Our past has many dark spots. It is an inescapable truth. And like the water marks on certain venerated and dilapidated pages of hemp, the stains on the pages of our history can never be washed away, not at least without destroying the whole works.
We haven't been alone in our ugliness, far from it. But we certainly own our share of blame, and a big ol' slice of humble pie it is.
There has been murder, and there has been slavery. There has been hatred and cruelty. There has been theft both petty and grand. There has been extortion and torture and lies. There has been war. There has been genocide.
Those are facts, as hard and cold as February ice.
But there have been a great many good things also, and I for one have always known about both the good and even the worst of the ugly. The curricula I remember didn't include too much discussion of both aspects, but from a very early age my dad and my teachers in school did an excellent job of filling in the blanks. And, guess what conservatives, I think the good wins out in the end. I still love my country, warts and all. It's one reason I've always been thankful to my teachers. I've always wished everyone else could have the same thing, could see our nation as what it is, instead of seeing the utopia it certainly is not.
Because for my part, unlike the Jefferson County, Colorado school board and the rest of the right wing today, I want no illusions about those that I love. I'd rather reality than some prettied-up phony.
Not to mention I'd rather not be pissed on and told it's raining while our peers around the globe turn away, and leave us to sink alone into our mire of self-righteous fantasy.
I love my species a great deal more than I do my country, and I think that if there is one thing we almost globally have in common, at least on the surface, it's respect for the truth. Liars lie about being liars. Well, WE are liars, so long as we deny or whitewash the awful things we have done. We lie to ourselves, to our neighbors, and worst of all to our kids. Admitted and unabashed liars are shunned even by their families, and, despite what many think, the United States will not survive being shunned by our brothers and sisters. No matter how many megatons we're packing or how many terabytes we can store.
I'm from a tiny Michigan backwoods town that nobody's ever heard of. I'm from the kind of place where your choice basically is get along with your neighbors or be lonely and miserable, so I know the danger, especially for the most powerful, of misrepresenting oneself.
People talk, and when they find out about your bullshit they turn their hand away and don't forget.
It's best to come clean