Lost in Paradise

Amy Lee and the goth-metal band is for me no doubt the greatest ever to create music. I know most my age would not agree—that's beside the point. I was just listening to the song “Lost in Paradise" and thought this describes how I feel at times about my country.

Not since the so-called Civil War has this country been so deeply divided by political parties and ideologies. Americans fight vehemently in the name of their political parties. Even war is divided by party. Each party believes their war is the only one that's just. American people are too often sold a bill of goods in order to fight their supposed just war. If someone speaks out against war they are called an isolationist or pacifist. We repeatedly elect politicians that play those types of word games.

I awoke today to hear Mayor Bloomberg attacking his white opponent for posing with his black wife, saying he is racist for posing with her in a photograph. This couldn't have ever happened in paradise. There is no doubt we will hear one talking head after another justifying the mayor's comment.

Some days I feel so alone. I see the world through my eyes, listen with my ears, and believe I've awakened in the twilight zone. I remember a time when a politician couldn't get elected if he/she whispered raising taxes. Now we have Americans begging politicians to take their hard earned money. I hear those who justify taking 60% of of a worker's income.

I remember friends protesting in the 60's against big government and war. I see those same people supporting both. I watch those same protesters willingly stand with outstretched arms so that federal officials can search their bodies at airports. They now stand idly by as male police officers frisk women.

We watch Americans heap praise on a president that stripped away the middle class so there was only the poor and rich. They watched as he grew government at an unprecedented rate. Today that same president is is revered. It took winning a world war to dig this country out of the ravages of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency.

While many Americans are divided by parties, there are the apathetic who spend endless hours watching sports, playing games on Facebook, or just lost in a drug induced stupor. There are the single issue voters who cling to whichever party that will favor their cause.

Where are the Americans that support only liberty, even when that liberty doesn't favor their pet cause? I feel lost in paradise because I seek a government that insures all Americans are treated equally under the law. I want a government that is truly blind and cannot see flesh color, hear accents, and doesn't care with whom they have sex. Why do I feel so alone in paradise with these beliefs?

I'm often bewildered by those who send millions of dollars to Africa to heal the sick, when many are dying in this country who cannot afford proper healthcare. Many times those dollars sent out of the country in the name of charity are used as a tax deduction. Those same people then demand government raise taxes on all Americans to help pay for the sick in this country. When government does provide healthcare assistance they will at the same time deny certain services. They ask the same government that too often doesn't take care of wounded soldiers, to provide healthcare for everyone.

I wake up to find a federal government that calls anyone who supports the Constitution an extremist. We now send children to schools regulated by a federal government where teachers cheer when students with passing test scores approach 50%. I found myself in a country where the federal government can take money from people within a state and can then use that same money to blackmail them into passing certain laws, often in the area of education.

The day could be spent listing the things that make no sense and should happen only in the twilight zone. Someone please tell me that I have awakened in an alternate universe and am no longer in paradise. Maybe I'm not lost in paradise, maybe it no longer exists in this universe. What if the America I want has never, and will never, exist?

"Lost In Paradise"

I've been believing in something so distant
As if I was human
And I've been denying this feeling of hopelessness
In me, in me

All the promises I made
Just to let you down
You believed in me, but I'm broken

I have nothing left
And all I feel is this cruel wanting

We've been falling for all this time
And now I'm lost in paradise

As much as I'd like the past not to exist
It still does
And as much as I'd like to feel like I belong here
I'm just as scared as you

I have nothing left
And all I feel is this cruel wanting

We've been falling for all this time
And now I'm lost in paradise

Run away, run away
One day we won't feel this pain anymore

Take it all away
Shadows of you
Cause they won't let me go

Until I have nothing left
And all I feel is this cruel wanting

We've been falling for all this time
And now I'm lost in paradise

Alone, and lost in paradise