missraeyn:

voidbat:

jethroq:

graceebooks:

tete-pownshend:

and let me introduce you others who cant stand: the millions of innocents butchered by this country

you know it is funny because no constitutional right of any living american has ever been credibly threatened by any foreign power whatsoever and yet the american government violates them on a fucking constant basis, including by illegally forcing children to stand for the pledge

Alao who exactly has tried to invade the US and take away their quote unquote freedom?

1) do not use disabled people for your own fucking agenda, fuck you cartoonist.

2) if a servicemember ever pulls some “i fought so you could HAVE the right to blah blah” shit, disregard them. if a servicemember is anything but proud of you for exercising the rights they fought to protect for you, then they didn’t do it for YOU, they did it for THEMSELVES and need to manage their OWN expectations.

Speaking as a former servicemember, I want to be left alone, and I wanted to be left alone. People coming up to me in the supermarket to ‘thank me for my service’ (often people who spat on Vietnam vets trying to ‘make up’ for it, if their relative age was any indication) made me wildly uncomfortable. I did my time, I got out, it’s in the past.

And honestly? Yeah, this is  WAY fucking taking advantage of the idea of a person in the military. We’re not really allowed to have opinions while defending the country. At least, that was my take on it with the clearance in my pocket and the reading between the lines of ‘Well you can’t go to protests or speak to the media or contradict your commander in chief’ and the like. We serve so you can have freedom of speech. Or we serve because life is fucking horrible and it’s the only out, and we’re willing to sacrifice freedom of speech for a couple of years of having a place to shelter. Yanno, if it doesn’t destroy us physically and mentally and dump us into the street to rot.

So no, don’t stand for the pledge if you don’t want to. Don’t make your kids do it if they don’t want to. They are celebrating their freedom of speech, and that is a good thing, even if it’s not the ‘right’//conformist-to-an-ideal-of-America-that-doesn’t-exist sort of thing. And for fucking deity’s sake, don’t use veterans for political means. Instead, fight for a country where poor and middle class people don’t feel like the only option for health care and a steady job is serving in the war machine. Fight for a country where we don’t dump our (especially) mentally ill veterans in the street, and then treat them like they’re scum because they used themselves up in service to the idea of America.

Just sayin’.