Posted on 07/02/2015 5:44:13 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The Confederate flag is in the news -- being called a symbol of hate by the Left while at the same time the White House is emblazoned with Rainbow flag colors in their celebration that people can love and marry anyone. I cannot wait for 2017 -- to be rid of this destructive, evil administration.
I grew up on Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin (my mother was raised outside of Milwaukee). I moved to Florida around my junior high school years (a growing transplant state but with with deep South roots in the center regions of the state) and stayed through high school.
I graduated from college in Georgia and experienced all the emotions and heritage deeply felt in a Southern state.
I've lived in the West - all over Arizona (inc liberal loving Flagstaff).
I've lived in Maryland and Virginia for various spans of time.
I live in Texas and probably will die here.
I love the rich tapestry of the United States of America. TV has leveled out a lot of our regionalness and accents. People from all states and from different ethnic and racial backgrounds have served together (and died together); serving in our military has helped groups understand and learn about our differences and our similarities.
Over the years I've driven across the country, visited most all of the American Revolution and Civil War battlefields, Indian battlefields, Texas battlefields, along with U.S. military installations established on our soil, along our coasts. These places are important to our history. Understanding history is important to our future. A lot of people want to remove history, undermine our individualism and discredit a bonding nationalism -- eliminate it from our American bloodstream and memories.
America is alive and well but the Left wants to divide, so they keep trying experiments.
When LBJ's Great Society reached out, it took individual's by the throat (not with a helping hand) to entrap them in generational dependency. A lot of Blacks moved North where welfare was enticing them to go. The bigger the pay-out, the bigger the draw. Now if you say "inner city" or "urban" you're labeled a racist to shut you up and deflect criticism about how welfare has destroyed the Black family (now it's guns and suburbs who are to be blamed for what welfare has wrought). Welfare has found it's way into all liberal enclaves (all ethnic, racial and age groups), weakening our nation.
I say, look to the "Charlestons" to see America, not to the "Baltimores."
We're told that 4th of July parades (with the Stars and Stripes) and small town celebrations make people more conservative (like that's a bad thing). We see that the rainbow flag is being paraded and celebrated, that the Mexican flag is encouraged and promoted; this is done by the Left to stir up emotions and cause disquiet among us.
Around the time the "Great Society" was moving forward, Vietnam spawned the Hippie culture and Leftist activism that found a nurturing home in academia. "Green" bloomed. We're witnessing the fruits of their labor in the several generations indoctrinated under their toolage.
Big Education has informed Big Government and supplied the muscle of Big Media -- they have generated the studies, graduated the ideologues, and employed and protected socialists who preach anti-American hate.
Big Education has pushed anti-American, pro-socialist ideas in all disciplines - dictatorships = good, capitalism = bad is the theme. Everything has been politicized.
Big Education tells us that men are predators, whites are privileged and that there is never enough money spent on education.
Christians are free game, Muslims, gays and thug behavior are off limits --- and you can't just be "okay" with that, you must enthusiastically cheer it or you're marked as a bigot, racist, homophobe.
Now it's in vogue to "self identify" as being black, as choosing another gender, deciding to be an Indian -- pick your pleasure.
I believe that a majority of Americans (all stripes) want to live free but they need to understand that the hyphenating of Americans into grievance groups (and appealing to their worst impulses) only opens the door to more laws and dictates that hands power to federal overseers, which in the end shrink their futures and freedoms.
The Left wants us to live in a constant state of fear (about each other, about the "climate," about our health -- fill in the blank).
How do you see the United States, united or divided? A melting pot or a stew?
Happy 4th of July!
Fly the Flag.
God Bless America (land that I love).
United We Stand.
The melting pot metaphor is ridiculous and stupid. Never was. Isn’t. Won’t ever be.
For some people, the USA is a place where they can glory in their “diversity” and continue to be who they were without becoming American.
For millions, there is no national American identity. No American culture.
The stickers on the backs of cars say “I’m Irish” “British” “Swedish” “Puerto Rican” or whatever.
I am American, but I find it hard to identify with a culture that doesn’t know who the hell it is and is ashamed of itself; that celebrates every other culture in the world, especially those that hate us.
Every time we had a major surge of immigrants from a specific area (southern and eastern Europeans from the 1880's to 1924, the Chinese and Japanese in the late 19th Century, Vietnamese in the early 1980's, and now the Latinos), we end up with a lot of anti-immigrant feelings, unfortunately.
My ancestry is Celt, English, German and probably a tad of Cherokee on my mom’s side, French and English and probably the same Celt or Irish mix on my dad’s that I know of they were born in the same county. Melting pot.
You can’t erase history by simply taking down a battle flag. It was not a symbol of racism, it was a symbol of REBELLION against what 1 section of our country considered Tyrannical rule by another section. It has represented that feeling every since. Much like the Gadsden Flag does. It’s removal won’t stop those who chose to hate, or one murder. It will create ill feelings and cause violence. We removed the Nazi Flag once. Skin Heads brought it back. Removal of the Nazi Flag does not stop Skin Heads from using it as their symbol of hate. People CHOSE to hate for what ever reason they imagine. You can blame inanimate objects for the acts of a criminal, when it is the criminal that chooses to commit those acts. For those of you who are not aware of facts try reading crime stats. Especially the Parole & Probation ones. That should make you MAD. Because failure to lock up or execute criminals is the cause of a lot of the crime in the USA.
