The America Love it or Leave it slogan is so lame.
If no one speaks up against the powers that be, there will never be changes. Should blacks have left America before 1960 and not faught for equal rights...after all if you have a problem with America, shouldn't you just leave? Should women have just allowed themselves to be second class citizens because if they spoke out, they wouldn't be patriotic? What about police brutality against people of color? Should we let this slide and if we don't like it just pack up and catch a flight to Canada? If those things don't make sense, than it wouldn't make sense not to voice concern over American hypocrisy in our dealings with Iraq.
Any time anyone questions authority it becomes the whole "if you don't like it then pack up and get out blah blah blah". America was supposed to be built on freedom, opportunity and righteousness. We have tons of laws an clauses written to support these things, yet we constantly break the rules of humanity. If we are going to say that we are the good guy and put laws in place that make us the good guy, then we actually need to practice what we preach. We should be the good guy.
With money and power comes responsibility. We hold other nations to a higher standard than we can even reach ourselves. If the prison system in America is fucked, how can we go run one in Iraq? We should mind our business and until we get our shit straight, let other people kill each other and go down in a fiery holy war if that's their perogative. At least they have their religion as a noble cause. We are taking sides in a holy war that has nothing to do with the Christianity we so preach upon the world. We are in deeper than we should be and it will come back to haunt us. Kids are dying in our streets and people are shanked in our prisons every day, but we are more concerned with what other nations are doing when it benefits us financially.
I do not take for granted my "freedoms" but I don't think that just because I am allowed to vote that I owe America any favors. Yes, we have it good here...but having it better for everyone is the goal. If we claim we want to bring "Operation Iraqi Freedom" then let's act like it. Otherwise let's call it what it really is--"Operation Secure Oil Interests and Line Pockets".