Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Americans or American'ts

Americans may well be the last of the naive people on earth.  We still believe some things matter.  We still believe in certain values, and that these values are innate, or God given.  We believe that we can overcome the odds.  We believe we are the instruments through which achievment and innovation is found.  We believe.  Yet many of us also believe in doing nothing and expecting government to do it all for us.  We want to be pampered, coddled, cuddled, and told how very special we are.  These Americans no longer believe, they simple live their lives in service of a cause greater than themselves - the government.


We have, for many years, been drifting away from the belief in our ability to change and mold the future, to help the helpless, and serve the masses who seek and deserve liberty.  We have become jaded, in part from hearing the voices telling us we can't, we musn't, we shouldn't.  It is no wonder.  Psychologists tell us that if you are told enough that you are unworthy, you will believe it.  We have started to believe we can't and we shouldn't, and what right do we have to be happy and prosperous.  Instead, we believe we can't, and we need help, we are unable to rise above our adversities, for we are not what we believed we once were, we are better, we are -


It is odd to consider the greatest of American expectations and then the worst ...
"You strive for bipartisanship when you can. When you find your common ground, that's great. If you don't find your common ground, you have to stand your ground," she said. "And in addition to that, you want bipartisanship, but you cannot let the lack of bipartisanship stand in the way of making this change that is important to the American people."

The statement in an of itself is great.  Civil Rights - to stand firm, resolute, to provide all Americans with ... yet the statement is not about civil rights, it is the health care bill that passed and the speaker - Nancy Pelosi.

Yet there will be some who will read it as a passionate defense of the good.  Unless it was a Republican saying it.  Just imagine though if a Republican had said it, say six years ago, when a Republican Congress had shoved through a bill unwanted by a majority of the American people.

It goes both ways - what if a Republican had said it, what would Democrats have said.  Now that a Democrat said it, what has the media said?

That's right, not much.

Make Mine Freedom - 1948


American Form of Government

Who's on First? Certainly isn't the Euro.