Why Do We Hate America?

Commentary

This is no longer a hypothetical question or an intellectual exercise. With breathtaking acceleration over the last several years of Black Lives Matter riots and “social justice”-excused chaos, our citizens are growing in not just apathy but outright anger towards our nation itself, a palpable hatred for the very foundations the country was built on.

When you hate something, you curse (and kneel) in blatant disrespect and contempt for it. When you hate something, you smash it to pieces. When you hate something, you burn it to the ground.

We hate America. That is violently obvious. But what is less clear, is why?

Even now amid the decaying mixture of hysterical paralysis and blinding rage we find ourselves surrounded by, it’s still quite difficult to forget or dismiss the triumphs of the United States of America. Among countless others, these include:

• The Declaration of Independence—the first charter to fully define human rights as pre-political, God-given, and unalienable.
• A brutal civil war, costing ¾ of a million lives, to continue our leadership in modern world history in the abolishment of slavery.
• Our essential contribution to victories over genocidal dictators in World War II and other conflicts.
• The invention and expansion of technologies that have cured and prevented disease, vastly curbed world hunger and suffering, and greatly improved the quality of life and the basic human freedom and dignity for not only America, but also much of the entire planet.

These accomplishments are indisputable, and immensely consequential. And yet, they have so quickly become an afterthought, an irrelevant footnote in the Marxist handbook of social exploitation that permeates much of the current generation of young adults driving our recent discord and chaos. They either don’t know these accomplishments exist, or they don’t care.

Either way, it has no bearing on their opinion about the country that they themselves inhabit, and the system that produced those accomplishments. They hate that system, they are intent on completely dismantling and even violently destroying it, and the reason is actually incredibly simple—it’s because that system is built primarily on one single concept: freedom.

And the stunning truth of the matter is that this generation does not value freedom. Instead, it values comfort. It values convenience, and coddling, and conformity.

Freedom is not free; in fact, it’s quite costly. Paying that cost is painful, which is the opposite of comfort. Freedom cannot be sustained without accountability, and this requires responsibility, which is neither convenient nor comfortable. Everything about the essential, foundational ethos of America is directly in conflict with the true priorities of this generation, and thus, of course they hate America. They have every reason to despise it and every motivation to destroy it. And that’s precisely what they will do, if someone doesn’t stop them.

When the Founders formed this nation, they pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to its cause; that is the high cost of freedom, and they were willing and able to pay it. The current generation of insolent and immature “activists” are neither willing, nor able; they seek only to destroy what others have built. Those of us who remain sober and seekers of freedom, those of us who still recall our foundations and revere our values, cannot rely on Washington or Hamilton or Franklin or Jefferson to save us. We—We The People—must remember their sacrifice and commit to our own.

We must acknowledge the rot of incessant self-indulgence, and accept the challenge of reclaiming responsibility. We must rise together and pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to the rescue, reformation, and revival of this greatest of nations, because when you love something, you stand for it. When you love something, you fight for it. When you love something, you show honor and respect for it, you sacrifice for it, and you die for it.

The United States truly is the last greatest hope on Earth for all the nations, and for the sake of all, we must once again learn to love freedom; we must learn to love America.

John Strand is an internationally published model, writer, actor, and musician from Los Angeles, California, and is currently the communications director at America’s Frontline Doctors.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.