I would start this address with hopes of your well-being, but I know far too well that you are not well at all. You do a fine job of pretending to be, but most can see you are not well. Why have you become so violent? Is there not a week, a day, or even so much as an hour where you don’t take a gun to your limbs and pull the trigger? You send armies to foreign countries, spreading hypocrisies, asking them to lay down their arms while you stockpile yours. You disappoint me.
I thought by now you would’ve grown, but all you seem to do is further mask your behavior behind films and media outlets. How many of your former slaves have you buried under criminal cases? How many confederates and Nazis have you let continue the war? How many racists do you hide behind cloths called robes, suits, scrubs, and uniforms? They walk your streets making a mockery of you. Why have you not silenced them?
Was there not supposed to be liberty and justice for all? Yet, there are thousands of innocent men and women rotting away in your cages redefined as prisons. Where is the justice? How can a stadium worth billions be a stone’s throw from a village of homeless and hungry citizens living in tents and surviving off of charities and churches? How can saving the sick be decided by insurance premiums and deductibles? What are you doing?
You boast to the world that you are powerful, but you have become lazy and obese. You stuff your faces with meals far too large for you to consume while your neighbors knock on your walls and ask for food. You’d rather your stores spoil than feed a child trapped in your immigration cells because it’s too much responsibility for you. I thought you had a heart?
Perhaps my words are too harsh. I have heard that you are trying to appease everyone these days, allowing them to defy scientific law and claim they are a sex they can never be. You let homosexual communities insult families by saying a child can have two dads and two moms as if it didn’t require one father and one mother to reproduce that same baby. You let rapists silence their victims through harassment, money, and lawyers. My God, what have you done to your women!? Is it true that you allowed a man to win woman of the year!? Is it true that you let her rapists serve their sentence with community service!? Now you’re trying to remove him from the sex offender list!? Is it true that you’ve forced her to forgo the abortion and then refused to help her raise her ill-gotten child!? Have you gotten so disrespectful to the mothers of your nation that you’d allow such insanity come to fruition!? Have you lost your mind!?
You have lost your mind. That’s why your children stopped having children. They realize how twisted you’ve made them, and they have the decency to stop the suffering… or so they say. Honestly, you’ve just taught them to be selfish to the core. You expect families to be made with salaries that can’t afford the rising cost of living causing them to focus on themselves. They don’t know how to sacrifice in a reality that demands sacrifice. They have fooled themselves into believing they don’t have enough, not knowing they will never have enough. There will always be a hunger because they compete with each other for things that fade before the end of a decade.
Your son wants more money so he can afford the temporary. He’ll jump from one addiction to the next, whether it be a woman, a car, a blunt, a drug, a video game, fame, ego, or some other unimportant purchase. He hopes to get enough money for his fix, just so when he gets his fix, he’s broke again, and needs more money.
Your daughter is willing to sell her body for these things. It’s so easy to trick a man that’s tricked her into giving the very trick he wants. Yet, you wonder why there is an abundance of loneliness and intimacy in all your cities – cities ruled by men and women who’ve lied to themselves so many times that when they lie to the people they serve, they believe them.
I do not understand how election after election, a liar makes their way to the presidency. Have you still not learned to do research? Have you not learned to refuse being lied to? Isn’t it 2020? Yet your vision is shortsighted, or rather, too accustomed to living in such negativity that positivity can only be found in heaven, space aliens, or comic book heroes.
Are you too weary? Is that why you continue allowing the police to attack the citizens and the citizens to attack the police? Is that why you refuse to restrict access to guns after yet another school shooting? I thought you were teaching children not to bully? I thought you were more intelligent than generations passed? I thought you were spreading awareness? Is that not working? Are your parents not omniscient? One day, you’ll learn, or rather relearn, the obvious.
One of the main things you need to relearn is that you are one nation, under God, indivisible. You seem to have let singularity become your god which has ironically divided you further. You believe you are a melting pot of culture, but I see who runs you. You fool no one.
If you don’t realize who runs you, maybe you should pay attention to who’s paying for your kids’ education, your parents’ homes, and your “national” debt. How many children will you sell into slavery? How many trillions do they owe today? You’re still letting them tell you that health and education cost blood, limbs, and happiness? Sharing knowledge and saving lives equates indebted slavery? Freedom isn’t free?
Freedom only costs when someone tries to take it, and you have robbed millions of freedom with your spending and consumption. Greed is a poison. It has spread all over your now more than 50 states. Yet, you keep trying to spread. You want all the oil, all the food, all the money, all the power, and all the reverence. You think so highly of yourself when you are just one nation. Truth be told, you resemble the very nation you were birthed out of. You’re not even unique. The only difference is your accent. Have you learned nothing from history?
The strongest military still gets destroyed. The wealthiest families still become poor. The wisest elders are still stupefied. The oldest nation can still be obliterated. Youth fades with age, knowledge disappears with silence, movements change with lies, and people suffer in them all.
I hate you. I hate that you still have rape. I hate that you still have drug addicts. I hate that you still have racists. I hate that you still have liars. I hate that you still have sexists. I hate that you still have crooked cops. I hate that you still promote adultery and fornication. I hate that you expose your women. I hate that your healthy foods are more expensive than your cakes and cookies. I hate that you allow atheism, LGBTQ communities, shootings, wars, greed, and also adult topics in children’s shows and movies. More than anything I hate that I still love you. I hate that I still want to be with you to the end. I hate that you are still far less corrupt than many nations in the world.
