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Shared identity doesn't extend to religion or politics, but our shared identity permeates every day life for almost everyone. Luckily we can go about our lives in the real world regardless and it doesn't actually matter except on forums and social media and cable news shows. 99% of people work, live next to, and have friends with totally opposed views about religion and politics. This is especially true among family members, siblings, even husbands and wives. It really doesn't matter. The same political rhetoric has been going on since FDR who died the year before I was born. Time for people to do a reality check.
Is there evil, corruption, greed and cruelty in the world? There always was. The only difference is now we have industries and technology devoted to exposing it. Back in the 1960's I heard that a friend of mine died and I went to the police department to get the details. I asked why it hadn't been in the newspaper. I was told that many people died every day and only a tiny fraction ever made it into the newspaper.
We rarely heard of political corruption. Evil doings and greed were hidden. History classes and religious classes taught children fairy tales and myths. We were blissfully ignorant of atrocities committed in the name of politics and religion.
The Vietnam War and the civil rights struggles created cracks in the belief in the establishment. Inner city riots in response to police brutality created more. The war on drugs replaced the war on poverty. Reagan brought the right wing agenda and union busting to the nation. He promised to make the country "lean and mean" and he did by introducing scarcity. Every man for himself. Conservative radio picked up the pace with Rush and Glenn, Bill Clinton's sex life, and it culminated in Trump.
Now everyone views politics the way we used to view baseball. It's us and them. But underneath it all the electricity is still running, the mail is delivered, people still work and go to school, neighbors say hi, people just want to live and let live. If those who talk of civil war ever lived in a country where civil war actually was a reality, they would change their tune.
I work with a teacher that tells students that wanting assimilation is a form of racism and colonization.
How far do we take this? Is wanting new Americans to believe in democracy and not stoning to death people for being gay a form of racism and colonization?
Assimilation sounds like a bad word but guess what in order to really become a part of America you have to speak the common language. I can't help but think it has been made too easy for immigrants with the press 2 for Spanish and so many cable TV channels dedicated to Latinos.
I recently received a piece of mail from the Government and along with the notice was a page of 20 different languages that they could provide translations for.
It might be old time nostalgic thinking but it was quaint to have a Chinatown, an Italian and Irish neighborhood. Those immigrants could enjoy their old heritage but they still stepped out of those neighborhoods to embrace American society.
It wasn't that long ago that the muslim community from Somalia in Michigan sought to install their sharia law but it was not allowed since they have to adhere to our laws. It also wasn't that long ago that they were still practicing genital mutilation in the USA and probably still are in defiance of our laws.
My wife is an immigrant from Ireland and though she still loves her native country she loves America just as much and respects it by following the laws and rules of American society.
We cannot ask or expect much more from any immigrant. It is all part of our shared identity.
We used to have a shared identity and even the immigrants that came here worked hard to become "Americans".
Today the divide is widening like never before and the Democrats are pushing it. The majority of us don't care what someones skin tone is as long as that person is a good neighbor, a good coworker, a good friend. It is all about the content of a persons character but Biden and his ilk are busy telling us that white people are the root of all problems and that White Supremacy is the greatest threat to the Nation.
How can we have a shared identity when politics have divided us?
How can we have a shared identity when so many people are so angry at the world and are looking for trouble when they take to the streets to protest, riot and fight the Police. I have zero in common with those fools.
The Democrats are the great dividers that have no interest in shared identity compromise in their quest for power.
What magical period of time are you talking about when immigrants off the boat are immediately accepted as Americans? Have you seen Gangs of New York? The people who assimilated earlier just turned around to discriminate against newer immigrants a generation later.
That's just rosy-eyed nostalgia. When immigration was at its highest, a lot of immigrants would form their own little enclaves among like-minded countrymen - schools, newspapers, churches would retain links to the old country, including of course retaining the old language.
Yet they were glad to become Americans, learned the language, fought for this nation and embraced it.
Being who they were and remembering where they came from did not prohibit their assimilation into becoming an American.
Sure, because the country welcomed them. They weren't forced to be illegals like they are today in order to live here. One hand washes the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluesjuke
Yet they were glad to become Americans, learned the language, fought for this nation and embraced it.
Being who they were and remembering where they came from did not prohibit their assimilation into becoming an American.
I think its a bit of all of it. We absolutely had a shared identity when I was younger.
But I feel like smash mouth politics from the Republican side thats gone so far that we no longer have a shared reality is the root issue.
You don't think Democrats play a role, just Republicans in a loss of identity?
Which side is tearing down statues of founding fathers and American icons like Ulysses S Grant? Yet not attacking their preferred historical icons despite severe faults.
Which side is canceling people if they speak truth against woke lies?
Which side's favorite supreme court justice said the US Constitution is obsolete and we should look to South Africa?
Which side accepts its fringe saying assimilation is racism and colonization?
Which side just had over 500 violent riots and acts of insurrection the past year dismissed as a summer of love and mostly peaceful protests?
Thanks for the reply, but I think your logic is not in line with what I said.
A shared identity doesn't mean that compromise always happens with every individual or group within a nation.
Eastern Europe has been at times fragmented too for example look at Czechoslovakia for example. Ukraine's problem is most of a large swath of their country identity as Russian. Etc.
Does true political compromise within a nation require a shared identity?
Canada has explicitly went against mixing French-Canadian culture and Anglo-Canadian culture with it's law promoting both. They have by far the most boring politics, with Trudeau being a run-of-the-mill leftist, and the rest of the parties being very much center. New Zealand has non-boring politics, but their the least white nation in America, and is actually a great example, as the majority European population has embraced the indigenous Maori culture, to the point that a significant percent of people identify as both European and Maori within that country (due to mixing).
Most other countries regardless of whether they share a cultural identity or not are in some sort of turmoil. Japan is one country that's a one party state and like Canada has seen low division. Mexico used to be a one party state, but the party strayed so much the 2 minority parties gained traction and started winning in the last 20 years.
I don't think it's that important, it's definitely more helpful than a culturally divided state, but not only are most nation-states culturally divided, with some sort of minority group (religiously/geographically/ethnically) making up 5%+ of the population, it's impossible to even attempt to make every country within itself cultural homogenous, since countries are for the most part pulled by their culture and not the other way around.
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