is about America, right? She's gotta be in there, that great eagle? That has to be America, surely. America, America. The land of the free, and the home of the brave. The country that had one attack perpetrated on it (a mighty, amazing, Hollywood-sized attack) that was awful and horrible, and the retribution that came afterwards was 100 times fiercer. But that's okay. You have to protect yourselves after all, don't you.

You're not free and you're not brave, you know. You're rich and fat and greedy and lazy like all of us rich, fat, greedy, lazy Western people are. How many of you continue to believe you are the great benevolent eagle spreading freedom all over the world? Does it surprise and baffle you that the rest of the world sees you quite differently? The world, unfortunately, cannot be rebadged by Disney to make it something nice and palatable for you to feel better about yourselves being the great spreader of Christ and democracy. Because you are not. Did you really think you would get away with being rich and powerful and it not somehow affecting everyone else? Affecting yourselves? As if the deceitfulness of riches was hyperbole? As if you haven't been imprisoned inside your own wealth like the rest of us?

It amazes me how the more people wilfully refuse to ask the hard questions and want everything to be "nice" cannot see the predators in their own midst. It happens on a psyche level and it happens on a national one too. Some people go on about Obama turning America into a socialist state, as if socialism sits somewhere directly to the left of middle right on the political spectrum. They insist on maintaining their freedoms to the extent that they will allow predators like the media and advertising to continue to gobble them up and they don't seem to be able to readily see the paradox. They won't put limits on anything because that is curtailing their freedom.

But what is freedom, exactly? Is it freedom to do what is right, or freedom to do whatever you want?

Perhaps freedom has become the American god. Believe me, past foreign policy makes it pretty evident to the rest of the world that America will insist on her right to keep what she has, even if it involves suppressing those who do not have. This is what rich countries do. The deeper the wealth the deeper the moat. Not that I imagine foreign policy and its effects is something that FOX News has regular in-depth analysis about. There are two sides to every story. If you read every story with the desire to see yourselves as the heroes, then you won't be asking and reading and listening with discernment, asking why stuff is packaged to you in the way that it is. It's easier to watch cable news. It can just simply reinforce your prejudices about all those evil socialist Latin American countries lurking and trying to take away your freedoms from you. When you are the hero in the storybook, you do not readily wish to see what your past governments have done to other countries in the name of keeping YOUR freedoms intact - the richest country the world has ever seen, and you have run in fear for the past 50 years that it is going to be taken away from you. Perhaps this is partly what Jesus was talking about with the deceitfulness of riches. It doesn't feel like a particularly safe space to occupy, to me. How about you?

I'm sick of hearing political stories about people's freedoms being taken away all the time. So much focus, so much fearmongering by the media, and some drink it down whenever it is on offer, without discernment. A country full of Christians who are told not to fear. You've got a tap full of clean, running water whenever you damn well want it. Maybe turn off FOX and drink that one down instead. The kingdom of heaven is still near, still sitting outside of what is happening in our individual countries, the third way. Maybe the world would be safer if we Christians turn our focus there.