Sure, I can be overly critical, but only because I hold you in high esteem. I keep seeing, “Make American Great Again,” but America has never been great for people like me. You held my ancestors in chains, beat them, and call them niggers. You banned the prayers of my brothers and sisters to Christ out of my schools and call my people bigots. You attack Christians for standing firm with the Word of God, and you attack Blacks for trying to better themselves. You make it so hard for me to trust you, and I refuse to be like the women in your towns that turn back to their abusive lovers. I will let you go.
I understand that some things are allowed to keep the peace, but sometimes I wish you had a backbone. Do you still want to be who you said you’d be? Can we go back to being one nation, under God, with “under God” being the defining words and not “one nation”? Can we put our foot down against all actions deemed evil in God’s eyes? Can we at least try again?
You still have amazing people in your twisted society. Let us take care of them. Let us give more than we take. Let us love more than we hate. Let us say what is right or wrong, rather than appease those who want their wickedness to go unpunished. Imprison the rapist, charge the pedophile, believe the victims, and empathize. Hold your police accountable along with your citizens. You can truly be great for all people for once, not just the Caucasian and rich.
I know what I ask is no small task, but if I, one of your children, can change and grow, so can you. I am not free of sin, but I do not make excuses. I confess my sin, repent, ask for forgiveness, and try to be a better person for the sake of my brothers and sisters. Your banks, nukes, and policies show your arrogance. You’ve even gone so far as to say,” love is love,” as if “God is love” wasn’t introduced to you centuries before. Can you humble yourself?
Can we not look at the next person coming out of the womb and think they don’t deserve to live? Can we not turn our noses up on the next persons to make mistakes? Can we not avoid the homeless and mentally damaged, but rather run to them and restore them? Can we not laugh and snicker at the insane but open our arms and love them?
Like Christmas, let us take these golden moments and televise them daily. Shouldn’t the news show that humanity is still humane? Must everything be about murder, rape, missing children, and corruption? Our world is not like that, so why should we televise only that? I find it newsworthy to see a homeless person find their way off the street. I find it newsworthy to see redemption, reconciliation, love, and hope.
I may be a lover of tough love, but I have a heart for you. I still adore southern hospitality. I still love brotherhoods and sisterhoods. I love community groups and small groups. I love unhindered and lawful Bible studies. I love all the people I criticize. I love all the people I disagree with. At some point, we have to love our humanity more than we hate our opinions.
Perhaps we’re still as young as our history says. Perhaps we need much more room to grow, and to stop expecting everything to change in an instant. Technology has made us spoiled. Can we really separate myself from communities just because we believe in separate ways to live? Am I not at fault for aiding the sheriff in his racism against the people of my skin tone? Am I free in being quiet on the piety of the churches against the people of my sin? Shall I be excused for not listing my name on an impeachment notice? Who’s really at fault here?
I’m trying. We’re trying. I get that. Forgive my impatience. It’s not as if my grandmother wasn’t born before black people could legally vote. It’s not like she didn’t live through two world wars, and countless lesser wars. It’s not like I’m not living through wars today. It’s not like I’m not seeing reports of discrimination against Blacks in the housing market, job market, athletics, education, and the entire judicial branch. It’s not like there isn’t an entire 53 years between us. Is 53 years to short of time to eradicate such filth?
America… Americans… I love you. No, I do not agree with fornication, but I, too, struggle. No, I don’t agree with the LGBTQ community, but I, too, want to experience love. I trust when my heart should’ve been closed. I love closely, when I should’ve loved at a distance. I hurt when I should’ve been loving. My mouth is just as hard to tame as anyone else’s. Let us be more mindful of our daily steps and our daily audiences.
I cannot force my ideologies on you, but we as a people, can do better. We can be more selfless, we can be more loving, we can be more forgiving, we can be more understanding, we can be wiser, and we can be more responsible. May this address find you rethinking your decisions. I’d love to see us all laughing because we’re happy rather than laughing to avoid crying. Let us deal with our emotions, thoughts, actions, and beliefs with openness and understanding. More than anything, let us find God, whose name is Immanuel, who is Jesus.
When you set out to address your nation, you never think about how many people you will impact with just four pages of words. You can never fathom how anyone will receive your criticisms, beliefs, or statements. Yet, you try them anyway. You try them because we all need to know where we stand, so that we can help others understand why we stand where we stand. You try them so the world knows you’re here and you mean something to at least one person, even if that one person is you.
America, greatness is not found in militaries. It is not found in money and possessions. Greatness is not about strength, intelligence, or power. It is not about territories, numbers, or respect. Greatness is about lives touched, lives saved, and lives cared for. America can only be great if it surrenders itself to the benefit of others. America should serve its people, and its people should serve its people and foreigners asking for help. Your riches are not for storehouses but for the restoration of the peoples you encounter from the single parent to the widow, from the orphan to the divorcee, or from the homeless to the immigrant. We have resources that can change the world, but the world is changed by each individual taking the time and putting in the effort to better themselves.
How can you love on Iran, considering what is happening between you? How can you love on North Korea? How can you love on Russia? Have you looked for a way to do so? How can you love on immigrants? Should you fear people who need you, or should you help people who need you? Resources will dwindle regardless of your efforts. Give what you can, until you can give no more.
If you are still mad at me, pray for me. If you are concerned about me, pray for me. If you are planning to retaliate against me, “if God is for us, who shall stand against us”? You take on a losing fight. Let us be reasonable and peaceable with each other. We have our griefs, pains, hurts, misunderstandings, and hopes. Let us work together towards a viable solution.
That solution, whether you believe it or not, is found in Christ Jesus, who teaches: love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and body, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. You have a God, whether you acknowledge Him or not. His every desire is to serve. May we be found searching, as diligent as He, to find someone or some group to serve and give our hearts to.
With hope,
Dario Augustus
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