Myths
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The American Government has many injustices and falsifies what we, as Americans, are meant to believe. What lies should we really know about that the American Government has been trying to hide from the American people for centuries and they dont want us to find out? Take for instance America being a “Melting Pot.”
Its a metaphor that implies both a melting of cultures and intermarriage of ethnicities, while cultural fusion occurs without intermarriage. School House Rock defines it greatly; “America was founded by the English, but also by the Germans, Dutch, and French. The principle still sticks; our heritage is mixed. So any kid could be president.”
Freedom of speech is a very big issue and has been for quite some time. If you were to say, “Thats a Japanese car” in many workplaces, itd be ok. But if you were to say, “Thats a Jap car,” you would be warned not to, or even fired. Our patriotism focuses on that and sees no further, missing all the glaring contradictions, which happen to control our lives. The only thing that the First Amendment does is place a barrier on the power of one branch of government to control speech, which is the legislative branch. The First Amendment only talks about what Congress can do. If you were to join the Armed Forces, all of your rights would be taken away in an instant. Provoking someone is considered “fighting speech” and can result in you being prosecuted and jailed.
Does the U.S. really have self-government? Many believe so but they fail to understand that self-government is a town meeting; a school board vote by the membership to increase wages, or an employee voting whether or not to join a union. Each person has a vote. What the U.S. has is representative government, in which we elect someone else to vote for us. That person may represent those who would have voted the same way but not those who would have voted differently.
The fate of individualism is even less promising. The future holds technological wonders, but its more important to understand what the future does not hold. For beginners, it doesnt hold individual freedom. Being able to do what you want to do without having to ask for permission is summed up as freedom. The U.S. is way behind those days. Nowadays, if you want to own a car, build a house, or even deliver newspapers, government at one or more levels is now and forevermore in charge no matter how small the want. If Huckleberry Finn were around today, hed be declared a ward of the court, and put behind bars. The Tom Sawyers wouldve had to take Ritalin for their “attention deficit.” Re-doing the old using new techniques is now the new “originality.”
Justice will triumph as it nearly always does, for the fact it doesnt mean what we believe. Many think it means fairness, but it doesnt. When fairness triumphs it makes the front-page because fairness is rare. In the Constitution the term Justice appears only three times. In the Preamble we seek to “establish Justice.” Another is a reference to the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a pure myth that the term “justice” in the American legal system means fairness. It means