0 comment Wednesday, November 26, 2014 | admin
The Elephant in the Room
by Anne E. Kornblut
This New York Times article deals with the widening rift between Republicans and Democrats, roughly corresponding to 'left' and 'right' in America, and the stunting of real exchange of views between political enemies. It's become so bad that family members are often estranged from each other, and friendships are destroyed.
Invariably someone will protest that the situation isn't that bad, but in my experience it is very much 'that bad.' One of my friendships, with a college classmate from years back, has been very strained due to our polarizing political views. Although we have often had extended conversations about everything under the sun, and have had many truly stimulating and inspiring exchanges on various subjects, as our political views diverged, we are now no longer able to discuss things beyond the superficial level. That seems a great loss to me. And I have family members, devout left-liberals, who become near-apoplectic when the subject of politics comes up. Now keep in mind that I don't attempt to provoke anyone by bringing up sensitive issues on which I know I differ with them; usually they introduce the controversial subjects in a kind of 'I dare you to respond' fashion. And when I do respond, in my outspoken way, I am 'mean-spirited'. It all ends with raised blood pressures and resentments and a resulting loss of closeness. As a result, there is a lot of walking on eggshells and self-censorship going on; this is not the way it should be among family members or longtime friends.
How and when did it get this way? That could be the subject of a full-length book; a mere blogpost can't cover it. But by my reckoning, it started really with the late 60s/early 70s leftist counterculture, wherein the youthful generations began to repudiate everything their parents and grandparents, and all their forebears, stood for. America became 'AmeriKKKa', and was 'prejudiced', imperialist, oppressive, 'chauvinistic', and later on, as new terms of abuse were coined, America was declared guilty of being 'racist', 'sexist' and 'homophobic.' And now the new crime of Islamophobia has been invented, so as to proclaim America guilty of that. And 'nativist' and 'xenophobic' are new additions to the litany of American crimes.
Now, along comes 'conservative' Brit-turned-American Andrew Sullivan, who rails against 'Christianists'
who are the latest threat to America.
The 'generation gap' seemed to widen in the 70s, with many of the baby-boom generation bitterly denouncing their parents and traditional America in all its forms. When Richard Nixon was accused of approving of the Watergate break-in, lefty baby-boomers became a kind of howling mob denouncing him as the equivalent of Hitler, and baying for his impeachment or worse. I remember a common graffito of that time: 'Off Nixon', the word 'off' meaning to kill. This kind of hysterical, extreme rhetoric became commonplace among the younger generations, and thus we had a ratcheting-up of the divisive rhetoric.
This continued into the 80s, when Ronald Reagan became President; I remember many of the lefties had an obsessive hatred and a deranged loathing of Reagan. Why? His amiable persona hardly seems likely to inspire the kind of hate directed at him by the Left. Still, at this time, it was mostly the fringe left, the anti-war left, that promulgated most of the rabid rhetoric. The Democrat Party itself, although it had been considerably pulled to the left by the McGovernites in 1972, still maintained some decorum in the public debate. But the real hatefulness of the left came to a crescendo during the Clinton years. As Clinton's various misdeeds began to provoke opposition and criticism from more conservative and traditional Americans, the Clintonistas responded with the kind of vitriol, the kind of 'take-no-prisoners' attitude which had animated the 'hate-Nixon', anti-war college lefties of the 70s. And no coincidence, because in most cases it was the very same people who had been part of the far-left during the 60s and 70s who now were part of the political establishment, and were in high places. The Clintons themselves had been part of the far-left, and had simply adopted the guise of 'establishment' types, shedding the long hair and the ragtag style of dress for a more respectable look.
Such was one of the strategies of the left; not all of them believed that 'taking it to the street' or to the barricades was the effective way to make revolution; the belief was that it was preferable to 'change things from the inside', adopt the outward trappings of mainstream, establishment America while inwardly rejecting and subverting it. The Gramscian communists believed that the 'long march through the institutions', the media, academia, churches, and political parties, was the way to go. And it seems they believed correctly, because it's evident that they have been successful in taking control over all those institutions to a great degree. Even the Republican Party, I am convinced, has its Gramscians.
