The Great Melting Pot

Last night I had a wonderful discussion with a neighbor of mine who is from Puerto Rico. He is a layer who still practices in Puerto Rico but is looking to retire in the US. During that conversation we spoke about the great melting pot that WAS this country but how it has become more of a country where people are now offended when someone disagrees with them. What I miss most is the ability to have an opposing viewpoint, get into a difficult debate, and then go have a beer with that person... no hard feelings... and perhaps a compromise at the end of the debate. Now if I were to go and say that I disagree with somebody but they are from a religion, color, background, race that they can use against me they may say that it is because of their religion, color, background, race that I am arguing with them, or disagreeing with them.

I find that in my travels everyone is just trying to do the best they can for themselves and for their families. They are trying to do what is right according to what they know is 'right'. Everyone has different life experiences... which is what makes (or made) this country great, powerful, a place everyone wanted to live. Now we are no longer celebrating our differences, but continuing to maintain protected classes and groups. Idiocy.

How about this: Now that we have elected an 'African American' President (I prefer to say we elected an American) can we finally put a nail in the coffin of Affirmative Action? If an 'African American' can be President why give special treatment to any class of people? Is that not the highest office in the free world? Does that not show everyone that the American Dream is real?

-End of Ramble

To follow on to Lucid's post...

I came across this article in the Washington Post from Susan Jacoby title "The Dumbing of America". I believe that this is part of the problem with why we, as Americans, do not accept the hard truth about Iraq, Oil, health care, whatever you want to throw into the mix. We don't want to worry about what is happening until it directly affects us. We don't pay attention to the world. We give it a cursory glance and look the the eyes of the internet browser but rarely do people apply their own thought processes to what they are reading.

We are a people who close our eyes to anything outside our immediate viewpoint, or beyond our recent time frame. In the world of instant on, high speed data transfer and instant video we no longer want to wait. We want it all now and don't want to work for it. An old adage of "practice makes perfect" has gone down the wayside. We want a plug in the back of our head like Neo in the Matrix to learn Kung Fu in a few seconds.

Where is our work ethic? What happened to us? We used to be the standard that was looked up to... with hard work anything is possible. Now we want it all done for us. We don't want to make hard decisions. We don't want to change. Why?

I believe Ms. Jacoby is right on throughout her article. We are an arrogant people who have gotten lazy. At the same time we cannot replace arrogance with appeasement for the world. It is a delicate balance. What Ms. Jacoby misses is that we have lost our way and that we have failed to maintain a unique identity as America. We need to get back to our roots... To what made us great... The great melting pot...

-End of Ramble