I recently returned from a trip overseas, and there are many questions I have on what is American freedom.
The people I met were honest and friendly. They were welcoming and trusting and lots of people willingly invited me into their home without question. There was tea, conversion and jovial interactions. There was music, dancing, and great craic.
Here in the U.S., we are suspicious. We don’t know our neighbors or care about others. We have cameras on our doors and more people in prison than any other country. We have porch pirates, homeless people and many gun stores. There are no school shootings over there. Guns are not the problem, people are (eye roll here). We have drug addiction and sexual predators. This is freedom?
Gas is about $7 per gallon, but no one seemed to be discouraged by that. They just drove smaller cars, biked or walked where they needed to go. I saw more small cars towing small trailers than pickup trucks, and those trucks were small.
We have cheap gas comparatively, and we still complain and buy bigger cars and modify our trucks for even less efficiency. But it's our freedom that allows us to do so even if it costs us more. Keep complaining, because that is freedom.
Everyone on the roads were courteous. People let you pass, merge and wave when you let them pass on their narrow roads. Here we run you off the road, ride on bumpers, never let others merge and have extreme violent road rage. Is that freedom?
We have a system that turns people against each other. Politics being our current issue, us against them. We are not friendly. We are not happy. We are an angry and mentally ill society, and no one seems to care. Is this freedom?
How can we change this? How do we make our country a safer place, the people here kinder and more trusting? How do we make a safe and happy community for all?
Currently, we let our politics create our identity. We are either MAGA or Libtards. But we can do better. We can stop using our politics to define us. We can just care about our neighbors and community.
We have the freedom to choose who we want to be and how we want to act. Let’s choose wisely.
Grace Thornton
Centralia
