disappointed - The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

First off let me start by saying that I am a proud American. Unlike Michelle Obama’s (B.O's Wife), I have been proud of my country my whole adult life (not when I was 44 because my affirmative action husband was running on a platform of CHANGE).

My love and appreciation for my country sprouted, thanks to my parents, before I ever made a cognitive decision to be proud of my country. When my parents drank their shots of vodka every Thanks Giving repeating “God bless America” before every shot, I learned to be proud of my country.

I am not naive, so I understand that my country does “things” to protect the freedoms and liberties that I appreciate so dearly. My country tortures terrorists into submission and protects us from future terrorist acts. My country sends spies abroad to keep abreast of new threats looming on the horizon. My country even listens to peoples telephone calls and has the audacity to arrest the scum that sell our children white and grey powders that simply help our kids relax. I love my country and start to salivate when I think that some scum that wishes death on my children, because they are Americans, is hopefully having his nails slowly pulled out (and again, God bless America!).

My disappointment begins when racial opportunists start to make arguments that are true and ethically cannot be justified. One of these examples are The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (see: http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207586). My sadness of this knowledge is based on the fact that while I don’t expect my country and its government or people to always be righteous; I do expect my country not to be vicious and evil. (As I will write my next sentence, I feel like I am saying 1+1=2 to a three years old) Performing experiments on people without their will and/or knowledge is evil. Whether you are a pharmaceutical company or the government – it is wrong. To make matters worse the experiment was not done centuries ago or in “ancient times” but in modern times. This along with racial opportunism breeds anger, anger amongst minorities which is dangerously, almost, justifiable. While minorities have been playing the victim card for 250 years now, I would expect for us not to give them any more reasons to do this. It is our moral responsibility to be even handed and not victimize those that victimize themselves.

As a side note: I don’t believe the notion that the U.S govt. gave minorities AIDS. I believe AIDS is the result of certain people, on a certain continent, frolicking with monkeys.

In conclusion, there is one major difference between my occasional disillusionment with my country and the views Michelle Obama’s. Michelle Obama was proud of her Country for the first time in her adult life, while the knowledge of this makes me disappointment in my Country for the first time in my adult life.