Originally Posted by somerfrost

Well, last time I was "abroad" it was to fun places like Nam, Laos, Cambodia...sorta got a mixed reception there, some chicks dug us, some tried to blow us up. I guess my point has always been that this is and hopefully always will be the greatest nation on earth (or anywhere within the United Federation of Planets)...no argument! I'd rather live here than anywhere (well, maybe a month or so in Paris, London and...you get the idea) but that doesn't mean I'm willing to turn a blind eye to problems...and we have a lot! Too much hatred...we always hate those we fear, fear those who are different or who we don't understand. We locked up the Japanese Americans in WWII but let the German Americans walk free, we kept and tortured slaves, committed genocide against the Native Americans...today, we beat up and violate the rights of gays and still hold women back from being truly "equal"! We've still got a lot of work to do to reach the manifestation of the words of the founding fathers. In this, the richest most powerful nation in the history of the world, children go to bed hungry every night, elderly folks are granted a "dignified death" (translation: allowed to die before their time) and babies are slaughtered in their mother's wombs under the lie of "choice"! "Churches" filled with haters picket and shout insults at the funerals of brave Americans who fell in battle cause they died defending a nation that "allows homosexuals to be part of society". And the idiot in the White House (yes, I voted twice for him) is more concerned about flag burning and gay marriage than the suffering of poor folk! Sorry but someone needs to speak out...authority, by it's very nature, needs to be constantly questioned!! More laws, more prisons, more fences at the borders somehow don't seem to be appropriate in "the land of the free"!!