(08-24-2021, 06:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ] (08-20-2021, 03:24 PM),pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]One thing that I am not is "tribal", as you would probably see quickly. Most people now recognize colonial adventures as costly and futile. Slavery is an abomination. I recognize America not so much as an anti-traditional country as it is a country with multiple traditions that can get along so long as they avoid forcing their ways upon others. Korean-Americans are not going to become Jews, and Jews are not going to become Korean-Americans even if they have a few things in common.
Why am I not tribal? Roughly one half of my ancestry is German, and as such I have a love-hate relationship with Germany. Fortunately the one part of Germany that I thoroughly hate, Nazism, is dead. German-American cuisine is awful (meat loaf, potato salad, hamburgers, frankfurters) for insipidness or for poor consequences to personal health (alcoholic beverages, high-fat sausages, and sugary desserts). I see other traditions as just as valid as what I have.
This is a lie. You've been a partisan blue hack the entire time we've been posting together. Partisan hacks like you and the others are as tribal as they come these days. There's plenty of proof of it all over this place. You can read right. You still have a high enough IQ to be able to comprehend, read in between the lines, put two and two together and reach/form conclusions right. So, why are you smart enough to know forcing your way on Americans isn't going to end well but dumb enough to continue supporting the Democrats who are doing it right now? What's your excuse or f-n problem dude?
Lie? That is excessive. Opinion, warranted or otherwise? That is a different matter. We all have a right to our opinions, but we do not have a choice on fact (such as historical or geographic reality). We do not get to choose the rules of logic as a structure of thought, either: we can only be right, wrong, or ambiguous.
If I do not identify with a tribe, then I am not "tribal". I'm not discussing only First Peoples of the Americas (no known connection).
I recognize equally the validity of traditions not mine by ethnicity and religion, including those not mine.
Sure, I admit to being a partisan hack. This said, the Republican Party as it is now constituted has no appeal to me. At one time the GOP had the virtue as a refuge from racist and radical populists that the GOP now embraces. Forcing one's way upon others contrary to their cultural values is itself abominable.
You seem to be the type who insists that people adopt
your way that
you believe is the only valid American way of life, and that anyone who fails to meet
your standard is to at the best be a pariah to be exploited and humiliated on behalf of "real Americans" as you define the meme. At worst? Dispossessed, exiled, or murdered?
America is no longer a white Christian man's nation. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that allowed the United States to annex most of the American Southwest compels the USA to treat persons of Mexican origin from the time of the treaty as if "white" in law and in voting rights. That was a small group of people who often assimilated... but it has grown greatly. Puerto Ricans? Likewise. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments establish that the slaves from before emancipation and their progeny who have no other imaginable home than America are free Americans with citizenship and voting rights. In some respects they have made themselves through their great cultural achievements that no other Americans could do a nation within a nation...
Need I go on?
If
you cannot recognize the rights of people who are Americans by law to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then
you are a damnable traitor!
The Constitutional rights that we all have keep this country from disintegrating or becoming the sort of Evil Empire that freer countries either dismantle or else impose major, revolutionary changes upon -- but not without harsh judgment upon those who do evil.
I know, I know, I know. It's a rough world when much of it seems to be going away from
you, and
your rearguard defenses of your self-image get hammered. Maybe
you are defending something indefensible.
You are much like soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army who held out years after the surrender of the gangster regime that put them in some isolated place. Some remained in action as late as the 1970's The world changes, and you don't. Heck, I'm 65 and many changes that I have known are distressing, including the disappearance of certain merchandise. I miss certain entertainers, writers, and artists. But that happens. Just think of how wildly different the world was from 1890 to 1955.
I was born closer to the time of the horse and buggy, when Queen Victoria was on the throne in England and "painting the map red" was a reference to Victoria's seemingly-limitless empire. I was born closer to the time in which there were plenty of Civil War soldiers still living. There was no radio, and Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky were still composing. Basketball had yet to be invented, and college football had yet to introduce the forward pass. The American League did not yet exist. Heck, Babe Ruth was yet to be born! Austria and Germany had Kaisers, Russia had a Tsar, Persia had a Shah, Turkey had a Sultan, and China and Ethiopia had Emperors... and America was understood to still be something of a novelty. The USA is still here, and those monarchs are all gone.
Am I a prude? At my age I can't be. I've SEEN IT ALL and I could tell some people that much that they consider doing brought failure, economic ruin, and personal shame back in the Old Days and will have much the same effect. Let me tell you about the hazards that extremism, bigotry, and recklessness do. What's really horrid is someone who should know better (like Donald Trump) despite his supposed experience. Foul language? It was ugly when I was a child and it is still ugly today.