So the Democrat Party of today, which is a mutated form of the old Democrat party before it was McGovernized and Clintonized, is now considerably farther left than it was even a generation ago. As the older generations died off, and the society is dominated by mostly baby-boomers, the party scarcely resembles that of the pre-1970 era. And the puzzling thing is that many of the Democrats I know seem not to notice that their party has moved so far left, embracing many positions that would have mortified the older generations of Democrats. There are no longer any 'Scoop Jackson Democrats', (not even Joe Lieberman) or Harry Truman Democrats, or even JFK Democrats. But this metamorphosis seems to escape the notice of many Democrats.
And as the Democrats become increasingly leftist, often anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-tradition, they further alienate the many heartland Americans who have not been converted to leftism. The liberals' extremism predictably provokes a harsh reaction from many more traditional Americans, and the hostility escalates. The media and many people in both parties often sound the alarm about 'extremism', by which they usually mean right-wing politics: nationalism and other such 'reactionary' sentiments, but they refuse to see that the extreme position of the left-liberals and their media wing simply pushes many people further to the right. As more traditional conservative views are denounced and banished beyond the pale, more extreme reactions will probably occur. At present there is hardly any place where old-fashioned conservative views are even allowed to be heard, outside the Internet and the blogosphere. Here in America, we have blessedly not yet seen the harsh laws which Europe and other Western countries have put in place, banning 'hate speech' which usually means any non-PC viewpoints. But as we creep toward that kind of PC totalitarianism, the true conservative viewpoint will increasingly be proscribed and shut down, as in Europe, where true conservatism is becoming a rare bird.
But why have the liberals in America become so increasingly bitter and venomous? It seems to me that they are winning; they have traditional America on the ropes. They have a stranglehold on the media, including both the news media and the entertainment media.
It would seem that they should be resting on their laurels and gloating over their liberal paradise which they have created in America: our borders wide open, a polyglot tower of Babel in the making, gay 'marriage' being forced on us; a feminized military, moral standards all but destroyed, and white Americans, that 'source of all evil', soon to be a minority. So why are they so angry and bitter?
Maybe that's something for the headshrinkers to explain. I can only conjecture that they are chronically bitter and alienated people, who are furious that the world does not conform to their visions of utopia, and convinced that if they could only force their ways of thinking and living on every last soul in the world, we would have heaven on earth, and 'the world will be as one'. The world will never be perfect, and human beings are not perfectible. That means liberals will perpetually be carrying a bitter grudge against the world and God and nature.
Meantime, they cannot brook any opposition or any exception to their dogmatic, rigid ideas, and they want to silence or destroy those who don't see things their way. They have decided that all differing opinions are evil, and must not be allowed to exist.
But another factor in this polarization and bitterness is that the right is now caught up in this good-vs.-evil Manichaean worldview, and unfortunately the actions of the left-liberals seem to confirm the suspicion that they are enemies of all that is good. How else can one view a philosophy that sympathizes with the most depraved of murderers and other criminals, or makes excuses for not only crime but terrorism, or which hates the mention of God and seeks to quash free speech in the name of 'tolerance'? Left-liberalism often seems to be consciously allying itself with the dark side. On the other hand, liberals, in their alternate universe, think that the only sins or crimes are 'intolerance' (especially 'racism') and 'hypocrisy', which usually means upholding any traditional morality. So in their strange universe, 'right-wingers' are the only bad guys, while they are the defenders of all that is good: their imaginary rainbow utopia of tolerance and diversity and peace and love.
Another factor: maybe there is an element of 'displacement' in this left-right dichotomy. All of us, whether we are aware of it or not, are experiencing a certain amount of disruption in our lives with all the dizzying change in America over the last decade, especially. Our country's population is growing by leaps and bounds, and that is not all good. Many people are feeling like strangers, as others with vastly different cultures and languages crowd in on our neighborhoods and towns. Many people are uprooting themselves in order to find the quality of life they have always known, as immigration changes everything around them. There is an accelerated level of change. This is disorienting and stressful; it's human nature to feel stressed by all this change, especially when it is out of our control, and is being imposed on us for reasons we don't comprehend. Yet we are not allowed to complain about this, or question it: we are 'racist' and 'hateful' if we are distressed or angry about it. We are supposed to welcome and 'celebrate' the changes, unsought though they are.
