While You Were Out...
While you were out fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, doing what the country asked of you in the wake of 9/11, a few things were changing here at home.
We asked you to go and fight for our way of life, for democracy, liberty and freedom. But you see, the people who said they supported you the most and loved this country the most, were busy taking away people's right to vote.
As of December 2013, 92 restrictive bills were passed in 33 states. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act and left it up to Congress to update the law. This would be the same Congress that, while you were out, hasn't produced any meaningful legislation because the Republican Party hates the president so much, they are not likely to do anything about the Voting Rights Act while Barack Obama is in office.
Oh, and states rushed to pass and enact those restrictive voting measures right after the Supreme Court ruled. They claimed it was to stop voter fraud, but the instances of that actually occurring were so small that it was statistically insignificant. But who needs a fact when you have a chance to disenfranchise voters? Demanding photo IDs but doing nothing to help those people who lack that resource; shortening early voting times or getting rid of them altogether: those were just some of the things that happened while you were out. Spearheaded by people who love to send you off to war because they like talking about freedom and liberty, but have little patience for it at home.
We sent you to foreign lands to bring democracy and freedom, but while you were out, we were busy ramping up all kinds of hatred against undocumented migrants. We wanted to get rid of all of them, even though many of them were actually serving with you. Oh sure, exceptions were made but you have to understand that it was merely for appearance's sake: our leaders have spent enormous energy vilifying the children of migrants who didn't have to choice to come to the US and we even had mobs of people angrily shouting them away. We especially had problems with those might be able to stay under the DREAM Act, because we were so whipped into a frenzy against all immigrants, we felt it necessary to want to get rid of talented people who have only known America as their home since they were little. So we asked you to represent the best of the country to other people far from our shores, but were determined to show the worst to people in this hemisphere.
Probably the worst of all, to my mind, was that we neglected your brothers and sisters who came back broken. We will spare no expense to send you off to fight, but we didn't care enough to have the Veterans Administration actually working so that you could get health care when you needed it. (Oh yeah, that's another thing: we've spent time and effort to deny your fellow countrymen health care via the Affordable Care Act, taking over 40 useless resolutions in the House of Representatives and millions of dollars for those resolutions to take place.) Only when politicians got scared and were shamed by the bad news did they rush to do something. But really, they didn't care enough to begin with, these people who we elect to have knowledge about things the rest of us don't, so you have to view these measures as quick-fixes, not something carefully thought through for the men and women serving our country.
There's plenty of other examples that I can list, but you should be getting the picture at this point. We've asked you to do things in the name of all of us, for freedom and liberty, and while you were out, we were busy taking away the freedoms of American citizens and making a mockery of your mission to those faraway lands.
Thank you for your service.