You want to protect your way of life, but you don’t want to see how the affluence you take for granted has come at the expense of others.  Other people.  Other people’s resources.  Other people’s blood.  It is so convenient not think about the reasons why you are hated: and to just hate back.  Why you are not safe. Why you have constantly to pay for defense, and constantly send your kids to war.  You lie to yourself.  You say it is to protect “the American way of life”, but you know, in your soul, it is to protect a lie.  The same lie an abused woman tells to protect her violent husband.  The same lie an addict tells to protect his source.  The same lie a greed infested man tells to protect his treasure.  It is the lie against acknowledging a reality of what has transpired.  The reality of why it is you have so much when so many have so little.  It is the lie against your ownership in the consequences of the evil that underpins “this American way of life.”