Tag / America

by Greg

Group Think

If you know me in the slightest, you know that I am not at all the political sort. When I was at Michigan State, almost 15 years ago now, we lived in suites (two rooms shared a common bathroom). One of the guys in the other suite connected to mine was a super, duper, dee-duper Republican of Republicans. He had a full-size, cardboard statue of George Bush 41. He meant business. And I didn’t necessarily think he was weird… I think I just didn’t get it.

So as I have lived life as an adult for a time, I have understood a bit more the role of politics in our country, and to a degree in my life. But see, that’s just the thing. It has become such a game that it basically has no role in my life at all. To me, everyone involved in politics on any level – not just Washington – is just playing some childish, meaningless game. And that’s too bad, because it shouldn’t be this irrelevant.

I’m just completely irked by the comments leading up to, and now especially following the most recent election. “The Democrats have taken control of both houses of congress…” and, “Americans sent George Bush a message in this 2006 election…” There were many incarnations of that last one, spoken by many media folk and especially the victorious Democrat candidates. The real evidence that it is just a game though is that everyone says the same thing. Everyone is playing by the same rules.

I said to Jen last night, “Our government is not supposed to be two people, who always choose the same way.” That’s what it has become. You either vote for one, or the other. We do not have one president with his cabinet and staff, along with 100 senators and 500-something representatives. No, we have Republican and Democrat. Now that the Democrat controls congress, the Republican won’t be able to get anything done. And, please tell me that when I clicked those 15 or so levers in the polling booth Tuesday night that I was actually voting for individual candidates in individual races… not just “sending President Bush a message…”

GRRRRRR. It makes me so mad! People!! Think for yourselves!!! If you don’t like what George Bush is doing… TELL HIM. Tell someone. SOMEONE should listen. Don’t vote for the “opposite party”, regardless of who that sends to represent us. Pay attention to the individual candidate!!!

OK… now that I have said that, I also understand that mostly the people who really think that Americans “sent a message to George Bush” via the election are the crazy media who live in a made-up world and the politicians, who also live in a made-up world. I just really hope that Average Joe American does not think like they all think we do.

You don’t, do you?

We are individuals. We are not Republicans or Democrats or Independants or any other brand name. We are not blacks, or whites, or hispanics, native-americans, or any other demographic. We are Americans, because that’s where we live… but that does not remove or absolve us from making individual decisions. We don’t all think the same way just because we’re American (that should be obvious!) … we each get to choose in every situation, every time.

The other problem we have in this country is reflected in something Senator Clinton said following her lop-sided victory over the token Republican challenger. She said, “The people have spoken… and we will give you a government you won’t be dissapointed in.” (Something like that.) That revealed to me what she thinks of government. She thinks it should be something. I don’t. I think government should be invisible. I don’t even think it should be a full-time job sometimes. I think people should be allowed to live their own lives, as they desire, and government only represents our country to the world and maintains order/communication between the various states. Any other form of government is something I will either be dissappointed in or not… because… it’s SOMETHING. It becomes its own entity. In a tiny way, it’s like the church actually. When we make it a thing, rather than just a reality, we have gone too far. And then, enter the politics.

So… nothing I can do really. That’s just what we do. We play games. Politics magnifies the scale and the stupidity of that, but it’s all the same on every level. Politics involves playing games for power, so it’s intensified there too. One more example of how we have a totally wrong view of what government is. Government should not be about power. Our government is supposed to REPRESENT us, not lead or “govern” us. At least, not in America. But those days are loooong gone. And here we are.

The only way I could think to fix things would be to actually run for office. I have that notion every time there is an election, or politics is heavy in the news. But then I remember, it’s all just a game, and no one is real. One real person, trying to actually change the way government thinks… not gonna happen.

Who knows. Maybe I will run for president some day.

by Greg

Vacation

Some of you reading this know that we have been on vacation for the past week. Now, all of you reading this know that. 🙂 It was a very different vacation in that we did not know where we would be spending it even up to the eve of the first day of the week off, and to some degree, most of the first day of vacating!