We are supposed to shut up and get used to it. We are PC-whipped into silence and acquiescence. Yet I say that this goes against our grain, as Americans. We are the children of a competent, strong, independent nation of people; pioneers, settlers, conquerors, and yet we are being shoved aside and expected to submit. This is not a natural state of things for us. It is creating a huge dissonance in us. It is creating a pressure that will have to find an outlet sooner or later.
For now, however, as we are censored and intimidated from speaking our minds, and as we try to find distractions in amusements and possessions, we probably express our frustrations and anger in acceptable ways. So we do the easy thing: we turn on those close to us. Just as people who have stressful careers, in which they have little control, often take out their frustrations on family members, so too are we Americans turning on our fellow Americans. And yes, we have reason to get upset with each other because we have been turned into warring camps, with diametrically opposed ideals and beliefs. And it isn't just left-vs.-right: it's men vs. women, one race against the other (and all against whites), the poor vs. the rich, and everybody against the middle class; gays vs. straights, and everybody against Christians. And on an international scale: everybody against Americans (even many of the Brits hate us, and they are our nearest cousins), and Americans who hate the French and the Brits, and so on.
I am sure this delights our common enemies in the Islamic world. They are no doubt laughing at our gullibility and weakness in not standing up to them in our countries, and they exploit our divisions within the West. Their very presence divides the West, as some gullible liberals side with them. The same with our Mexican invaders: their presence divides us, as some side with them, and denounce those who would defend our country.
I think our present PC world has exacerbated the tendency to divisions that already exist, and magnified them out of all proportion. We are so busy attacking and fearing each other that we cannot give due attention to the external threats we face. Our enemies love it this way.
by Anne E. Kornblut
This New York Times article deals with the widening rift between Republicans and Democrats, roughly corresponding to 'left' and 'right' in America, and the stunting of real exchange of views between political enemies. It's become so bad that family members are often estranged from each other, and friendships are destroyed.
Invariably someone will protest that the situation isn't that bad, but in my experience it is very much 'that bad.' One of my friendships, with a college classmate from years back, has been very strained due to our polarizing political views. Although we have often had extended conversations about everything under the sun, and have had many truly stimulating and inspiring exchanges on various subjects, as our political views diverged, we are now no longer able to discuss things beyond the superficial level. That seems a great loss to me. And I have family members, devout left-liberals, who become near-apoplectic when the subject of politics comes up. Now keep in mind that I don't attempt to provoke anyone by bringing up sensitive issues on which I know I differ with them; usually they introduce the controversial subjects in a kind of 'I dare you to respond' fashion. And when I do respond, in my outspoken way, I am 'mean-spirited'. It all ends with raised blood pressures and resentments and a resulting loss of closeness. As a result, there is a lot of walking on eggshells and self-censorship going on; this is not the way it should be among family members or longtime friends.
How and when did it get this way? That could be the subject of a full-length book; a mere blogpost can't cover it. But by my reckoning, it started really with the late 60s/early 70s leftist counterculture, wherein the youthful generations began to repudiate everything their parents and grandparents, and all their forebears, stood for. America became 'AmeriKKKa', and was 'prejudiced', imperialist, oppressive, 'chauvinistic', and later on, as new terms of abuse were coined, America was declared guilty of being 'racist', 'sexist' and 'homophobic.' And now the new crime of Islamophobia has been invented, so as to proclaim America guilty of that. And 'nativist' and 'xenophobic' are new additions to the litany of American crimes.
Now, along comes 'conservative' Brit-turned-American Andrew Sullivan, who rails against 'Christianists'
who are the latest threat to America.
The 'generation gap' seemed to widen in the 70s, with many of the baby-boom generation bitterly denouncing their parents and traditional America in all its forms. When Richard Nixon was accused of approving of the Watergate break-in, lefty baby-boomers became a kind of howling mob denouncing him as the equivalent of Hitler, and baying for his impeachment or worse. I remember a common graffito of that time: 'Off Nixon', the word 'off' meaning to kill. This kind of hysterical, extreme rhetoric became commonplace among the younger generations, and thus we had a ratcheting-up of the divisive rhetoric.