Recidivism
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17
Parole & Probation
https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/ppvsp91.txt
Weapons and Homicide: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004888.html
Response To Bush On Immigration
America's future has been seriously imperiled since LBJ and Teddy Kennedy "reformed" our immigration policy in 1965. Any politician who will not address the consequences is an "ostrich" with his head in the sand or some form of enemy combatant. A nation is not a game of musical chairs. Who sits in the chairs determines the character of the nation.
Mom always said, “ Never put a turd in a melting pot!” She was right as usual. AMERICA is proof of that.
Lumpy stew.
A sewer pipe is a better comparison.
The immigrants that have arrived here since the 1965 3rd World Open Door policy couldn’t hold a candle to those Germans, English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans who came over in droves during the 19th century.
Culture & Religion has everything to do with it.
Yes. Just as the new kids on the block, or the new kids in a school, always have to prove themselves before being fully accepted, so it is with immigrants. But that does not mean that all immigrants are equally congenial; that all immigration is equally congruous to the traditional American culture.
The iteration of the initial rejection of Irish, or Jewish or other 19th Century immigrants, has been used consistently, generations after they finally were accepted, to increase the Leftwing vote among groups whose interests are manifestly being betrayed by those Leftist demagogues, seeking to fragment society, and deprive all of us of fundamental liberties.
The Irish and the English, Scots, etc., are not that different in relation to their purpose in coming here. That is reality. The hordes pouring over the open border, may include a few with similar purpose; but that is not the norm among them. The perceived America that draws the present crowd, is the political climate that is strangling those of us who adhere to the philosophy of the Founding Fathers.
You cannot equate the two streams--even if you choose to ignore the fact that we are already terribly over-congested in urban areas. From a long term social standpoint, we do not need millions of new arrivals competing for the same resources, space, etc., while in their very congestion increasing the likelihood both of medical epidemics & civil unrest.
We desperately need a frank discussion of all relevant issues; not the 'politically correct' fear of walking on metaphorical "egg shells."
mush
When my grandparents came here in the early ‘20’s... they couldn’t assimilate fast enough.
They KNEW that was the way to succeed.
“Stand up and cheer our time is finally here!”
“If it's Gay and it's Ghetto then it's Good!
The New American Way!
Forget Mom and Pop, Red White and Blue.
The Rainbow Flag is for me and you!”
“If it's Gay and it's Ghetto then it's good!
Equality and Fairness for all!
Rich give to poor, poor ask for more,
The less I can do, the more it's up to you!”
If it's Gay and it's Ghetto then it's Good!
America is on the Rise.
You can be anything you want to be,
Trans-Gender Trans-Racial even Trans-Species!”
That would seem to be a norm, world-wide, for the effects of migrations into settled areas.
As for the use of derogatory terms? Many of those terms became folksy nicknames, used by the "not being victimized" person's friends. I have had several clients who enjoyed a form of comeraderie involved; certainly not seeing it as insult. Over the past 20 years, the Left has made a major effort to make people super sensitive about such things; and today's descendant of one of those 19th Century immigrants might be more sensitive on the subject than someone in one of the preceding two intervening generations.
I was born at exactly the right time. July 26th 1950. Right in the middle of the Great American 20th century. All the heavy lifting had been done. Two world Wars and a Great Depression had been conquered. Growing up in a blue ollar lower middle class family in Flint Michigan, I was bequeathed the privilege of growing up with a minimal amount of fear and a maximum amount of freedom and self determination.
I was very fortunate to avoid being caught in the Viet Nam meat grinder.
Comparatively, my life has been easy. I might even say Fun! I still feel like a kid, laughing, playing, working...but always mindful of the great people and traditions that are my foundation.
I am so Thankful to all of those who came before me, who went about the business of being good citizens and good parents. Getting up each day and striving to better themselves and their families.
It is through the efforts of millions of “normal” people that America has flourished.
But now the circus has come to town. The clowns have taken control. “Normal” people aren't predisposed to do battle in the a Culture War. “Normal” people have trust that others will behave with the same set of values that they live by.
But inevitably unearned inheritance perverts the essential dynamic in a society, where a person is busy striving to secure and improve their lot.
Thanks to the incredible efforts and results of The Normal People, new generations find themselves untethered from reality. Comfort and Convenience are easily attainable and therefor under appreciated.
The bad news is that when we fail to appreciate what made us Great we will soon fall from Greatness. The Fall is happening as we speak.
If it isn’t melting turn up the heat.
Someone once said that in a melting pot, those on the bottom get burned and the scum rises to the top.
“How do you see the United States, united or divided? A melting pot or a stew?”
A cesspit.
The defining difference being that many recent arrivals, primarily Mexicans, refuse to obey our laws, sneak in, and have a hostile attitude toward us. Throw them out on their ass.
I’m standing my ground!!
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