i received an email yesterday from a friend. it was one of those forwarded message types, so it probably did not originate from said person. the email was about denzel washington visiting some military hospitals (i think) in texas. he showed support and gave money to help fund construction of more facilities. the message lamented how his visit only got a mention on page three of some small paper.

this email proceeded to bash other celebrities (alec baldwin, madonna, sean penn) for getting all the press and being anti-american. how do they get to be on all the news programs and denzel does not? denzel is a true patriot, it went on to say.

you can see i started to get angry as i read this. people who know me know i am not a fan of baldwin (worthless), madonna (esther, scank, no talent), and penn (i was in iraq). however, i am a fan of questioning government policies. it is as american as agreeing with the status quo. this email calls celebrities (and regular citizens) unamerican for questioning our government or protesting it. why should that be? one of our founding fathers (jefferson to be exact) said america should have a revolution once every generation or so (i think he might have been right. our government gets too complacent). if we agree with our government all the time where will it lead us? suppose washington says we are to round up all muslims (non-christians, mentally ill, homosexuals, minorities, etc.) in the u.s., detain them in camps and work them to death. would it be unamerican to say "no" to this? would i still receive outrageous emails stating how unamerican people are for standing up to washington?

also, this email was upset with the media giving air time to celebrities who are against the war in iraq. the same media that was bush's whipping boy and helped him get re-elected. the same media which does not ask hard questions or give all the facts. many people are against the war in iraq and the "faux" war on terror. i think we should be allowed to say what we think about our government's policies in hope of influencing the decisions being made. if everyone continues to be "american" and just support washington (no questions asked), then it will only be a matter of time before we are prisoners in our own country. jailed by fear of the world as well as fear of expressing our own opinion.