This continued into the 80s, when Ronald Reagan became President; I remember many of the lefties had an obsessive hatred and a deranged loathing of Reagan. Why? His amiable persona hardly seems likely to inspire the kind of hate directed at him by the Left. Still, at this time, it was mostly the fringe left, the anti-war left, that promulgated most of the rabid rhetoric. The Democrat Party itself, although it had been considerably pulled to the left by the McGovernites in 1972, still maintained some decorum in the public debate. But the real hatefulness of the left came to a crescendo during the Clinton years. As Clinton's various misdeeds began to provoke opposition and criticism from more conservative and traditional Americans, the Clintonistas responded with the kind of vitriol, the kind of 'take-no-prisoners' attitude which had animated the 'hate-Nixon', anti-war college lefties of the 70s. And no coincidence, because in most cases it was the very same people who had been part of the far-left during the 60s and 70s who now were part of the political establishment, and were in high places. The Clintons themselves had been part of the far-left, and had simply adopted the guise of 'establishment' types, shedding the long hair and the ragtag style of dress for a more respectable look.
Such was one of the strategies of the left; not all of them believed that 'taking it to the street' or to the barricades was the effective way to make revolution; the belief was that it was preferable to 'change things from the inside', adopt the outward trappings of mainstream, establishment America while inwardly rejecting and subverting it. The Gramscian communists believed that the 'long march through the institutions', the media, academia, churches, and political parties, was the way to go. And it seems they believed correctly, because it's evident that they have been successful in taking control over all those institutions to a great degree. Even the Republican Party, I am convinced, has its Gramscians.
So the Democrat Party of today, which is a mutated form of the old Democrat party before it was McGovernized and Clintonized, is now considerably farther left than it was even a generation ago. As the older generations died off, and the society is dominated by mostly baby-boomers, the party scarcely resembles that of the pre-1970 era. And the puzzling thing is that many of the Democrats I know seem not to notice that their party has moved so far left, embracing many positions that would have mortified the older generations of Democrats. There are no longer any 'Scoop Jackson Democrats', (not even Joe Lieberman) or Harry Truman Democrats, or even JFK Democrats. But this metamorphosis seems to escape the notice of many Democrats.
And as the Democrats become increasingly leftist, often anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-tradition, they further alienate the many heartland Americans who have not been converted to leftism. The liberals' extremism predictably provokes a harsh reaction from many more traditional Americans, and the hostility escalates. The media and many people in both parties often sound the alarm about 'extremism', by which they usually mean right-wing politics: nationalism and other such 'reactionary' sentiments, but they refuse to see that the extreme position of the left-liberals and their media wing simply pushes many people further to the right. As more traditional conservative views are denounced and banished beyond the pale, more extreme reactions will probably occur. At present there is hardly any place where old-fashioned conservative views are even allowed to be heard, outside the Internet and the blogosphere. Here in America, we have blessedly not yet seen the harsh laws which Europe and other Western countries have put in place, banning 'hate speech' which usually means any non-PC viewpoints. But as we creep toward that kind of PC totalitarianism, the true conservative viewpoint will increasingly be proscribed and shut down, as in Europe, where true conservatism is becoming a rare bird.
But why have the liberals in America become so increasingly bitter and venomous? It seems to me that they are winning; they have traditional America on the ropes. They have a stranglehold on the media, including both the news media and the entertainment media.
It would seem that they should be resting on their laurels and gloating over their liberal paradise which they have created in America: our borders wide open, a polyglot tower of Babel in the making, gay 'marriage' being forced on us; a feminized military, moral standards all but destroyed, and white Americans, that 'source of all evil', soon to be a minority. So why are they so angry and bitter?
Maybe that's something for the headshrinkers to explain. I can only conjecture that they are chronically bitter and alienated people, who are furious that the world does not conform to their visions of utopia, and convinced that if they could only force their ways of thinking and living on every last soul in the world, we would have heaven on earth, and 'the world will be as one'. The world will never be perfect, and human beings are not perfectible. That means liberals will perpetually be carrying a bitter grudge against the world and God and nature.
Meantime, they cannot brook any opposition or any exception to their dogmatic, rigid ideas, and they want to silence or destroy those who don't see things their way. They have decided that all differing opinions are evil, and must not be allowed to exist.
