Scott, I guess you could say I'm old fashioned. I remember the 1950's and even to some degree the '40's. When I was a kid I saw Eisenhower speak in the town square in Spokane during his presidential campaign tour. I was there in person - it was before we owned a TV. Before hula hoops. Before The Kingston Trio. Way before computers and the internet. Before people went into the space. I listened to Buck Rogers on my crystal radio set and I even had a Buck Rogers decoder badge, cuz I was a Rocket Ranger! Dick Tracy had a 2-way wrist radio. How cool and unbelievable was that?!!! The Dodgers played in Brooklyn.
Now I'm a 61-year old kid who still believes in all that magic. But time has changed so many things. A lot of that fantasy stuff is real and just plain mundane now. I remember going to Disneyland and seeing the Kitchen of Tomorrow. Well, that's now the Kitchen of Yesterday. The last 50 years have seen much change! We've been through wars. We've acknowledged the need to be tolerant, accepting and more loving toward our fellow humans, be they minorities, women, gay folks, little people or whatever. We've matured a lot both technologically and socially in 50 years.
And despite all that good stuff, I still have deep personal roots in the past. I'm a patriot stuck in the 1950's mentality that this is the greatest nation on earth. I'm rooted in the idealism of democracy as developed by our founding fathers and expressed in our Constitution. I believe in the sovereignty of the U.S. of A. and in our right to answer to no higher power than God. I believe in the unifying factors that have traditionally defined this country as the UNITED States.
There's no denying that the world is changing. I see it happening all around me. I'm swept up in the current of change despite my desperate attempts to grasp at branches and boulders at the river's edge. I imagine I'm no different than any old codger in past times, cursing change and condemning rock and roll. The music has changed - I love rock and roll - can't stand rap. Actually, I'm so retro that I listen to big band music.
If we're headed for a North American Alliance and a breakdown of our borders, I suppose there's nothing I can do to stop that. Social, economic and political agendas run their course at the bidding of those in power and I stand to be mowed down by "progress." Only history will tell whether we followed the right course. I'm not smart enough to evaluate the outcome of such "progress". I only know that in my heart it doesn't feel right to me.
Maybe I'm just afraid of change. Maybe I'm just old and set in my ways. I guess I can admit to that. Maybe I long for the days of nativity scenes on the courthouse lawn at Christmas (towns in Colorado are now being admonished to be generic in their holiday decor - they must use only snowflakes and such.) I long for the days when it was OK to say "...one nation, UNDER GOD, with liberty and justice for all (some schools now don't even allow the pledge of allegiance to be recited.) My gosh, it's now politically incorrect to be a patriotic American! Kids are sent home from school for wearing combinations of red, white and blue clothing. I rue the day when we'll be required to sing our National Anthem three times at ball games: once in English, once in Spanish and once in French. Actually, they'll probably just banish that impossible-to-sing ditty in favor of a North American Anthem to go along with the Meximericanadian flag and the Amero monetary currency. Our democracy and our culture are eroding and morphing into some homogenous goo that will be indistiguishable from one country to the next, and if that's progress, well, so be it, I guess. But I don't have to like it.
Lucky for all of us, I hope to be silenced by my own mortality before all this change fully takes hold. I don't want to live in the world that's coming on the wings of globalization. I liked the United States the way it was when our representatives actually listened to their constituents rather than to special interest lobbyists. I don't see democracy functioning the way it's supposed to any more. When congress keeps trying over and over to pass different forms of amnesty legislation to deal with illegal immigration, and the people keep clamoring for enforcement of existing laws, where is the spirit of democracy? Why is Congress's approval rating in the teens? Apparently I'm not the only one who feels the way I do, but the majority seems powerless to control the raging torrent moving toward an international political organization of some sort. And can this be something that truly doesn't compromise our principals? I argue that it can't. There's no such thing as international cooperation without compromise. We will lose our sovereignty and we will give up rights, traditions and ultimately some measure of freedom to become part of a global government. Look at the current United Nations proposal to control the water ways of the world. As a nation we will sacrifice much of our freedom on the seas when this treaty is embraced. But it's just another small step in the direction of one-world government.
Like I said, I'm not smart enough to know right from wrong on this issue. I only know how I feel, which is patriotic toward The United States Of America. I believe in upholding the laws of our land and I believe in our right as a nation to stand for what we are - one nation, under God - not three nations blended into one. Go ahead - call me old fashioned. I can live with that.
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