Primary superficial traits:
1. race
2. region
3. education
These are the big 3. There are a few others.. gender, sexuality, culture.. but some of those overlap, or are functionally the same.
Race is the most obvious, has been with us the longest, & generates the most division. Region can include dialect & even culture, & stirs local loyalties. Education is supposed to be a healing agent, that exposes the artificial contrasts, but it has become a source of division itself. Instead of being a tool for enlightenment, it has been hijacked into a tool of propaganda, to indoctrinate, not promote critical thinking. Education now promotes this division, rather than heal it, as it used to.
Sports are a substitute for national division & rivalry. You can root for your regional team or hero, & feel pride for their accomplishments. After the game, the sportsmanship that the games teach *should* cause us to shake hands of congratulations, knowing our deeper national loyalties override any feelings of resentment or division over the sports teams. But the division runs deep, & some humans find their loyalties conflicted. They do NOT show sportsmanship, but let their resentment grow to hate, & build artificial divisions. The 'fan' is the poster child for this malady.
America has governance as its source of national pride, or it used to, historically. We are a govt of, by & for the people. Our unity is based not on similarity of culture, race, education, region, or any superficial trait, but our common govt, which has been a source of great pride & patriotism for americans over the centuries. But when other factors upstage the primary loyalty of the nation, national division results. The secondary superficial allegiance overrides the broader national identity, & a shallow pool of parochial devotion divides us.
Lincoln made his famous 'house divided' speech running for the senate in 1858, which he lost.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."
It illustrated the division of the day: Slavery. It was a major division, & a very heated issue, which eventually erupted in the civil war. That is the most common 'solution' for man, in our disputes with each other: War.
Man has always been a conflicted, divided creature. Today we have race baiters, regional loyalists, & other dividers pitching us against each other based NOT on our ideology of freedom & self governance, but on race, education, & regional or cultural differences. The detractors of american freedom constantly fan the flames of division, distracting us from the deeper issue of human freedom & self reliance. They mock the less educated, or impugn those they deem inferior intellectually, or they ridicule the snobbish elitism of the educated. They promote absurd differences in race, pounding drums of suspicion & mistrust, based only on skin pigmentation. And these dividers are trying to build a coalition of grievance.. pitting all the big 3 against a trumped up opponent. They try to paint the divisions as these artificial traits, to rally their side against their ideological opponents.
But the real struggle going on is ideological. Will we be a govt of, by, & for the people, or will we promote an elite ruling class? Will we defend & secure individual rights of sovereignty & responsibility, or trample them with redistribution & nanny state solutions? Will we be a nation of free people, or a state centered bureaucracy? THIS is the real choice before us, not the phony superficial divisions the race baiters & dividers try to portray. People of ALL education, region, & racial backgrounds need to wake up to the fake wars over superficials & see the bigger picture.
Once we lose our sense of national identity, & let the dividers run rampant with superficial loyalties of race, region, or anything that distracts us from the central truth of american liberty, we are finished as a nation, as a house divided cannot stand.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Exceptional or Multicultural.
Whenever i hear the race baiters carry on about the supremacy of the {insert race here} man, or a 'manifest destiny' kind of attitude, i remember what made america. It was not the cream of the crop.. the elite, superior specimens of human evolution. No, it was the dregs.. the misfits.. the castoffs.
America is an argument AGAINST any racial or cultural superiority. We cannot claim thousands of years of racial or ethnic purity. Mongrelism is the norm, here. Yet what the purists despise is our greatest strength. Most of european race & culture was highly esteemed, especially early in the last century. They ruled the world.. dominating every other culture & race, occupying their lands with superior armies & technologies. Their smug superiority found a climax in the nazis, who made a religion out of racial & ethnic superiority. But they were just openly expressing what most europeans already felt.
A significant contribution to the psyche of america was the native people. They were not ruled by a central, powerful state, but by small, independent tribes. The values of the 'noble savage' were revered, & continue to be to this day. They could not be enslaved, like some conquered peoples, but were very defiant & independent. This trait infected the nannied europeans who came, even though they possessed superior technology & eventually, numbers, & who in general, looked down on the 'savages'. But by & large, the native american tribes were much more individualistic in their basic ideals than the euro settlers. The europeans had to learn that.. sometimes just to survival in the new, wild world, but it carried over to the rest of their lives.