But another factor in this polarization and bitterness is that the right is now caught up in this good-vs.-evil Manichaean worldview, and unfortunately the actions of the left-liberals seem to confirm the suspicion that they are enemies of all that is good. How else can one view a philosophy that sympathizes with the most depraved of murderers and other criminals, or makes excuses for not only crime but terrorism, or which hates the mention of God and seeks to quash free speech in the name of 'tolerance'? Left-liberalism often seems to be consciously allying itself with the dark side. On the other hand, liberals, in their alternate universe, think that the only sins or crimes are 'intolerance' (especially 'racism') and 'hypocrisy', which usually means upholding any traditional morality. So in their strange universe, 'right-wingers' are the only bad guys, while they are the defenders of all that is good: their imaginary rainbow utopia of tolerance and diversity and peace and love.
Another factor: maybe there is an element of 'displacement' in this left-right dichotomy. All of us, whether we are aware of it or not, are experiencing a certain amount of disruption in our lives with all the dizzying change in America over the last decade, especially. Our country's population is growing by leaps and bounds, and that is not all good. Many people are feeling like strangers, as others with vastly different cultures and languages crowd in on our neighborhoods and towns. Many people are uprooting themselves in order to find the quality of life they have always known, as immigration changes everything around them. There is an accelerated level of change. This is disorienting and stressful; it's human nature to feel stressed by all this change, especially when it is out of our control, and is being imposed on us for reasons we don't comprehend. Yet we are not allowed to complain about this, or question it: we are 'racist' and 'hateful' if we are distressed or angry about it. We are supposed to welcome and 'celebrate' the changes, unsought though they are.
We are supposed to shut up and get used to it. We are PC-whipped into silence and acquiescence. Yet I say that this goes against our grain, as Americans. We are the children of a competent, strong, independent nation of people; pioneers, settlers, conquerors, and yet we are being shoved aside and expected to submit. This is not a natural state of things for us. It is creating a huge dissonance in us. It is creating a pressure that will have to find an outlet sooner or later.
For now, however, as we are censored and intimidated from speaking our minds, and as we try to find distractions in amusements and possessions, we probably express our frustrations and anger in acceptable ways. So we do the easy thing: we turn on those close to us. Just as people who have stressful careers, in which they have little control, often take out their frustrations on family members, so too are we Americans turning on our fellow Americans. And yes, we have reason to get upset with each other because we have been turned into warring camps, with diametrically opposed ideals and beliefs. And it isn't just left-vs.-right: it's men vs. women, one race against the other (and all against whites), the poor vs. the rich, and everybody against the middle class; gays vs. straights, and everybody against Christians. And on an international scale: everybody against Americans (even many of the Brits hate us, and they are our nearest cousins), and Americans who hate the French and the Brits, and so on.
I am sure this delights our common enemies in the Islamic world. They are no doubt laughing at our gullibility and weakness in not standing up to them in our countries, and they exploit our divisions within the West. Their very presence divides the West, as some gullible liberals side with them. The same with our Mexican invaders: their presence divides us, as some side with them, and denounce those who would defend our country.
I think our present PC world has exacerbated the tendency to divisions that already exist, and magnified them out of all proportion. We are so busy attacking and fearing each other that we cannot give due attention to the external threats we face. Our enemies love it this way.
Labels: Indivisible, Nation
0 comment Monday, August 4, 2014 | admin
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it.'
- George Moore
Having just returned home from my Thanksgiving visit with the family, I've been reflecting on what family means in the larger context of the world.
We live in a time in which family is probably more devalued than at any time in our nation's existence. It may be that in the past, home and family were idealized to a degree; nowadays, at least in our popular culture and in common wisdom, many people have become cynics about family and home. How often do we hear people disparaging their families, referring to them as 'dysfunctional'? Or airing their family's dirty laundry in public, describing the horrible childhood they supposedly had with uncaring parents, or alcoholism, and all the rest?
Certainly I don't doubt that there are truly appalling families out there; the newspapers and TV talk shows serve up a steady diet of stories of horrible abuse of various kinds. And I encounter more people, especially younger people, who think that home and family are archaic concepts; I've heard more than a few young people say that their friends or coworkers are their family, and that they feel estranged from their blood kin. This is probably more true of urban people. We live in a time of weakened bonds and diminishing social ties. Many of us live rootless, mobile lives, shifting from place to place because of career or simply personal whim. The pervasive liberal idea that family and origin are limiting concepts, and that people should be 'free' to define themselves outside the racial, national, kinship, and gender categories, is a corrosive idea in our day.
