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What it really means to be an American.

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  randy  •  7 years ago  •  25 comments

What it really means to be an American.

 

There have been several articles on this website about some issues such as health care and supporting the person in the White House and they all seem to come down to patriotism. It seems like if you disagree with the person who posted the article or the person who wrote the article that was posted that you were some how not real American, I don't get that?

 

 

 

Take health care for example. In many of the articles if you support Obamacare then you are some sort of socialist rebel out too destroy America and that you were somehow too stupid to know that Obamacare was leading us toward disaster since it is in a death spiral and that it was failing to the point that only a GOP plan cold “rescue” it from flaming out. Well the truth is that it is not. Not even close. Sure it needs some tweaking, but springily down the bowl? No it's not.

 

 

 

However the fight over heath care is not what really surprises me. What surprises me is how Americans feel toward their fellow Americans. They seem to think that their fellow Americans are on their own somehow. That if they can not find a job that pays for health insurance for them and their family then that is just their plain tough luck and to hell with them. Some seem to think that somehow it is the fault of the poor who can not afford health insurance that they can not? I don't get that either? How can that be their fault? Many of the working poor are hard working American citizens who are working two and sometime three jobs, yet they don't make enough money to pay for health care. How is it their fault that health insurance is out of their reach for at least their spouse and children? It seems like the ones who do have health insurance somehow blame those who don't and write it off as just not their problem. It seems like they blame those who are working two or even three jobs for not being able to afford health insurance, like being poor is a crime on society somehow. Like they are offending them and the rest of America in some way. Under Obamacare a lot of these people can afford to buy some form of health insurance and that seems to be like a stone in the shoe of some people and I don't know why? It's like it offends them. They seem angry that poor people can buy insurance just like they can. Like poor people are just like them in one way and they don't like it. Under the proposed new “health care” tens of millions of actual human beings, real Americans, will lose their health care. How is that an improvement? Please explain how millions of people who had insurance won't have insurance is a good thing? I don't get it? I would like to think that I am an intelligent person, but I just don't get that idea?

 

 

 

Then there are the religious folks, who preach one thing and then go against their very words. They say they are here to be good Christians, but they will only help their fellow man by dropping a few quarters in the collection plate on Sunday morning and then go home and congratulate themselves on what good Christians they are. They are not. Instead as soon as they leave what they believe the house of their lord they bitch about taxes they have to that go to help the less fortunate in America. They think to themselves “I gave at Church! What more do they want! They need to get out and get a damned job” without considering the circumstances that drove these people into homelessness and without understanding just how really close they are to being there themselves. And they are. They look at taxes as a burden. They look at Christianity as something they leave behind when they walk out of the church doors. They made their Sunday pilgrimage, so that is good enough to get into the Heaven they imagine exists. Hypocrites! Their taxes ARE part of being their brother's keeper! They are part of helping those who are in a place that they never thought they would be in and need a helping hand to get out of and yet they spit on them!

 

 

 

I am an atheist. Yet I know that I pay my taxes proudly, especially State taxes, because I know that part of it goes to help my brothers and sisters. I know that part of it goes to help people in a place that if some very few things go wrong that I might be in someday and I might need a hand back up! It used to be that all Americans felt this way. That we all looked out for one another. That we knew our neighbors would watch our house when we went on vacation and that if we got sick they would bring a casserole by because they knew we couldn't cook. Where is that? When did we stop thinking of our fellow citizens as our brothers and sisters? When did we stop looking at each other as our brothers and sister keeper? It's gone through phony Christianity and libertarianism, which is nothing more then I got mine so fuck you. You think such a thing as food stamps or health care is something that the person receiving it committed some sort of moral crime to need.

 

 

 

To really be an American is to give. It is to care. It is to know that the least of us is how the world judges the most of us and that's how they should! It should be the standard of how we judge ourselves and should. As Americans comes an obligation to care for our fellow man. To make sure that every American has at the very least a warm, safe place to sleep and good food to eat. We owe that to them just like we owe a debt to this nation for being lucky enough to be a citizen of it. Because the truth is that everyone of us, no matter how cock sure or arrogant, may end up where they are sometime and need a hand up too. No one here can honestly say it will never happen to them. No one. If you don't agree, then leave. You are not an American, because you just don't get it.

 

 

 

Randy Snyder.

