Editor’s Note: This article was previously printed in the July 2018 issue of “Grower’s Guide. The Mountaineer received permission to reprint it and it was submitted by Marla Ray.
By Lee Pitts
If the obituary of our country is ever written, this is how it might read:
United States of America, July 4, 1776- November 4, 2046. 270 years of age. The last of the great super-powers died quietly at home surrounded by 350 million greedy, spoiled offspring. She had been in hospice care for 30 years. She didn’t die from a Chinese nuclear bomb, election-tampering Russians or global warming but had become fat and lazy in her old age, squandering the wealth that generations before had created. On life support, by mutual agreement the money-grabbing family members pulled the plug on the greatest experiment in democracy, liberty and freedom to have ever lived. An autopsy revealed she died of natural causes including apathy, laziness, political correctness, self-indulgence, sloth and corruption.
Conceived in garages, machine shops, farms and ranches, America was born in Little Italy, the barrios, Chinatown, African American ghettos, in Hell’s kitchen, Irish and Mormon communities, on Ellis Island, upon the plains and in the great American West. She lived a life full of public service and proclaimed to the world, “Give us your poor, your huddled masses.”
Condolences poured in from around the world from those who were saved by her armies, her doctors and her farmers. Foreign leaders remembered America as a loyal neighbor who always spoke her mind but who gave up her sons and daughters willingly so that others might be freed from the wicked rule of ruthless despots, murdering dictators and barbarous Ayatollahs. A veteran of foreign wars, her sons stormed the beaches of Normandy and her daughters nursed the world’s sick back to health. She willingly gave her bombs and her blood to conquer bullies like Hitler, Stalin, Hussein, Bin Laden and countless others. After she’d beaten them in battle she literally gave the shirt off her back to rebuild their cities and their economies. During her life she adopted countless refugees from around the world, gave sanctuary to the UN and her farmers and ranchers fed billions who would have died otherwise.
With 5% of the world’s population and 6% of the land, she produced 20% of everything man-made on earth. She gave the world Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google, and birthed the tech and the green revolutions. She taught the world how to farm. Her engineers and her scientists invented ways to remove much of the drudgery from work, her teachers educated the world’s most highly intelligent, and her doctors, missionaries and volunteers kept famine and disease at bay.
America’s passing left many unanswered questions: who will be willing to sacrifice her sons and daughters the next time a global bully tries to massacre an entire race? Who will give freely trillions of dollars when hurricanes, earthquakes or despotic dictators leave a path of human destruction behind? Who will seek out and destroy the terrorists who want to murder everyone who doesn’t worship their god? Who will tear down the walls that communism built or be a sanctuary for refugees who have no where else to turn? Who will entertain the world or spawn the next generation of Disneys, Jobs, Gates or Bezos? Who will say to the world’s unfortunate and poor, “Follow us and we will lift you up?”
America was preceded in death by common sense, decency, freedom, hard work, thrift and good manners. She is survived by 50 states who suffer from the same deadly disease.
Pall bearers were a corrupt career politician; a millennial on a skateboard staring at his cell phone; a representative of the transgender community who didn’t know which bathroom to use; a homeless father who sired five kids and then ditched them; a Hollywood celebrity who made gory movies and violent video games but blamed the second amendment every time a teenager tried to kill as many of his classmates as he could in ten minutes; the CEO of a corporation who didn’t pay taxes and stashed their cash overseas; and a quarterback who made millions of dollars playing a game in the good old US of A but wouldn’t even stand for her flag or her national anthem.
There will be no graveside service as America lost her faith decades ago. Instead of flowers go to a church, synagogue or mosque and say your prayers for the rest of the world.
wwwLeePittsbooks.com