But we live in a time in which many people, seeing the flaws and imperfections in their own families, declare them 'dysfunctional' and not worthy of the loyalty and duty people used to feel towards kin.
My family is probably a typical American family in many ways. And many of the trends I see in my family reflect what is going on in America generally: for instance, many, if not most, of the younger generation are shunning marriage, or postponing it until after the age of 30. Many of the younger folks are overeducated; 'perpetual students', still taking college courses or pursuing graduate degrees long past what used to be marriageable age. And when they finally complete their studies, they are saddled with huge debts as they launch careers. This is a further disincentive to marry and reproduce.
So there are few babies and little ones in our larger family circle. I do have one cousin who has fathered 11 children, but he is the exception. Most have small families, by contrast to my grandparents, who had 13 children on my father's side, and 8 children on my mothers.
So we are dwindling away, and fewer of the younger people bother to keep up the extended family ties that were so central to the older generations. Coming to the family reunions and to family holiday celebrations is not a priority with the younger generations.
Every other day, it seems, we read articles about the low birth rates of Americans, and the 'need' for mass immigration to replenish our population. Hence our current tidal wave of immigration, and people increasingly believe that mass immigration is 'necessary.'
In a society where children are encouraged to remain adolescents until they are long past that stage of life, many of the younger folks are still kids at age 25-30. Emotionally and behaviorally they are more like 18-year-olds. And there is an epidemic of these young adults moving back home to Mama and Daddy. I see it everywhere, not just in my family.
In this respect, the generation gap increases: we have younger generations who are often reluctant to step into adults' size shoes and go out into the world, and we have older folks who enable this perpetually adolescent behavior by their overindulgence. Too often the younger folks don't want to 'put away childish things', and the parents fail to encourage them to do so.
So generationally there are big differences within my family circle; we have the 'Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, and their children and grandchildren. Probably at no time in America's history have the generations been so disparate; we simply view the world and ourselves differently.
This is reflected in our views on politics and world events, feelings can run very high as we find ourselves on opposite sides of some of the burning issues of the day. Many people in my family are very politically-minded, and very strong in their beliefs (like yours truly) and when we disagree, heated exchanges happen. During my Thanksgiving visit I very nearly had words with a close family member, but we each drew back and held our tongues.
But what keeps the differences in check is that we as a family are bound together by shared origins, shared sentiments around home and kin, and shared memories. And a shared loyalty.
This past summer, at our family reunion, we all met as the descendants of my great-grandparents, whose pictures were prominently displayed in a place of honor. As I looked around, I saw a varied group of people but we were united by a common bond of descent, heritage, and memory. We are also united by being, with very few exceptions, a group of believing Christians, as generations of our ancestors were.
And we are fortunate (or blessed, shall I say) that we know our ancestry and origins for many generations back; we are bound by a common pride in the accomplishments of our forefathers, by their struggles, and by their common everyday heroism in prevailing during difficult times, and doing so without compromising the family honor and decency.
And in knowing our ancestors and their doings, we have a stronger sense of who we are.
There is a sense of wholeness in seeing ourselves in our ancestors and our living kin; a recognition, and a certainty of where we belong in this world. There is a sense of our mutual acceptance of who we are, warts and all. We have our 'black sheep' and prodigals in the family, but that's not who we are.
In our family we know each others' weaknesses and faults and sins; we have our skeletons in the closet, like each and every family does, but we are a forgiving family ultimately. And though we don't always agree, we stick together in trials and difficulties. We are fiercely loyal to one another. So it should be in a healthy nation, with a sense of itself.
The nation is, after all, just the family writ large -- or it should be. Our nation began as a group of united people with a common origin.
But in this day and age we are, as a nation and people, just like many individuals, too quick to air our national dirty laundry, and to revisit past wrongs and mistakes and sins of our national family. As a result we have become uncomfortable with who we are, and doubtful about our worthiness, and about whether we deserve our comforts and successes.
Our collective voice in the 'media' and popular culture is too focused on labeling our national family 'dysfunctional', in finding fault and condemning, in harping on past failings. Thus our national family members no longer feel the loyalty and the pride and the sense of commonality that holds a family together. We are on the way to becoming an atomized, rootless, alienated people, with no past, few lasting bonds, and a diminishing sense of who we are -- or worse yet, a false sense of who we are. We are too quick to be self-critical and self-castigating, too quick to denigrate our forefathers for their flaws.
