Are We One People? Why Remain One Nation?

[Wake-up!]

Commentary from Pat Buchanan
At;  https://buchanan.org/blog/are-abortion-gay-rights-american-values-137136

"My religion defines who I am. And I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life," said Vice President Joe Biden in 2012. "I accept my church's position on abortion as ... doctrine. Life begins at conception. ... I just refuse to impose that on others."

For four decades, Biden backed the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of the tax dollars of Joe's fellow Catholics to pay for what they view as the killing of the innocent unborn. Last week, Joe flipped. He now backs the repeal of the Hyde Amendment. Ilyse Hogue of NARAL Pro-Choice America welcomed home the prodigal son: "We're pleased that Joe Biden has joined the rest of the 2020 Democratic field in coalescing around the Party's core values — support for abortion rights."

But when did the right to an abortion - a crime in many states before 1973 - become a "core value" of the Democratic Party? And what are these "values" of which politicians incessantly talk? Are they immutable? Or do they change with the changing times?

Last month, Disney CEO Bob Iger said his company may cease filming in Georgia if its new anti-abortion law takes effect: "If (the bill) becomes law, I don't see how it's practical for us to continue to shoot there." The Georgia law outlaws almost all abortions, once a heartbeat is detected, some six to eight weeks into pregnancy. It reflects the Christian conservative values of millions of Georgians. To Iger and Hollywood, however, Georgia's law radically restricts the "reproductive rights" of women, and is a moral outrage.

What we have here is a clash of values.

What one side believes is preserving the God-given right to life for the unborn, the other regards as an assault on the rights of women. The clash raises questions that go beyond our culture war to what America should stand for in the world.

"American interests and American values are inseparable," Pete Buttigieg told Rachel Maddow.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Claremont Institute: "We have had too little courage to confront regimes squarely opposed to our interests and our values."

Are Pompeo and Mayor Pete talking about the same values? The mayor is proudly gay and in a same-sex marriage. Yet the right to same-sex marriage did not even exist in this country until the Supreme Court discovered it a few years ago.

In a 2011 speech to the U.N., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "Gay rights are human rights," and she approved of U.S. embassies flying the rainbow flag during Pride Month.

This year, Mike Pompeo told the U.S. embassy in Brazil not to fly the rainbow flag. He explained his concept of his moral duty to the Christian Broadcasting Network, "The task I have is informed by my understanding of my faith, my belief in Jesus Christ as the Savior." The Christian values Pompeo espouses on abortion and gay rights are in conflict with what progressives now call human rights.

And the world mirrors the American divide.

There are gay pride parades in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, but none in Riyadh and Mecca. In Brunei, homosexuality can get you killed.

To many Americans, diversity — racial, ethnic, cultural, religious — is our greatest strength. Yet Poland and Hungary are proudly ethnonationalist. South Korea and Japan fiercely resist the racial and ethnic diversity immigration would bring. Catalans and Scots in this century, like Quebecois in the last, seek to secede from nations to which they have belonged for centuries. Are ethnonationalist nations less righteous than diverse nations likes ours? And if diversity is an American value, is it really a universal value?

Consider the treasured rights of our First Amendment — freedom of speech, religion and the press.

Saudi Arabia does not permit Christian preachers. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, converts to Christianity face savage reprisals. In Buddhist Myanmar, Muslims are ethnically cleansed. These nations reject an equality of all faiths, believing instead in the primacy of their own majority faith. They reject our wall of separation between religion and state. Our values and their values conflict.

What makes ours right and theirs wrong? Why should our views and values prevail in what are, after all, their countries?

Under our Constitution, many practices are protected - abortion, blasphemy, pornography, flag-burning, trashing religious beliefs - that other nations regard as symptoms of a disintegrating society.

When Hillary Clinton said half of all Trump supporters could be put into a "basket of deplorables" for being "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic," she was conceding that many Trump's supporters detest many progressive values. True, but in the era of Trump, why should her liberal values be the values America champions abroad?

With secularism's triumph, we Americans have no common religion, no common faith, no common font of moral truth. We disagree on what is right and wrong, moral and immoral. Without an agreed-upon higher authority, values become matters of opinion. And ours are in conflict and irreconcilable.

Understood. But how, then, do we remain one nation and one people?

[Sarge]

Very good Wake-Up! To answer your last question: We Don't!!!!!

[Wake-up!]

I like it . . . . as far as you went!! If we don't, then what do we do, what course do we pursue? What options do we have?

