— from Velma Doty —
America the Beautiful: I am grateful to be part of this country. It is hard to fathom those who do not and do everything in their power to destroy what we have in this country. By stupid actions of violence / protests / flag burning / hateful vengeance /etc., etc., how is that making us a better country?
How have we Americans become so blind to what we are doing to ourselves? We are destroying ourselves from within. We need not worry about an enemy taking over; we are handing the USA up for grabs. ”United we stand divided we fall!”
We have elections and then if we don’t like the results find all kinds of ways and means to tear down rather than support. Spend millions of dollars and precious time and any means to disrupt what should be a working government. To gain what? Have we forgotten, we were taught in kindergarten [ if not before] play and work together and more gets done.
We ignore common sense approach to so many things. Open Borders? Really what nonsense. USA has been able to help many countries in need. Could this be so if we were to have unlimited immigration? Come in — move to Orcas any and all regardless.We have jobs for 100. What the other 200 of you will do is not our problem. Oh, but it will be.
We blame guns for killings rather than look at why our society behaves that way. We endorse sanctuary cities. We think protecting animals is more important than protecting human life. Abortion on demand even at birth and we all pay for it. Women’s health “ my foot.” We have changed the meaning of killing. What is next with that?
The human race is not perfect but we could strive in that direction. Spend our lives working the positive direction rather than tearing down our country that has been building for over 200 years as a country. Young as we are we should know better. Will we spend the coming years working against ourselves or wake up and get busy doing our part of keeping America healthy?
God help us!
Well said, Velma
This has to be satire….
My response begins by acknowledging your sincere worry.
While good arguments exist on both sides of the abortion and gun debates, for example, I’d prefer to offer a more impressionistic response to your authentic expression of concern rather than an issue by issue reply —as doing so may not do justice to the angsts.
Gambling! Perhaps that’s what’s going on, Mrs. Doty. Many would respond that their hands are tied such that they’re forced to roll the dice. Some are misguided having replaced common and uncommon sense (sense grounded in relative reality) with pseudo-intellectualism (a lower quality understanding of the human condition).
It appears that reason may not prevail over those who “think they know better”— despite living lives far removed from the socio-economic conditions they profess to be able to cure. Instead, what’s revealed (to onlookers) is how little is understood about their own un-cultivated natures (both raw and real).
Either way, today’s experiment likely ends badly in the morrow of the not too distant future due precislely to disconnects and miscomprehensions (unless timely interrupted by reasoned thought).
Let’s hope for the best.
You’re right, Ms. Doty, that we’re all in this together, but many, secretly or publicly, do not believe it. Some have guns, some have 4WD escape vehicles, some places in the mountains, Canada, or even New Zealand. Those who think they can escape a deteriorating society or climate as they see it consider themselves exceptions to the general condition that we all inescapably share.
We must look for our common ground wherever we can find it, and build together from there. We cannot go back to previous decades which at over 80 I remember well. We are each and every one of us forced to move into the future and like the past decades and centuries of our shared history, build, invent, and build again as we always have. Our history has never been static even if or memories are fixed at a point in time.
Each of us has a part to play, and if we can look past our personal grievances and acknowledge each other as part of the solution, not the problem, there will be a world for our grandchildren to inherit, as we inherited it from our forbears.
Hope is not enough. It takes intention. We have the people (it’s us) and we certainly have the tools of civility to deal with our inevitable disagreements.
Thank you, Velma. I agree with you.
I am with Bill.
Thank-you, Mr. Appel.
If one looks at the author names on any scientific journal article, it is obvious that deep insights into the mysteries of life and our universe are the result of people of diverse backgrounds and nationalities working together. When you exclude people who are different from you, you are trapped in a dead end and will not be able to rise to the many challenges our country and our planet face.
If we ever want world peace, it has to start with me!!
Janet makes a good point. Let’s finish the story.
We need only look around to see that diversity (bio) is at the heart of what defines and sustains all life, especially we complex and needy ones.
Further, rivers, birds and animals migrate; guess what? humans migrate, too. always did; always will. It’s nature.
Immigration policy?
So, what’s the problem? Well, we larger-brained animals invented constructs called society; we developed mores and laws to run our nation/city-states; we began to harness earth’s natural resources to build buildings, flying machines, hospitals, and schools. Much of what we do is based nature’s patterns. We created closed systems to better control and regulate vital materials and resources; in short, from Jungle to Democracy.
Once we created social architecture and harnessed resources for a defined and regulated society, “borders and barriers” were required to ensure the functioning of this higher brain-developed invention called modern human society. It pushes up against our natural drives to migrate and run wild and free without restraint.
Reconciling the above “social’ construct (modern society) with our “individual” imperfectly perfect physiology and bio-chemistry is what we mean by “coping” in life – it requires great energy and intelligence.
Fundamentally, our so-called clashes are natural & logical.
Seeing this more deeply contains our best hope for continued reconciliation, as in survival.
Last time I checked this is still a free country with freedom of speech. I do not consider protesting and flag burning to be excluded from free expression of thought.