Comments on UNITY BEATS PARTY AFFILIATIONS ANY DAY!

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Dear L.:

Yup, I'm a stone Boomer. Mom and Daddy both served in WW II (Mom went into the Army when it was still the Womens Auxiliary Army Corps, and was there for the changeover the WAC), came home, met in college (where they paid the freight with GI Bill bennies), and I was born in 1951.

My parents were Freethinkers, and I grew up Agnostic, but with a profound respect for all faiths. I am currently a Jeffersonian Deist and a practicing Christian ... and boy, does this faith take a lot of practice! Keeping the anger out of my heart and letting God do Her job (sitting in jugement) while I do mine (living according to the 10 Commandments and gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) is kind of a full-time job for this old boy.

So while some things were better in Father Knows Best Land, too many people were disrespected, indeed, despised and persecuted, for being what God made them. And that's an inappropriate use of the faith preached by Jesus Christ ... not to mention Budda, Lao Tse, Confucious, Moses, Zoroaster, Mohammud and a few zillion others with special connections to the Deity.

Just one man's opinion.

posted by Rarmcwa on September 14, 2006 at 7:57 AM | link to this | reply

Tanga,

Thank you so much for your comment. It is a stretch for any man to answer. I appreciate your comment. I expect that only God can solve this delima and He is about to do that.

posted by Justi on September 11, 2006 at 11:52 AM | link to this | reply

Rarmcwa

This was a very involved comment and I thank you for it. I may need to address it again. You don't have an about me page. Did you live during the 'Father Knows Best' era of the 1950s as you call it? I did and I can tell you for sure most of it was better than now.

posted by Justi on September 11, 2006 at 11:51 AM | link to this | reply

Here's a start

Dear J.:

For one thing, we could forgive all the Hippies, the drug-users (of which I was one for a great number of years) and the Beatles for doing what they honestly believed was right. If you study the history of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, you'll see that periodically America experiences these little cultural hiccups. This nation gets nutty every so often (during the 1840s, so many new religious cults came out of upper New York State that it acquired the nickname, "The Burned-Over" counties), but the good news is, unlike so many other nations, we have built-in ways of working through our problems, rather than just crushing the "loonies, Hippies, Beats, Free-Love advocates, dopers, bikers, Mormons, Catholics flooding in from Eastern Europe, etc. etc." because they're different.

Unlike non-democratic nations, America absorbs all those odd people, takes from them what is valid (such as gender and racial equality, not terribly popular prior to the 1960s), discards most of the rest (although not all ... don't get me started on the subject of out-of-wedlock birth rates) and mixes it into the culture. As with any kind of miscegenation, the resulting mongrel is always smarter and more adaptable than the pure-breeds which preceded it. If you don't believe me, take any mutt for the dog pound and train him alongside an overbred genetic mistake of a breed which has become too popular. Did you know St. Bernards can't even mate properly? Their pelvic structure has been so messed up by constantly breeding for size, they literally have to be helped to hump. Although why anyone would do so is beyond me!

Americans are very good this mongrelization thing, politically, economically and culturally. And let's face it, the result is a lot more productive (and certainly more interesting) than the "Father Knows Best" culture of the 1950s.

I for one don't want a world in which everybody believes exactly the same things I do, because, heck, I could be wrong ...

And so could anybody else.

posted by Rarmcwa on September 11, 2006 at 7:09 AM | link to this | reply

I enjoyed reading your post

and the description of the change of attitudes. The questions posed are too difficult for me to answer.

posted by Tanga on September 10, 2006 at 11:49 PM | link to this | reply

FLIGHTPATH,

Not only are our freedoms being taken for granted, they are not even identified. People need to understand what is a freedom, a need and an imposition. We have to trim some of the fat, shore up some of the slack and be strong or we are history.

posted by Justi on September 10, 2006 at 7:41 PM | link to this | reply

Maggie Mae

I think perhaps we have to find a solution before we get a leader because that is the dividing point the sides can't fathom the other sides desires for a particular leader on either side. We need a leader both will accept and to know that he will work on the hard issues.

posted by Justi on September 10, 2006 at 7:38 PM | link to this | reply

babe rocks

I think we should begin thinking about those things that are really important and force ourselves to be a bit more willing to meet others halfway.

posted by Justi on September 10, 2006 at 7:36 PM | link to this | reply

Passionflower,

Thank you for your comment. I don't think we are not smart enough I think maybe we all are too prideful to do what it takes.

posted by Justi on September 10, 2006 at 7:35 PM | link to this | reply

At this point, we either get together to do all possible to save our freedoms, which so many take for granted, ...or we lose them.

posted by reasons on September 10, 2006 at 7:19 PM | link to this | reply

Gosh, justi, that's a biggee! I think we would all really have to work hard at it, but with the right leader, I bet we could. I would like to think so, if it came to that.