Freedom of speech... Use it, or lose it.

The freedoms afforded us have been achieved through the blood, sweat and tears of those persons with restless and eager spirit, those impatient and those unwilling to settle for less, those disrespectful and arrogant souls who believe they are worth more than what they are currently getting, those who don’t care what you think… as long as what you think is that they are only here to serve you; to suffer all of their days so that you may prosper while they struggle. Those people have my respect because they know what they are fighting for. They are awake and involved and they are aware that waiting patiently and quietly for equality will get them nowhere. Shock and awe… Sometimes it takes a bit of shaking things up in order to bring about change. Just because we’re real good at telling our children to be fair and share, doesn’t make up for the real example we’re setting through both our actions and our inaction.
I see the trouble our country is in, hell… the trouble our world is in. We didn’t get here overnight and we won’t recover anytime soon.
I have not been sheltered from the troubles that have afflicted our world and even so, I have never been more concerned than I am now. My biggest concern is that our response time, in regards to the emergency outreach to those who need our help the most, is pathetic. We go about our lives, happy in the thought that we have been unscathed; as we watch our neighbors lose their jobs to outsourcing and their homes to greedy bankers and their lives to healthcare that is solely in it for an unseemly-profit. Our country is in trouble and we may just be saved long enough to be sacrificed last. I can hear the cries now… why doesn’t anyone care? How can they watch me suffer and do nothing to help?
I have always found it a curious thing, how adults are so good at telling children about the importance of treating others well. Even when I was a child, I saw the hypocrisy in what adults say versus what they do/and do not do. It is hard for me to believe that any child is oblivious to that double standard, and that is even more disheartening because without a decent example to lead them, there is little reason to expect that they will be any different.
I say this in the spirit of embracing my right to freedom of speech, and in the hope that if it doesn’t lend itself to change, that it just pisses you off.