Hello 2008!

And good riddance to 2007.

Oh-Seven was not a very good year for me.

Oh sure, I survived (which is an oddity in and of itself), I got to spend almost the whole month of October with my wife, my mother-in-law beat her cancer, David and I had some good blog posts and even got to hang out and send a good amount of ordnance downrange at Boomershoot, I got a new “never sell” vehicle in Buddy the Jeep, and my music collection expanded exponentially.

But still, the last 365 days were moderately disappointing. You see, I lost something last year, and it is not my fault that I no longer have it.

I lost my country.

I know that may sound a bit strange, because what I really lost was my perception of what the United States of America was “To Me” in particular, but I almost feel as though it has been taken from me. My only reason for saying “Lost” instead of “Stolen” is that I cannot find the thief.

It wasn’t “The Left”. The only thing they know how to steal is my money to waste on their stupid pet projects.

It wasn’t the MSM. They may have lied to me, cheated me out of the real news and slandered people I care about, but I know their tools and the marks my particular thief left don’t match.

It wasn’t anyone in the government in particular, though I have a bit of a want to blame the Bush Administration. However, while they may have attempted to give me security while sacrificing my liberty, which I didn’t ask for them to do, I’m more apathetic to the actual acts themselves than pissed because they woke up a whole slew of Americans to the point that the government is not to be trusted. Not that these newcomers deserve a whole lot of credit, the signs have been there since FDR (actually since the 1760’s, but I digress). Hell, I’ve been annoying history teachers with these “signs” since junior high school.

Which is another reason that I cannot blame “The Left” for the theft. While they may go on and on and on about civil liberties this and that, they still beg, nay, demand that I give more of my freedom and money and privacy to the government so that I can have that which I already own, namely heath insurance, so that some loafer who is too lazy to get a job and get his own insurance can go to the doctor for free when he ODs. They say everyone should be equal, but they never tell you that what they actually want is everyone equally miserable. They are, plainly and simply, too stupid to steal my country.
We’ve got an national election starting in a couple of days, and out of eight or so major candidates from either party, I can only find one whom I can trust, and about all he could do is hold the ground for his first four, with hopefully some rearward pull in his second term. The rest are either devout Soviet-style socialists, Christian Socialists, egomaniacs who feel it’s their “turn” or just batshit crazy.

When you have pride in your country you instill a bit of it within your soul and your identity. That is what I’m finding misplaced.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still very happy to live here and am honored to call myself an American, but the “Last Best Place” feeling is fading rapidly. Since there is nowhere to go from here, it kind of puts me into a corner, where I absolutely do not like to be. I suppose I could go to that place on the eastern shore of The Med, but they’ve got this whiny sect of Islamists constantly trying to blow themselves up in public places, and I can’t stand the heat (that’s why I live in the PacNW). But that is OK because if I’m reading the signals from The Wife correctly, a move to Israel is completely out of the question.

I guess I now know what being in a malaise feels like, and it sucks. No wonder you all dressed so funny in the 70’s. fashion suicide is much less painful than the real thing, and you can laugh at it in 10-15 years.