A Letter To My Family

Dear Family,

From the beginning of 2000 through the end of 2009 is when I changed from a boy to a man. As a boy I saw images of what looked like a failed demolition and an ex-military man named Timothy McVeigh sentenced for execution. I remember going to the Media Play in Western Hills and sampling music. There was one CD that caught my eye that showed a boy wearing what appeared to be a hockey jersey. I can remember listening to this album entitled "Evil Empire" when I was 11 years old not understanding what it meant but liked the guitar. Before I smoked my first cigarette or drank my first beer I saw surveillance footage of a high school cafeteria with two kids in masks carrying guns and setting off bombs. I saw students shaking from fear and hiding under tables. I saw a movie in the Danbury Cinemas in Western Hills months after it first came out called "The Matrix". I remember seeing the movie and what I felt when it was over. That movie was different and it intrigued me. The movie came out on DVD for purchase and VHS for rental, so without a DVD player I rented it about a dozen times. I was 12, and the special effects with the guns and karate were awesome.

The fear from Y2K welcomed me into high school around the age of 14. It was also the same time I opened my eyes to the hypocrisy in church and was the last time I regularly attended it. I was a sophomore when nearly 3,000 American civilians were killed on 9/11/2001 and spent my graduation night in 2004 running from police through the woods as they were arresting my classmates for drinking Keystone Light. My entire adult life our country has been at war for causes I've never understood and never been explained, but I remember seeing on TV what looked like fireworks over the city of Baghdad.

After graduation I saw another movie and listened to another CD. As Miranda and I were saving money to move I'd drive to work playing Green Day's "American Idiot". The lead singers voice was good although I couldn't understand a lot of what he said and the guitars were great. The movie I saw was "V for Vendetta". I thought it was great with special effects and a good futuristic plot. Miranda and I moved to Hawaii, then back, then back to Hawaii. In this time we were busy, and then we slowed down...

On the night Barrack Hussein Obama was elected I saw the world in a different light. I was waiting tables at dinner when it was announced that Obama would be the 44th president and I looked around. I saw some people crying tears of joy, some raising their hands in praise and others just applauding. There was another group that sat quiet in a look of disbelief and bewilderment. This is when I got a call from Miranda, hysterical as she tried to express her feelings of concerned. When I asked her what was wrong, she couldn't explain it and just wanted me home. As I was hurrying to check out with the bartender and call it a night, I noticed a middle-aged woman sitting by herself drinking a martini like it was her job. She finished it in a matter of minutes and looked at me with a face full of fear. She said she had just come from church where the congregation had been gathered in prayer for the election. She could tell I was uneasy myself and said to me "do you know what this means?" She continued to vent with her eyes wrapped in tears. When I got home, Miranda and I held each other as we wept. We didn't know why...

Today I do. Today I understand what Rage Against the Machine means when they say "line up to the mind cemetery" and "what we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin'". I know what Morpheus means when he says "you are slave born into a cell you cannot taste or smell or touch. A prison for your mind". I get what Green Day means when they talk about us living in "a land of make believe" and how they "dream to beg and differ from the hollow lies." I looked into what the masked man named V was talking about when he said "there were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense". Today I'm awake to the reality that I'm living in a world of sleepwalkers and a world that sucks.

Why am I taking the time to tell you all this when "I, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition"? I'm saying all this because I need your help.

Miranda would like to have a child. It's something she's always wanted and something I want us to have. However, I have some very serious drawbacks. I understand that our ultimate job on Earth is to serve the Lord, but also understand what a fantastic opportunity has been given to us in having America as a country's whose foundation is based on God to promote and sanctify human rights. Our Constitution and the principles it's based upon is being destroyed. Even those destroying it don't argue, saying it's not what it once was and no longer applies. This has been happening for quite some time. The people that raised me, taught me, fed me, brought me to Christ, and wanted what's best for me have neglected me, because they've neglected the freedoms my country represents. I want a kid but refuse to be another parent, teacher, adult, citizen, pastor, mentor, father, and caretaker who gets blamed for the fall of our Republic. I'm not comfortable with the idea of one day my son or daughter looking at me and saying "why didn't you do anything to stop this".

I read an article today by Pat Buchanan called "A Decade of Self-Delusion". In the article he presents facts showing how America has become dependent on other countries and how that's changed through the years. He ends the article saying "At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the question is not whether we will preside over the creation of a New World Order, but whether America's decline is irreversible." I have it posted on dailywakeup.blogspot.com if you want to see it.

I don't want a New World Order or for America to decline, but if we don't do something about it our children will suffer. I want my wife to have the opportunity to be a mother but I'll be damned if I'm going to have a kid grow up in this nightmare called America. One day we're all going to face our maker, but we're also going to face the people we've brought into this world as adults and independent thinkers. I'm not going to have the guilt of my child born enslaved to a world I was too lazy, thoughtless, or busy to help when I could have.

Family, what should I do? I resent my parents for raising me in an unfit world accepting the way it is. I resent my grandparents for going through the motions of life without questioning whether or not war was just. I resent the previous generations of this country for not doing more to become educated on the evils of the world in an effort to make life better. Mom, Dad, Luke, Dean, why didn't you do more to stop Bush from unjustifiably engaging in war. Why didn't you go to D.C. when The Patriot Act was sneaking in to the law during the aftermath of 9/11, threatening to revolt if it were passed. It's your fault today, but it's my fault tomorrow. Why are we the spending hours of our day on pointless nonsense while we're paying to kill innocent middle eastern civilians. Why are we tolerating women kissing on television, Obama appointing a transgender woman to a Federal position, why are we not regulating our currency, not investigating and seeking justice for 9/11. Why are we supporting our troops and how are they protecting our freedoms when their employer is taking them away? Ryan, Chrissy, what will you tell your kids when they can't bring The Bible to school, when religious bumper stickers are banned, and their 2nd grade teachers are homosexuals? Dan, Allison, what will your children say when our food is rationed because we destroyed our farmland and we can't leave our house without being monitored? How will our kids feel proud of our country and have patriotism when half of the population is either employed by the government or on government welfare? What quality of life will they have if everyone needs searched to attend a high school basketball game and serve mandatory community service to keep their citizenship? How will any of us be able to compete and have a shot at democracy if we're taxed to breath?

I blame past generations for today's state and I have a right to do so. I want kids, but I don't want the blame, and I don't want to raise them in a world that accepts violence, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and enslavement. Looking for feedback and love you all.

Dave