Some americans tried to jump on the bandwagon of racial superiority, but it just didn't work. Maggie Sanger got the nation fired up about eugenics, & tried to bring us into euro cool, wanting to bump off inferior races & hasten the evolution of the Perfect Man, which was all the rage back then. But the message was so similar to what the nazis preached that it fell into disrepute. So multiculturalism has pretty much ruled western ideology since ww2. It is now, however, becoming a pariah in europe, as the social engineers in the various countries seem bent on not just accepting other cultures & diversity, but actively destroying the culture of the indigent population. Europeans are not inherently multicultural, like the US, so forcing american parameters of culture has backfired. The success of america was a boon for the concept of multiculturalism, but it has been perverted & is used to destroy the long, rich cultures of the individual euro states.
The 'exceptional' part about america is its multicultural diversity. But that is the nature of america, & those dynamics cannot be forced upon other cultures. Other cultures & ethnicities should not despise their own culture, but embrace it.. it is YOUR heritage, accept it! That is your strength. Americans should do the same. We are a melting pot & a rag tag group of misfits & cultural rejects. Embrace it! It is our strength.
But the success of america should dispel any notion of individual cultural superiority. It is the core ideals.. the basic idea of america that has built our own success. Freedom. Responsibility. Self reliance. Opportunity. Hard work & intelligence pays off, here.. or it did. It was not something racial. There was not an evolving Man rising to perfection & prominence. No, it was the ideals of america.. individual sovereignty, personal freedoms, independence & self reliance.... THESE things were the major factors in building the new world hegemony, not any claims of racial superiority, as was done by most throughout history. That is why people are confused.. they are programmed to think that cultural & racial superiority is what makes a people great. Many people live in the past, coasting on dreams of past glories in their culture. They console themselves in their current state with memories of greatness & power, when THEY ruled the world.
America is an argument AGAINST any racial or cultural superiority. We cannot claim thousands of years of racial or ethnic purity. Mongrelism is the norm, here. Yet what the purists despise is our greatest strength. Most of european race & culture was highly esteemed, especially early in the last century. They ruled the world.. dominating every other culture & race, occupying their lands with superior armies & technologies. Their smug superiority found a climax in the nazis, who made a religion out of racial & ethnic superiority. But they were just openly expressing what most europeans already felt.
A significant contribution to the psyche of america was the native people. They were not ruled by a central, powerful state, but by small, independent tribes. The values of the 'noble savage' were revered, & continue to be to this day. They could not be enslaved, like some conquered peoples, but were very defiant & independent. This trait infected the nannied europeans who came, even though they possessed superior technology & eventually, numbers, & who in general, looked down on the 'savages'. But by & large, the native american tribes were much more individualistic in their basic ideals than the euro settlers. The europeans had to learn that.. sometimes just to survival in the new, wild world, but it carried over to the rest of their lives.
Some americans tried to jump on the bandwagon of racial superiority, but it just didn't work. Maggie Sanger got the nation fired up about eugenics, & tried to bring us into euro cool, wanting to bump off inferior races & hasten the evolution of the Perfect Man, which was all the rage back then. But the message was so similar to what the nazis preached that it fell into disrepute. So multiculturalism has pretty much ruled western ideology since ww2. It is now, however, becoming a pariah in europe, as the social engineers in the various countries seem bent on not just accepting other cultures & diversity, but actively destroying the culture of the indigent population. Europeans are not inherently multicultural, like the US, so forcing american parameters of culture has backfired. The success of america was a boon for the concept of multiculturalism, but it has been perverted & is used to destroy the long, rich cultures of the individual euro states.
The 'exceptional' part about america is its multicultural diversity. But that is the nature of america, & those dynamics cannot be forced upon other cultures. Other cultures & ethnicities should not despise their own culture, but embrace it.. it is YOUR heritage, accept it! That is your strength. Americans should do the same. We are a melting pot & a rag tag group of misfits & cultural rejects. Embrace it! It is our strength.
But the success of america should dispel any notion of individual cultural superiority. It is the core ideals.. the basic idea of america that has built our own success. Freedom. Responsibility. Self reliance. Opportunity. Hard work & intelligence pays off, here.. or it did. It was not something racial. There was not an evolving Man rising to perfection & prominence. No, it was the ideals of america.. individual sovereignty, personal freedoms, independence & self reliance.... THESE things were the major factors in building the new world hegemony, not any claims of racial superiority, as was done by most throughout history. That is why people are confused.. they are programmed to think that cultural & racial superiority is what makes a people great. Many people live in the past, coasting on dreams of past glories in their culture. They console themselves in their current state with memories of greatness & power, when THEY ruled the world.
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