America, are you really free?

We spend $1T and around 3000 American soldiers’ lives per year preserving it. We use it to choose between McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Amazon and Whole foods. It coddles us from the natural consequences of those choices. It justifies us to subjugate anyone we disagree with under the beige soles of AR670–1 compliant boots.

What is “it”? IT, ladies and gentlemen, is genuine, made in America “Freedom”. Paid in blood, sweat, grief, PTSD and of course, dollars, this stuff is precious. How are we actually using this precious inheritance? What is life like in this haven of indulgent privilege?

One would have imagined that this level of freedom would translate into high quality of life, highest form of art and architecture, technological advances that steadily improve quality of life, purposeful discourse, and solidarity. Instead what we find in the United States is perpetual anxiety, distracted psyches, insurmountable debt and polarization so deep that Americans have now killed more of their neighbors in the last 18 months than in the 4 years of the American civil war.

America, are you really free? — Incarceration