We ended up spending the first day of my week off at home, doing fun vacation-y things at home. But the phone and the office are too near, as is an abundance of household chores. (I ended up doing a good deal of laundry, dishes, cooking meals, and best of all, got to spend at least an hour fixing a clogged tub drain in our bathroom.) So, Jen said near the end of the first day, “We’re leaving tomorrow!”

Mainly (if not totally) due to financial concerns, we had cancelled our initial trip to Florida to visit with family. While the lodging was taken care of, and likely, most meals… the travel cost of just getting there was too high for us at the moment. So, our backup plan was to visit my sister for a portion of our week. They live in Washington, DC… Jen loves DC… it was Jen’s birthday weekend… seemed a perfect fit. So, we planned to take a leisurely trip down through PA to get to their place for the weekend… just staying at a few cheaper hotels along the way. Well, that too became out of our price range at the moment and so we scrapped that idea.

What we ended up doing was a modified version of plan B. A plan B-B, if you will. We only spent one night in a moderate hotel, and did a little tour of a couple Gettysburg historical sites on the way to visit with my sister’s fam down in DC. Then we spent the final two days of vacation back here at the humble abode. (And, since we did spend the time doing household chores on the first day of vacation, there were far fewer to do the past couple days. Also, people had learned that I actually was gone, and they needn’t call till I return, so the phone was less intrusive.)

I’m getting ahead of myself… let me back-track to Gettysburg.

Our son, Ian, is 7 years old and just quite simply a marvel to me. He is so interested in people that he read a book that I’d say was intended for middle-school minds (remember… he’s seven!) on the trip down to Gettysburg. We had read a story or two about G-burg before leaving, but mostly Ian did the research on his own. The book was a diary of one girl’s experiences in July of 1863 when the major battle at G-burg occurred. So, since Ian had read this story, the place was much more alive and had much more meaning to him. He was pointing out signs and street names and locations to us, “Hey! That was in my book!”

Basically… he was our tour guide. 🙂

We strolled the very ground where the crucial battle had taken place some 143 years prior. It was really very interesting and sobering to be standing there with cannons and battle lines and other things still in place. The story was very alive and real as we read the various plaques and memorials. Definitely going to make a return trip and spend more than a few hours there.

Our time in DC was packed full of time with my sister and family, which was really great. We also celebrated Jen’s birthday on Saturday. (Including a nice birthday dinner at Red Robin on Friday night!) We even got to spend most of Saturday with a good friend from high school and his family. The kids also got to do some trick-or-treating at the local businesses with their cousins. That was fun 🙂

Since we came home we spent some leisurely time around the house playing Tecmo Superbowl (among other electronic games), making and eating fun meals (like waffles!) and just enjoying being a family of six.

That reminds me… we also spent our vacation letting family and friends know that we are now expecting to be a family of seven by the end of May 2007. 🙂

We finished up the big 2006 vacation with a THREE HOUR trick-or-treat extravaganza in our own town of Palmyra, NY. We have not yet done that (so far, we have trick-or-treated in Florida, California, Vermont twice, and a few other locations across the country), so we had a great time visiting friends, meeting new neighbors and just being in our own town. And we did get quite a haul of candy!!

The kids were Buffalo sports reps. Ian was a Buffalo Sabre in classic blue and gold attire. Alex was a Buffalo Bill: Drew Bledsoe, to be precise. Kirstie was a Buffalo Jill. We even had the face paint! Oh! Even Julia was dressed in her little Buffalo Bills outfit from Grammy. So, she was a cheer leader too. 🙂

It was a great night. It was a great vacation. Why am I up at 2:15 you ask? Well, I spent two hours straightening up our finances (reconciling our accounts, paying bills, filing receipts, etc).. and then just felt the urge to blog. Last day of vacation… I’m milking it. 🙂

Hopefully I return to the office tomorrow refreshed and recharged. There’s a lot on my plate already… so it will be tough, but I hope the time away will give me a renewed capacity to deal with all the challenges and to enjoy the work God has given me to do. I am definitely blessed.

Beyond how God provides for our family… I am blown away by how blessed I am to have the wife I have, and the four (and soon five) great kids we have. Can’t say it any better than that.