[Sarge]

What we do is pester our state legislators, because it has to be the states that start the ball rolling. It's obvious that the country is divided by coastal/liberal states and southern/central/conservative states. There's also an obvious divide by rural and metropolitan areas.  It's a mess when you really think about it. because if there was a split, people would have to move to the place that supported their beliefs. So, when you get right down to it, what we do is sit around complaining doing nothing and  state legislators doing nothing. I do think the country is on the road to collapse though and truthfully, the only thing could change that is to have a very good (if that's possible) dictator with strong basic American/conservative beliefs.  That will never happen of course, so we'll just sit back and watch the country sink.

[redcliffsw]

Good point however it appears that Kansas Republicans are just like the other states' Republicans - they're liberal.  So-called "conservative" Republicans are "nationalists" because that's their nature - the foundation of the Republican party.   The uSA ought to be 50 nations like the Founders intended instead of one nation like like Lincoln preferred.  "One nation" is old Republican thinking still be used and ideologized instead of the uSA being 50 nations.

Recently, just for fun I attended a Republican picnic.  After eating, the event began with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.  The Pledge of Allegiance sets the standard and certainly nullifies any American truths that might be intended by the meeting.  Yes, there were several good speeches just like we hear much of the time from Republicans.  But, we're going nowhere with the Republicans and modern Democrats running the show.  The Republicans are just like the modern Democrats - both parties are Lincolnites.  At the Republican picnic I learned nothing new about Republicans and they haven't changed in 150 years as far as I can tell.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a product of the Republican indoctrination of America and the Democrats have fully joined the socialist agenda too.

Just saying . . . . . you're about right.

Thanks.

[Wake-up!]

Is this enough pestering?

https://conventionofstates.com/#whyCallCos

I try to pester our federal boys, Moran and Estes, monthly. They respond so far. I've tried to make a point with our two State boys, whose names elude me, and was simply ignored by both. They need mass pestering, not individual.

The website I linked isn't very user friendly, in my opinion. But somewhere on there I watched a video from 2016, where a mock Convention of States was held. It didn't look anything like I envision, too many suits and ties as if it had a dress code, too much like an exercise in government protocol and procedures.

Frankly, the socialists are gaining momentum because they have the support of hungry and angry people clamoring for change (with their collective hands out for more freebies). And no doubt the press is on the socialist side, blowing everything out of proportion. Unfortunately, the angry and hungry conservatives have aligned themselves with Trump. And Trump has proven to be all about flag-waving patriotism, corporate profit, and foreign occupation. (He is vulnerable in 2020.)

Those clamoring for smaller government with more State authority and Individual rights are essentially the same cluster of grey-haired old men that have been around for years. They are like the color commentators at sporting events, oh so willing to suggest how the game should be played, but not willing to get on the field and actually participate. Too risky.

As you say, we will apparently sit and watch as our American society spirals downward. We are not yet hungry enough or angry enough to make the needed changes. Too complacent. No doubt, taking on the federal or state bureaucracies is a daunting, if not impossible task. The money they have to dissuade, pay-off, and bribe to maintain their power base is seemingly limitless. It may be best to let the whole structure implode and burn rather than try to change it.

Even as I write that, though, I have a kernel of hope that change might come through local action, for instance through the counties. Not through county governments, but through counties as economic bases. It would require locals to step up, to take a risk. And I'm not sure the local economic bases are willing to take that risk.

[Sarge]

It would require locals to step up, to take a risk. And I'm not sure the local economic bases are willing to take that risk.
[/quote]

Everyone is too comfortable!!!!

[redcliffsw]

It comes down to this - most prefer to be seen reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in unison.  That's their easy way. 

Just like it would be easier for them to stand with Castro in admiration for Lincoln.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/fidel-castro-lincoln-memorial-1959/

[Wake-up!]

"Everyone is too comfortable!!!!"

So there is a comfort zone?

Comfortable with too much personnel debt.
Comfortable with too little personnel savings.
Comfortable with declining County population.
Comfortable with declining County employment base.
Comfortable with declining County public services.
Comfortable with more vacant and boarded up homes in our communities.
Comfortable with high property taxes.
Comfortable with high sales tax.
Comfortable with high interest on personnel debt.
Comfortable with low interest on personnel savings.
Comfortable with high auto costs.
Comfortable with high auto insurance costs.
Comfortable with high health insurance costs.
Comfortable with high vehicle fuel costs.
Comfortable with high food costs.
Comfortable with following the status quo that redcliffsw alludes to.
Comfortable with pills and a dirty syringe at the baseball field.
Comfortable with all of the above.
Comfortable not knowing any of the above.

Sarge, just where is this comfort zone? I must be missing the illusion of comfort. Or am I not liking my illusion of discomfort (a fair question)? Oh, wait, maybe there is comfort in monthly welfare checks and smart phones. My bad.

[Wake-up!]

Weirdly coincidental that this interview should appear.



A potential Libertarian candidate for President doesn't think 'we' should remain one nation either. Now, if Americans could only lose the comfort zone of voting Republicrat.