All of these things weaken us as a nation, just as these things weaken the family.
And the tendency to avoid adult responsibilities and behavior is also reflected in a country in which many people neglect their civic duties, and prefer to hole up in their own homes with their toys and diversions and games, willfully oblivious to the fact that the country is in dire distress. They prefer not to deal with it, and busy themselves with possessions and sense-pleasures.
Is there any hope of restoring our common national family? As we become outnumbered by millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, and their progeny, we will either reassert ourselves, reclaim our national confidence --- or we will become another lost colony, like the Roanoke colony whose fate is unknown and unrecorded. Maybe they were absorbed into the local Indian population, just as our descendants may vanish into a multicultural 'America.' Or we will become as today's Indians, small groups isolated within a larger, foreign society.
My hope is that we will rediscover our commonality and kinship, and realize that we will have to unite against the threats we face. When our backs are to the wall, I hope we will find that strength and determination that enabled our forefathers to dominate this continent.
There are, despite our flaws, many strong families within our country; as long as this is true, there is hope for our nation, our larger family.
Just as I see strength in my own family, despite our differences and our flaws, I see the same potential in my fellow Americans, who are, after all, my extended family.
Time for a reawakening of our spirit, and for a real family reunion.
0 comment Thursday, July 24, 2014 | admin
Lately we are told frequently by the media and by our political classes that we, Americans, are 'a nation of immigrants.' A google search on this phrase produces some 46,800,000 hits.
Yet how true is this phrase? It seems to imply, among other things, that America has no distinct character or culture; it is merely a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which anyone is invited to come and write whatever he wishes. Each successive wave of newcomers, then, would superimpose his own culture and customs, and whichever group was most numerous would succeed in remaking America to their specifications. This seems to be the goal of the latest groups of immigrants: not to join an existing America, but to reshape America.
There is an implication also that America is strictly a creation of all the colorful 'melting-pot' immigrants; it is lately claimed that 'immigrants built America', or that they 'made America great.' This diminishes the contribution of the original colonists and settlers of America.
Reading the words of English philosopher Edmund Burke from the year 1775 tells us something about the character of the American people as they existed then. In his 'Speech on Conciliation With the Colonies', Burke said:
"In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and intractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think is the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any other people of the earth...First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted fro your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles...The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles."
Remember, Burke's description is of an America before the days of mass immigration. It would seem, then, that the main characteristics of the American spirit were present even before this country declared independence from England. And whatever else characterizes America, surely most people would agree that the love of freedom and the 'fierce spirit of liberty' was the contribution of the earliest colonists to America. America was a great country because of these high ideals, and later generations of immigrants became Americans by adopting these ideals and the commitment to defend liberty. All true Americans, regardless of national origin, share these traits with the early English colonists. To immigrate here, in earlier eras, implied acceptance of these American ideals.
Without the distinctive contributions of the original English settlers and their particular character, without the ideals which shaped the founding of this country, America could never have become the magnet which drew the later waves of immigrants. To say that the immigrants 'made this country what it is today' is to diminish the role of the original colonists and Founders.
Our current Politically Correct orthodoxy has decided that the Founding Fathers were just 'dead white males', not worthy of respect or deserving of any credit. In some kind of perverse upside-down hierarchy, immigrants are the true makers of this country, and newer immigrants are accorded more status than the original settlers of this country and their descendants. Our founding heroes have been disparaged and removed from their rightful place, while new arrivals, even those who entered illegally, are treated with deference.
Perhaps we are now a nation of immigrants, or at least a nation for immigrants.
Yet how true is this phrase? It seems to imply, among other things, that America has no distinct character or culture; it is merely a tabula rasa, a blank slate upon which anyone is invited to come and write whatever he wishes. Each successive wave of newcomers, then, would superimpose his own culture and customs, and whichever group was most numerous would succeed in remaking America to their specifications. This seems to be the goal of the latest groups of immigrants: not to join an existing America, but to reshape America.
There is an implication also that America is strictly a creation of all the colorful 'melting-pot' immigrants; it is lately claimed that 'immigrants built America', or that they 'made America great.' This diminishes the contribution of the original colonists and settlers of America.
