“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be;
and if all else remained, and he were annihilated,
the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
Emily Jane Brontë

As Lee Greenwood famously sang, I'm proud to be an American. However, I have serious doubts about how free I actually am anymore. Freedom as envisioned by the country's founders was far different from what I see going on here lately, and the concept of democracy is fast falling by the wayside.

I never thought I'd reach a point where I am almost ashamed to hoist my country's flag. I look at it today and I am saddened to realize that it no longer represents life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for those who aspire to upholding it. It is more and more representing bigotry, misogyny, intolerance, and a growing sense that we have lost our sense of humanity and moral justice. In effect, we are becoming what our morally bankrupt, questionably sane, “self-grandifying” president is at the core of his cold heart. That being a totalitarian, fascist ideal more becoming of the Soviet state, with him at the controls of our nuclear arsenal.

How have we come to this? When did we lose our sense of what being an American is supposed to represent? When did we begin becoming everything the founders detested? When did we throw their work, dreams, and sacrifices, not to mention the sacrifices of all those who've defended us, back into their collective faces with a “thanks, but no thanks”?

Once upon another time, Old Glory stood for the American dream. The world knew that here was the shining light on the hill. A place where the people ruled. Where outmoded ideas in conflict with the spirit of our Constitution were changed to reflect our progressive maturity. Other democracies were even founded on our example. Now they are watching us implode because so many of us chose to believe the lying words of a convicted criminal intent upon building a kingdom, with him as the ruling monarch. Well, ruling as tyrants like Vladimir Putin will allow him to rule.

Today when I look at the American flag I picture Betsy Ross weeping as her gift to democracy degenerates into a dark representative of what the United States of America is becoming. And as I think of the ragged flag that survived the attack on Ft. McHenry, I weep too, because I fear we are not going to survive nearly as well.

c. 2025