So… we’re back! Here we go again!

by Greg

E Pluribus Unum

We have noticed something on this trip. Something that perhaps we have heard of, or even known intellectually before, but the experience this particular tour of our country has been more vivid. Something that today, frankly, bothered or perhaps even worried me.

You have heard it said (if you are a follower of politics or current events) that we are “Two Americas”. John Kerry’s folks would have you believe that the two Americas are the Democrats and Republicans. Those for the people and those for Big Business. Those for the middle class and those for the super-rich. Those for health care and jobs and education and a smarter war on terror, and those against all of those things. Broken down even more, it is the “tolerant” vs. the “religious right” who only want to bind people with their stuffy morality.

There is definitely a divide in America today stemming from personal spiritual convictions and particularly how those play out in public – mainly legislative – life. Those worlds will never intersect. The closest we came was when our country was founded by folks trying to escape the tyranny of religious oppression and live here together governed by a common morality and a person’s conscience, rather than a large government making people behave correctly. Life was just about as it should be then, when God was a welcome member of our society… He was indeed the foundation.

But today, and on this tour we have noticed a different set of americas. Indeed, there are not only two, but MANY.

One of the greatest things about our country is that we are quite multicultural. People from ALL backgrounds can come here and make a life for themselves in the most richly abundantly blessed country that has ever existed. They can come and join in this great nation that is the USA.

In fact, our coins talk about this. The latin phrase “E Pluribus Unum” is inscribed on our money, reminding us all that we are many from one. Literally, I believe it’s “From Many One”. How great is that?!? I love that you can look at any ethnic group of people in the world and they could be Americans. We are so diverse in not only appearance, but in culture. We have so many different heritages. Festivals, sections of towns, and many other things celebrate our uniqueness.

But perhaps we have gone too far?

My next words may sound a bit bigoted or intolerant. Just wanted to warn you. I do not hate anyone. Quite the opposite. But I think we are losing our greatest strength.

We are so quick to celebrate our diversity, that we do not really encourage unity. We have African-Americans, Native-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and on and on and on. We are all tied by the second part of that hyphenated phrase… but, we are still hyphenated.

And in a thrift store in Incline Village, NV today, we were out numbered by the people who DO NOT speak English. And that really bothered me.

Now, I speak Spanish. So, I could communicate with them. No problem. And if they were just visiting, obviously no problem. I have said for years, because of my experience of growing up overseas, that Americans are stupid, self-centered people who only care about themselves and not other nations cultures and languages. To an extent that is still true.

But these Spanish-only speakers are EVERYWHERE. Really. If it was just by the borders of our Spanish-speaking country to the south, then it would be more understandable. Two countries will obviously spill on to each other and require a certain degree of bilinguality. But we are allowing a HUGE number of people ALL over our country to not just maintain their heritage or identity… but to NOT merge into ONE culture.

I do not want everyone to be the same. Diversity is something God gave us that I believe, since we are made in his image, reflects his supreme diversity. He is unfathomable in his diversity.

But… it says “From Many…. ONE”

We don’t have any of that going on.

We hire spanish speaking workers (as at a McDonald’s we were at). We have Spanish signs in public buildings. We have spanish TV… etc, etc, etc.

My point is not that Spanish is bad. My point is, shouldn’t we all have SOMETHING in common besides paying taxes (which many spanish speakers may not be doing… but that’s another topic…) A language is a uniting thing that does not squash heritage. It does not castrate your ethnic identity. IT MAKES US ONE.

So, from Incline Village, NV to Bentonville, AR, to Boulder, CO, to yes… Los Angeles, CA…. Spanish is not only spoken, but often is the only language spoken.

It seems to me that it may be in our best interest to stop thinking we are being tolerant and move back toward unity of our country – our Two Americas – by being ONE NATION again. Celebrate diversity, yes, but let’s have everyone learn to speak our COMMON language. Let’s make one from many. Not just a bunch of manys living on one continent.

Just my opinion from our travels these last months. Take it for what it is. I am not a bigot. I am actually quite fluent in spanish…

But, let’s do some E Pluribus Unum-ing!!!