Dystopia Guised as Greatness

What are inalienable rights?  What does that really mean?  Is liberty and freedom as natural as the air we breathe?  It seems that we have forsaken that for notions of illusory comfort.

Over the past month, there have been deportations, as promised by the Trump Administration, and a tightening of American borders.  While this may satisfy popular opinion, what it means in true application is the infringement and limitation on supposed God given rights to the point the very phrase has no meaning.  If you have not stepped outside of your regional bubble much, the world probably feels a lot safer since there is a new sheriff in town (Trump).  

God forbid that you are an Olympic Gold Medalist sporting a hijab or a NASA Engineer with a foreign sounding name.  We’re talking about American citizens serving and representing the country but not afforded the same protections and freedoms afforded the average citizen in the comfort of their borders.  If their rights can be infringed upon then it can happen to you.  Rights can be violated to the point notions of liberty and freedom have no value.

The tacit alliance America currently has with Russia is dystopian.  We are forsaking our own notions of freedom and liberty to embrace a global gangster (Putin) who doesn’t hesitate to flex on his detractors, foreign and domestic.  Every American who grew up during the Cold War is biased against Russian hegemonic forces.  I am no different.  Putin is consistent with his Soviet predecessors that used the power of the state to manipulate consensus and routinely violate the rights of their people.  Unfortunately, that is happening right here in this country where the open advocacy for the denial of due process and basic rights are being championed under the guise of safety and national security.  Security is something necessary to maintain the Republic but the American people are compromising their core values to the point of having none.

In the developed world there is a continuum between liberty and equality which is an undercurrent in how those nations are shaped and define the social fabric.  In America, we embrace liberty more so than equality and in Europe it is the opposite.  While on the surface they may appear similar, in reality, they are diametrically opposed in that one focus diminishes the other in the average person’s day to day interaction with government.  By embracing liberty as a country, we acknowledge that we are free to practice religion and live our lives without infringement from the government.  Countries such as France that embrace equality have much more government control and intervention in their daily lives to achieve that goal.  Can America truly embrace notions of liberty when antithetical policies are being projected on people for what religion they practice, their foreign sounding last name, or what they look like?

The current dystopia makes Russia an ally and fellow Americans foes.  We cannot lose focus in this American experiment over the proverbial bogeyman.  We cannot forsake American values over a deceptive alliance with Russia and a false sense of security.