 


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Randy
Sophomore Participates
link   seeder  Randy    7 years ago

I am my brothers and sisters keeper. The fact that I am an atheist doesn't change that. I don't understand why being a Christian or what other people think of as a good American does?

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   Kavika     7 years ago

Well done Randy,

If we, as Americans, can't/won't lend a hand to our fellow citizens than our moral compass is off kilter.

The term ''patriot'' seems to be the weapon of choice when holding themselves above other Americans. I have asked some on this site, what makes you a better or more patriotic American than anyone else. I get no response.

They  think that because other Americans don't believe/act the way they do, that they are somehow less of an American.

They seem to have this need to toot their own horn, when in fact they are very much out of tune.

 

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
link   seeder  Randy  replied to  Kavika   7 years ago

The term ''patriot'' seems to be the weapon of choice when holding themselves above other Americans. I have asked some on this site, what makes you a better or more patriotic American than anyone else. I get no response.

A patriot is anyone who thinks, believes and acts just like they do. Everyone else is not a patriot, but rather is an enemy. I see this seem to happen more on the right then the left. For instance just a few days ago Donald Trump very quietly sign an Executive Order reversing one that President Obama had signed that made it impossible for the very mentally ill to buy a weapon. This would seem like a very commonsense idea, especially since whenever there is a school shooting or a mall shooting or some such thing, one of the first things the NRA blames is the mental health of the person who did the shooting. Yet they support the right of such a person to buy the weapon in the first place? How can they support two completely conflicting ideas at the same time?

Anyway, that's just an example. It's what happens if you are a person who objects to this idea that is important. If a person objects to this idea then somehow they are anti-Constitutional. You suddenly hate the 2nd Amendment and want to take everyone's guns away. When nothing can be further from the truth. You are not a real Patriot! The word itself, Patriot, is weaponized. And I don't understand that? How is holding an opposite position then another person hold make one less of a Patriot? It's just a disagreement on an issue. It's not like the person who disagrees has committed some act of treason or are less of an American. I honestly believe that there are many people out in America who have a very skewed idea of what being a Patriot really is.

 
 
 
CM
Freshman Silent
link   CM    7 years ago

Randy: Very good Post...Christianity, What is Christianity these days, most people claim to be a Christian because it gives the impression they are good...BS..It is the condition of your heart, meaning your Spirituality, some of these people are just plain wicked(for lack of a worst word)...If a person cannot empathize and put themselves in another person's shoe..(but for the grace of God, there goes I)..then, they are just Wicked and a Scoundrel..I am not pointing to anyone here with those words, that's just my feelings about people who cannot understand the plight of others...

 
 
 
Bob Nelson
Professor Guide
link   Bob Nelson  replied to  CM   7 years ago

Please post in ordinary font. Your posts are unreadable.

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
link   Sean Treacy    7 years ago

It seems like if you disagree with the person who posted the article or the person who wrote the article that was posted that you were some how not real American, I don't get that?

followed by:

If you don't agree, then leave. You are not an American, because you just don't get it.

 Hypocrisy at its finest.  If there was a hall of fame for hypocrisy, this is a first ballot entry.

 

I always being lectured on sympathy for others by a person who used this site to advocate the murder of innocent  cops across the country because an innocent officer wasn't convicted of a crime based on a totally fake narrative of "hands up, don't shoot." Seriously, a guy who advocates the murder  of fellow Americans just because they are police officers wants to self righteously pontificate about how Americans should act.

You have to laugh. 

 
 
 
Dean Moriarty
Professor Quiet
link   Dean Moriarty    7 years ago

The blood sucking leeches say leave if you don't willingly allow us to steal what you have worked for. That's what many business leaders like myself are doing packing up and moving our businesses to friendlier environments. The thieving leeches did the same thing to Detroit in the sixties when they drove all the businesses and hard working productive people out of the city. I've seen this all my life. These bums have become so accustomed to kicking and crying like little babies to get what they want they are now just useless manchilds that are nothing but a burden to society. 

 
 
 
Randy
Sophomore Participates
link   seeder  Randy  replied to  Dean Moriarty   7 years ago

These bums have become so accustomed to kicking and crying like little babies to get what they want they are now just useless manchilds that are nothing but a burden to society.

Sounds like Wall Street and the 1%

 
 

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