Your country is not the worst people it's ever produced, but the best people

If people say, "America sucks," I get where they are coming from. But to me, America is not people like Trump, or all the conmen swarming through the government and skeezily embezzling money from government programs meant to go to the most vulnerable among us so they can get yachts for their billionaire friends.

Instead, I think somewhere in all countries are individuals who understand the ideal that even though an individual might find himself or herself feeling suppressed by his society, if we all hold the same ideal of supporting her individuality in a way that won't interfere with others peacefully living their lives, then we are honoring both the individual and the society she lives in.

And there is an art in defining those principles well. The Declaration of Independence summed it up nicely, saying, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." And in a sane society, that would have been the only directive anyone had ever had, and no one would need to have said it.

But it doesn't make sense to me to say -- with a country whose core values were so clearly defined -- that those who thwart those values are "Americans".

They are not. No more than people who do not love their neighbor and do not support programs to help alleviate suffering can be said to be "Christians."

And ultimately, the people I see as true Americans -- people like Robin Williams -- are exemplars of the human spirit, not necessarily the values of a single country.

Because we are coming into a time where the boundaries between us all are dissolving, and while we have always divided ourselves into camps -- us vs. them, right vs left -- in the end, there are only two groups that matter: assholes vs. the sane.

And the assholes try to get everyone on their side using all sort of bullshit tricks, like "We'll sell you the notion of 'winning' against the LGBTQ movement in exchange for letting us give tax breaks to the billionaires; but we'll sell it to you like the tax breaks are actually for you, and anyone who says otherwise is the worst person imaginable: a Democrat."

And the assholes on the left pull a different trick with a purpose that still mystifies me, where they say, "If you don't go along with what we say, we'll brand you with the scarlet letter: bigot," and so they successfully silence dissenting voices who are witness to their own hypocrisy that also stifles freedom, and pushes people to the right.

But these people will all die out in time... and one day, what will be left will be freedom -- freedom of expression, of thoughts and feelings. And the systems and structures necessary to explore that expression.

Well, that, or we'll all die.