:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Saturday, July 19, 2003 ::

debates of patriotism and nationality
I'm debating changing templates soon. It depends on when my friend Brian comes back from the Middle East. I have the "Support Our Troops" up basically for him.

People wonder at me being patriotic sometimes. I don't consider myself overly so. I've always had a sense of pride in my home and nationality. (Note: nationality is where you're born, ancestry is where your ancestors were born and came from. People get that mixed up all the time.) I guess it was Rainbow that instilled that pride in me. The lesson of Patriotism as taught by our Ritual is a very beautiful thing and it really makes you think. Other things that make me consider myself American instead of "Irish American" or "German American" or whatever... I was born in America. My birth certificate certifies that I am a citizen of this country. I'm not saying I'm not proud of my ancestry. Don't get me wrong. I love doing research on the places my past family members came from and finding things out about them. But that doesn't mean my nationality is "GermanIrishScottishEnglishFrenchWelsh American".

Be proud of who you are, both in ancestry (whether you're African, Asian, European, Mexican... or whatever it may be...) and your nationality (your birthplace... in my case, American). People complain about racism and discrimination in this country. Until we all start looking at each other as equals, it will continue to exist. Cultural awareness helps, but only to a certain extent. As long as people continue to shove their cultures in other people's faces (being proud is one thing, but being "proud and loud" is just plain obnoxious), we will continue to have rifts in our society between these so called 'races'.

Are you a citizen of the United States? Then you are American, hands down. Don't forget where your ancestors came from, but don't get so involved in your cultural awareness that you forget what nation you share citizenship with me in. I love hearing about other people's cultures. But, as much as we are different, we are still all the same. And, until we stop segregating ourselves by identifying with our ancestry instead of our nationality, racism won't go away.

My 9^th grade history teacher taught me that. He illustrated it by asking us all what our 'nationality' was. Of course, most of us screwed up by rattling off a list of ancestries that we all had. Several got it right by saying "American". I was also involved in a group called "Bring Unity to Youth (BUTY)". They were smaller and I think a bit more fun that "Students Together Against Racism (STAR)". Plus, it was run by one of my favorite high school teachers, and we didn't have to get permission and money for the group retreat to some campground on Fire Island.

My point is... and, yes, there is one... don't be afraid to be proud of who you are. Learn history, learn *from* history, but don't get lost in it. Stop separating yourselves by imposing others with your cultural identities, start integrating yourselves by educating them instead. And, above all, never be ashamed. One of the great things about America is that we can change who's in charge if we don't like them.

presidential debate
Of course, then there's people that blame a lot on the President. While he is somewhat to blame for certain things (like individual and personal actions), a lot of policies that get instituted or canned aren't his fault. Congress has a lot to do with that, more so than the President, in 9 out of 10 cases. A lot of people get mixed up and blame President Reagan for the deficit of the '80's. Yet, they forget that the Democratic Congress, while agreeing to his tax cut bills, didn't agree to his spending cut bills. Hence, a deficit.

The President is mostly a figurehead. There's a lot that he can't do without approval from others. When you have a divided group of people that vote more for party support than actual legit reasons, it's hard to get good policies to go through and prevent bad policies from screwing things up. The real power is in Congress, but those people seem to have their own agendas. It's rare to get them to agree on anything. And forget anything going through if the Majority of Congress is a different party than the President. Then nothing gets done at all... except bickering and arguing.

"If 'con' is the opposite of 'pro'... is 'congress' the opposite of 'progress'?" My friend Michelle told me that once...

There needs to be less power in the Federal Government and more to the local. The Federal Government has gotten themselves into such a messy beaurocracy, it isn't funny. All the trouble my mother goes through at work because this one decides something different from that one is rediculous. As soon as she gets a new code memorized so she can finally stop looking it up in her manuals, they change it again. And this is in the IRS... the government's main money gathering machine. You'd think they want that to run smoothly...

but I digress
Sometimes, you just can't win. We could all sit here and talk this out until we're blue in the face, but some things just don't change. Just don't expect me to stop waving my flag like I've always done, because I still believe in it.