America - The New Type of 3rd World Country?

When I lived in Australia, it took a long time to get used to things there. Not only were the basic things like electric outlets, the prongs on something electric, the toilet flushes, light switches and the side of the road you drive on different.... but the people were different as well.

And by different... I mean less ignorant. Less judgmental. Less fake. I had to learn how to handle people telling me candid truths in a casual manner. I had to develop a different mindset - because these people weren't being rude - they were just more frank. I learned to be more like that while I was there, and upon coming home, most people don't know how to handle me.

Not only were the people different - but so was the healthcare. When I had to go to the ER to pull a two-inch piece of wood out of my foot, it cost me nothing because I was a legal resident there. I was covered by the state, just like all Australians. It was in Australia that I was finally able to get a proper PCOS diagnoses to get proper treatment.

Yeah. I had to go leave my country to get good medical care. Sad, right?

In Australia, diabetics don't have to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars every month for the medicines that keep them alive. Because taxes cover it.

Oh, but half of American's don't want to pay a little extra in taxes to make sure we all can get health coverage - they'd rather pay $1800 a month for private insurance. They are quite literally so brainwashed and ignorant that they would rather pay $3600 a year in private insurance fees than $1800 a year in extra taxes. It just doesn't compute. Same way it doesn't compute that women who need abortions for life saving reasons aren't 'baby murderers,' and the same way "mind your own damn business and stop judging people" doesn't compute (disclaimer for the Haterades: I didn't use EXACT math to calculate those. It's called making a point - and while I don't have precise numbers, the point remains. Deep breaths angry Conservative Republican. Deep breaths).

We live in a country of oppression and denial.

We teach our sons that they must be macho and strong and being sad and in touch with their emotions is weakness. We teach our daughters that if they are not skinny, but big-breasted and butted that they are not physically acceptable. And more often than not, our most brilliant and intelligent daughters get treated like shit when they go for careers that are 'men's jobs.' We teach both our sons and daughters that women are objects to be sexualized with media and social stereotypes.

The rich get away with being corrupt, greedy, and evil, and the justice system cannot touch them. We are allowing people to die in their homes and on the streets because we refuse to change our healthcare system - because it would be hard, and it would disrupt the entire corrupt grip that Big Pharma has on our government. We don't make national healthcare a thing because Big Pharma and Insurance companies would lose their power over our government and economy. Because God forbid they lose a few million dollars - as if the value of human life can be counted in monetary value.

Fun fact - did you know an unmarried American woman under the age of 30 with ovarian or uterus cancer cannot get a life saving hysterectomy because she doesn't have a husband to give her permission?

They are taking away our rights to our bodies - starting with the women (again). We are being treated as if we are not equal, as if women are not responsible for amazing things - like the program that brought Apollo 13 home safely when the oxygen tank exploded (google Jack Blacks mom folks), or the reason the species carries on and continues to evolve. They act as if we are less intelligent and less than, so therefore we do not deserve the right to decide our own fate for our bodies.

What exactly is there to be patriotic about when it comes to America?

You can't call us "The Land of The Free." We aren't free. Not when our rights are being stripped away one by one. We aren't allowed to have certain types of birth control. Or medical care. If we do not have enough money to pay for respect than we are nothing and our opinions are nothing.

Our public school system is a joke. Even our college education system is a joke (another thing that is free in other much better countries). We have to be bound by debt for half of our lives to be allowed to enter into a job tier that pays a fraction more than regular jobs. Our country keeps the poor down by making being poor much more expensive to live with than being rich.

They feed us lies on the media and drive us apart - cause us to hate each other. If we're to busy fighting each other, we won't notice the dark things happening up top.

America has fallen. And I don't ever see it rising again.

To be fair, neither is Biden. But then again, our country is broken. Democracy doesn't work anymore. It's a shame, because I want to be Patriotic.

But the only thing I can think of that we can proud of is the beauty of this country's wilds. The mountains, plains and deserts. But the way this country runs on greed... I fear even those will be gone one day.