The People Who Killed Joy

The trouble with America is that, somewhere along the way, its people murdered whatever joy they could and should have had. Despite the bounty the land provided in great measure, they carped endlessly and craved the time of a Camelot that never was. Despite the benefits of a geography that protected them from foreign encroachment, they railed against invading armies of immigrants and the lack of secure borders. Despite the economic and military might the country possessed, the people quaked in their beds, afraid even of the shadows the trees cast on their staunch walls, and bemoaned the opportunity for success lost through no fault of their own. And despite the technological and artistic achievements it made, America became a truly miserable place. In their quest for political power, Evangelical Christians tortured and killed their beloved Jesus more thoroughly than the Jews and Romans ever could have. Republicans eviscerated conservatism in the rightward march to cultish totalitarianism. Democrats abandoned liberal and progressive policies in a ditch somewhere in a rustbelt city when they courted corporate support and called themselves moderates. Education was disvalued and expertise ignored as the people stood mesmerized by the nonsensical braying of jackasses. And every region of the country came to mistrust and despise every other one. Racial animosity, misogyny, and class conflict stalked the land. We are a sick people in a sick place. There is no health in us.