"One Country for All"

When I was growing up in the fifties I had a morning paper route. I was eleven years old and there was nothing short of a Nuclear attack that scared me. We lived in a modest home in the suburbs of the San Francisco Bay area. Our house was a three bedroom one bath home. Our family of four was quite comfortable.

Every morning except Sunday I would get up at 5:00 AM and make a cup of hot chocolate and retrieve my newspapers from the front porch. In the winter I'd turn on the gas oven and sit on the floor in front of the oven folding my newspapers in an aerodynamic way, so they could be thrown on the fly. The country was at peace and California was growing by leaps and bounds.

My elementary school was just across the street from my house. The school was newly finished and serving all of the children in our tract of homes. Living in America was good during the fifties. We were proud to be Americans and you could hear it in our voices as we placed our hands over our hearts and in unison said the pledge of allegiance each morning. in the fifties we could still lower our heads and pray without being told that we were in violation of the Constitution in regard to separation of Church and State.

A lot has changed since the fifties. In most cases the changes have occurred due to the acceptance of things like "Political Correctness" an asinine concept at best. Liberal ideas like political correctness is an assault on free speech and serves to divide us rather than to bring the country together.

As time passed we found ourselves moving into the sixties. Our country was involved in a police action (war) in Vietnam. Our troops were in a situation of having to wait until they were fired upon before being able to shoot even if an attack was clearly eminent. The war was unpopular in the United States, and our troops were unpopular upon returning to the United States. It certainly wasn't fair as our service men were drafted and sent by our government. Our fighting men were disrespected by anti-war protesters and treated badly upon their return home. The war was so unpopular that our soldiers were not comfortable wearing their uniforms while on leave.

In the sixties and early seventies the peaceniks turned into anti-war, anti-establishment hippies. Drugs were part of the new make love not war generation. Protest was an everyday news item.

At the same time in the sixties, as if we didn't already have enough activism. The Black community saw the birth of the "Black Panther Party" in Oakland, California. A new group of activist was springing up, Joining the evolution of unrest. Truly the country was changing faster than most people were ready for. The innocents of the fifties was gone by the end of the sixties. That peaceful time after World War II was history now. We were so wrapped up in the sexual revolution, and trying to find ourselves that instead of coming together as a country we were more divided than we had ever been.

We are no closer to becoming united now than we were then, we are only more divided now. Each ethnic group identifies itself as a separate group. The Blacks are African Americans, the Chinese are Chinese Americans, and the Mexicans are Mexican Americans and so on. Notice that none of these groups have put America as the first part of the new identification they have chosen. Sadly no one is just an American.

Now it seems that the present administration is trying to divided us by class. If you earn over $250,000.00 dollars per year you must pay a higher percentage of your income in taxes. If you have wealth it must be taken from you and given to those who didn't earn it. Our president believes that the government knows how to use your wealth better than you the one who earned that wealth. Our government is led by liberal Democrats that intends to use our wealth to give to poor countries; countries that don't have the infrastructure to develop on their own. Our current President seems to believe that if you give resources to those who haven't shown the ability to take care of themselves, that they will somehow be able to when the resources are gone. We should be ready to help those in need. At the same time we should be teaching these countries how to take care of themselves; if we do they will be able to take care of themselves in the future. And in turn extend a helping hand to others in need.

Our present administration also believes that it's America's duty to clean-up the planet single handily. We are so arrogant that we believe that we have single handily polluted the environment to the point of bringing on the next Ice Age or warming to the point of extinction. I believe the Earth will ware out. Hurry up now and lock me away, as I know you think I'm speaking pure heresy. The fact is that even if we took the Lyons share of the cost associated with cleaning up the worlds environmental mess, we still wouldn't make a dent in the problem. Other countries, polluting countries are not going to do what is thought to be needed to achieve an environmentally clean world. It is our duty to encourage other countries to clean up their part of the world, after all we are all citizens of the same planet.

In my opinion somehow we must get back to what's good about this country. Why is America still the most popular choice of all countries to become a citizen of? Is it only the promise of wealth that brings people to America? In the early days of immigration to America, people wanted the chance to be free. People truly wanted to become Americans. As people migrated to America they truly wanted to assimilate. Assimilation is to become an American, to be no different than those that have been Americans for generations. A people united under the promise of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

In the last few years I've seen more and more people coming to this country not willing to assimilate. They continue their old countries way of life. They collect in the same neighborhoods calling themselves Mexican Americans, African Americans and Chinese Americans, and so on. Assimilation is not on their minds.

Don't they realize that the division in this country will kill Democracy forever? We must look at the past and teach each person before they are accepted into this country that division is a trap; and in the end this country will be worse off than the country they left behind.

Thanks to our president and the "Progressive Democratic Party" we are well on our way to losing our place in the world as the most desirable country to be a citizen of. We have apologized our way into becoming a country that can no longer be counted on as a reliable ally.