Reading the words of English philosopher Edmund Burke from the year 1775 tells us something about the character of the American people as they existed then. In his 'Speech on Conciliation With the Colonies', Burke said:
"In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole: and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and intractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think is the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any other people of the earth...First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted fro your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles...The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles."
Remember, Burke's description is of an America before the days of mass immigration. It would seem, then, that the main characteristics of the American spirit were present even before this country declared independence from England. And whatever else characterizes America, surely most people would agree that the love of freedom and the 'fierce spirit of liberty' was the contribution of the earliest colonists to America. America was a great country because of these high ideals, and later generations of immigrants became Americans by adopting these ideals and the commitment to defend liberty. All true Americans, regardless of national origin, share these traits with the early English colonists. To immigrate here, in earlier eras, implied acceptance of these American ideals.
Without the distinctive contributions of the original English settlers and their particular character, without the ideals which shaped the founding of this country, America could never have become the magnet which drew the later waves of immigrants. To say that the immigrants 'made this country what it is today' is to diminish the role of the original colonists and Founders.
Our current Politically Correct orthodoxy has decided that the Founding Fathers were just 'dead white males', not worthy of respect or deserving of any credit. In some kind of perverse upside-down hierarchy, immigrants are the true makers of this country, and newer immigrants are accorded more status than the original settlers of this country and their descendants. Our founding heroes have been disparaged and removed from their rightful place, while new arrivals, even those who entered illegally, are treated with deference.
Perhaps we are now a nation of immigrants, or at least a nation for immigrants.
Labels: Immigrants, Nation
0 comment Monday, June 9, 2014 | admin
My faithful readers (you of the superhuman attention spans) know how much I admire Albert Jay Nock. Here is a piece which appears at First Principles
The Durable Mr. Nock
[Warning; it's a lengthy piece,but it is a worthwhile piece for those who can handle it.]
Here is a sample or two:
Albert Jay Nock died too soon, but not before he had nailed to the mast several of the paradoxes which make living in our age so intriguing. He tookgreat delight, for example, in pointing out that American colleges and universities are generally hostile to education and learning. In conversation one day with several college presidents, Nock laid down a number of stringent guidelines for running a college. One of the presidents, somewhat shocked, said, "Why Mr. Nock, if my college were to follow your advice we�d lose most of the faculty and all but about five of the students." Nock pondered this for a moment, and then replied, "That would be just the right size for a college."
The life-long concern of this man was with the quality of life lived in our civilization; he found the quality poor. Institutions of higher learning, so called, were by no means his only target. Nock was a staunch defender of capitalism, but he was unsparing in his criticism of capitalists for distrusting the free market: and for trotting down to Washington begging for handouts.
[...]
A small number of men and women whose convictions are so sound and so clearly thought out that they will go through hell and high water for them are more than a match for the multitude whose ideas are too vague to generate convictions. A little leaven raises the entire lump of dough; a tiny flame starts a mighty conflagration; a small rudder turns a huge ship. And a handful of people possessed of ideas and a dream can change a nation�especially when that nation is searching for new answers and a new direction.''
The Durable Mr. Nock
[Warning; it's a lengthy piece,but it is a worthwhile piece for those who can handle it.]
Here is a sample or two:
Albert Jay Nock died too soon, but not before he had nailed to the mast several of the paradoxes which make living in our age so intriguing. He tookgreat delight, for example, in pointing out that American colleges and universities are generally hostile to education and learning. In conversation one day with several college presidents, Nock laid down a number of stringent guidelines for running a college. One of the presidents, somewhat shocked, said, "Why Mr. Nock, if my college were to follow your advice we�d lose most of the faculty and all but about five of the students." Nock pondered this for a moment, and then replied, "That would be just the right size for a college."
The life-long concern of this man was with the quality of life lived in our civilization; he found the quality poor. Institutions of higher learning, so called, were by no means his only target. Nock was a staunch defender of capitalism, but he was unsparing in his criticism of capitalists for distrusting the free market: and for trotting down to Washington begging for handouts.
[...]
A small number of men and women whose convictions are so sound and so clearly thought out that they will go through hell and high water for them are more than a match for the multitude whose ideas are too vague to generate convictions. A little leaven raises the entire lump of dough; a tiny flame starts a mighty conflagration; a small rudder turns a huge ship. And a handful of people possessed of ideas and a dream can change a nation�especially when that nation is searching for new answers and a new direction.''