HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO RUBY AND SAPPHIRE!!!!!

Donald Trump gets attacked by an eagle.

I spent my childhood being lied to about this country and the rest of the world. Some of the earliest things I remember being taught in school was how America is the best country in the world and I should be grateful that I was born here because if I was born in any other country I would have no freedom. They taught me that in every other country the government decides every aspect of your life: your career, who you marry, how many children you have. I started every day at school being forced to stand and pledge my allegiance to the flag. Once in elementary school a classmate didn't stand up and my teacher told him that it was illegal not to stand. She was lying. In middle school I stopped standing and had to carry a Supreme Court ruling saying I had the right to sit because so many of my teachers gave me shit for it. Telling me that I didn't respect the veterans who "fought for my freedom."

I remember one time a teacher I had who was a veteran took me into the hallway after I didn't stand for the pledge and asked me if I had anyone in my family who had served. I told him yes, on both sides of my family, and he told me that I was disrespecting my grandfather who fought for my right to be able to sit during the pledge.

My grandfather is a Vietnam veteran. His war had nothing to do with American freedom.

I find it ironic as a queer person that I am constantly being told I live in the "land of the free" when I don't even have the freedom of going to the bathroom without fear of being attacked. And it is not an unfound fear, I have been harassed for using the men's bathroom before. I find it ironic that throughout my entire childhood I was told that the greatest thing about this country was that we were a melting pot of culture, that anyone could come to America and be American, but I am supposed to hate immigrants for wanting to be in the "greatest country in the world."

I have learned that so many of the things I was taught about my country's history were lies. I was taught that Thanksgiving was a friendly feast between the Pilgrims and the Natives, and that everything was peaceful between them. I was taught that Abraham Lincoln was elected because he said he would free the slaves. When we learned about World War II we learned about the concentration camps in Europe, but I never heard a word of Japanese American internment camps in school until 11th grade, and that was only because in my English class we read a novel about it. We learned about the ugly parts of every other country, and then when it came to the US it was "well there used to be slavery and segregation but that's over now."

I was taught about how other countries had anti-American propaganda while listening to American propaganda. While being taught that the Founding Fathers were all perfect people, that the best thing you can be is a soldier, that I should not ask what my country can do for me, but what I can do for my country.

Fuck that.

I am an American, that will always be true. I am no nationalist, I am no patriot, but this country is my home. I wish I could celebrate America 250 and feel joy, but every year it becomes harder to feel joy around the 4th of July. I hate the way our country is heading, I hate the government, I hate how openly bigoted people are comfortable being publicly. I live in a red state, I have read some fucked up shirts being worn by people just going to the zoo. This is not the country I want to live in and I am not going to take it anymore.

If you are an American please vote. The less we try to preserve democracy the easier it is for fascism to take over. These are very important midterms. And if you are not American please know that many of us are normal people who are even angrier at this country than you could ever be. There are over 300 million of us. We aren't all radical nationalist bigots who want to take people's rights away, a lot of us are the people whose rights are being taken away. This country has an evil past and the present is also horrible, but we make our future. And I want a future where I can love my country, where I live in the version of this country that I was taught about in school.

To 250 years of this American experiment, and to the day where we actually have that freedom we've been promised.