American Idiot(s)

Ciao amici!

This is a long post. If you want to skip to the rant, the paragraph begins with "This American Idiot". (:


It's the middle of Memorial Day weekend, and I'm really enjoying my time not being in school. Warm weather, acceptable to walk around outside in shorts, and being able to drink a frappucino or slushie without your fingers being so numb they fall off.

Memorial Day also falls right on or near my little brother's birthday, and this year we decided to take him down to Washington DC to see a Phillies-Nationals game. I, for one, really do enjoy going to baseball games. Even though I don't have one clue to what is going on or know who anyone is, I love them. So, last night we trucked it down the Beltway to our friends who live 20 minutes outside of DC in a suburban area to spend the night. We sat in their living room until about midnight, then slept in until 9 to go to the ballgame.

There was literally no points scored the first 6 innings, and things didn't get interesting until the bottom of the seventh. I mean interesting. If you are not mentally inclined in the sport of baseball, in between the top and the bottom of the seventh inning, there is the seventh inning stretch. Normally this is when the announcers tell you to stand up, sing a round of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and possibly another Patriotic song. Today, a man named DC Washington (awesome awesome awesome!) sang "God Bless America". This is where the italicized interesting comes in.

If you don't know me in person, I am extremely patriotic. I believe this is the best country on Earth. We can argue about it all you want. DC is one of my favorite places to visit ever, which is why I've spent ehhhh, I think 3 birthdays at? History, food, culture, beauty, the city has it all. So it's easy to imagine that when someone makes cracks on how this country quote-on-quote "sucks" or says how much better (fill in country that person has never been to here) is, I get frustrated. Back to the story now.

This American Idiot 4 rows back is pretty much making up lyrics to God Bless America. I didn't notice this, but my mom did. So she looked back to see who this person was, and it was a fully-grown, graying, jackwagon that had his hat on, sitting down, and sitting with his fricking kids. After the song was over, a very kind couple sitting directly in front of the disrespectful warthog turns around and tells him basically to shut up because he's being rude. The guy responds with a rude comment, when it turns out this couple's son is fighting for his (and our) freedom in Afghanistan. Dictator Douchebag doesn't think that's cool enough so he shoots back another rude comment. It's not until two older men (who served in the forces and made it known to swampbrain) left and told security about the man swearing and being disrespectful to primarily everything in existence that security comes down. He doesn't even get kicked out. Uh, I'm sorry. whaaaaat.

Let's point everything out that's wrong with this picture. It's friggin' Memorial Day weekend, in Washington DC, around kids, around his own kids, arguing with veterans and a couple who's son is in friggin' Afghanistan, and not even listening to the security guard claiming that what everyone within a 5 row radius is saying is "bullshit". There is no amount of words I can put into a blogpost that can get out this frustration. He is a citizen of these United States of America. He has so many wrongdoings in 9 innings than most of the people I normally rant about. I originally had the intention of making this a rant about types of people that need a reality check, but disrespectful, unpatriotic slobs definitely rank first in my book. If my father was sitting down during that, and mouthing off to the people who have fought for our lives, I'd disown him on the spot. What sort of mindset would you have to have to think you contain the audacity to do that kind of stuff? I'm praying to the dear lord above he was drunk. If not, that man is a spawn of the Devil himself.

What we can learn from Mr. my-ego-is-bigger-than-jupiter-itself is that wherever you are located in this world, you always have to respect what is being provided for you from it. Politics is a go-to subject in our society, as it has been since the beginning of its establishment. But if you don't have any respect whatsoever of the people who make your freedom what it is, why even bother living here? Sure, you have all the rights in the world to not like Barack Obama, or you don't have to wave a freedom flag from your truck window. Respect comes before your own personal beliefs. We are one nation. We are indivisible. We have our liberty, our justice, our freedom. We have our rights, our votes, or speech, and our assembly. Millions of men have died over the past 200+ years for the way we live in this moment, and it honestly doesn't get enough recognition. So the next time you find yourself looking at an American Flag, think of how it got to be that way. If you look at a map, think about who was lost, what was made, and where it took us to be one of the strongest nations of the world today. This country is remarkable, and there is no amount of complaining that will change it.