'Muricans

[Perknose]

This is who we (also) are. This is who WE at heart. And not just us, so damn lucky to live in this still evolving experiment in representative democracy, that which the simple Syrian farmer and his family escaping sectarian chaos, the Sudanese herder and his family just wanting to live their life, the Mexican campesino and his family looking to make their way under some better semblance of laws, not men, of justice . . . all flock to for the simple opportunity to work hard and contribute, that their children may fo forrh (somewhat) equal and free, as have waves and waves of migrants, of immigrants, before them.

Shorn of the idiocy of the ideology of exclusion and hate, THIS IS WHO WE ARE, at heart.

Past the 24/7 news serving of anecdotal Florida Man or the Trump Family Circus, this is who, in the main, we are.

As you go forth, gentle poster, to once again savage your ideological foe with the rhetoric of high dudgeon, please keep this in mind and never, never, never forget that we are all in this together . . . that we sink or swim together.

Hey you cynics, so clear eyed, so certain and so sour, this I say to you. I grew up a scant 10 miles from the city, Philadelphia, the birthplace of the idea of the United States of America.

May we always and ever strive to live up to the timeless and visionary words of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and may our flag, Old Gory, stand for the very best of us, that we may be worthy of these timelessly true words, that "all 'men' are created equal" and that our government is here to provide us with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of HAPPINESS."

 

[chucky2]

F#ck all that, let'em drown...

 

[Moonbeam]

F#ck all that, let'em drown...

Dare I say. I hope Perk found that as funny as I did.

 

[Younigue]

Dare I say. I hope Perk found that as funny as I did.

Tsk tsk Moonbeam.

 

[Perknose]

Tsk tsk Moonbeam.

It's "all good," as the slackers so sagely say, Younique. Such highfalutin' rhetoric in which I engaged is a prime target for the sharp arrow of deflating humor. I knew this going in. I don't much live up to this, but I LOVE Michelle's gorgeous life dictum, "We they go low, we go high."

I would rather fall from a great height to my metaphoric death, having dared to reach for the beauty and grace of humane inclusion, than live my life in the stifling muck of "know nothing" ignorance, smeared with the smegma of small-minded bigotry and hate.

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

That is...some mental image. I salute a fellow artist.

 

[Moonbeam]

Tsk tsk Moonbeam.

What????? I couldn't help myself. His dead pan deft and pitch perfect announcement he's not an American at heart so soon after hearing words that could come from only such a heart, produced all the same kinds of unanticipated realignment of assumption one finds in a quality joke.

 

[Younigue]

What????? I couldn't help myself. His dead pan deft and pitch perfect announcement he's not an American at heart so soon after hearing words that could come from only such a heart, produced all the same kinds of unanticipated realignment of assumption one finds in a quality joke.

I spin comedic gold with you and you respond by trying to bore me in to submission. You better recognize...

Plus iirc chucky may not have been shooting for comic relief. Correct me if I'm wrong.

By the way, your "What?????" looked like guilt to me. It gives me hope that your heart is softening. I'm proud of you!

 

[Moonbeam]

Where they go low we go high is a gift that those who go low extend. It's where the rubber meets the road.

 

[Indus]

There are times I wanna agree with the OP but more often than that you see this..

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...hreaten-lynch-boyfriend-nyc-article-1.3318428

 

[Moonbeam]

I spin comedic gold with you and you respond by trying to bore me in to submission. You better recognize...

Plus iirc chucky may not have been shooting for comic relief. Correct me if I'm wrong.

By the way, your "What?????" looked like guilt to me. It gives me hope that your heart is softening. I'm proud of you!

Whether he was or was not I can't say but my bet is that he is not who he pretended to be. I chose to think that because it makes me feel better and it comes from a bleeding heart liberal.

I have myself of the rare occasion offered some noble sentiment or another, fully expecting and receiving the satisfaction that I would indeed be crucified, and when I forget from the fact this knowledge isn't cemented in stone, I experience rage instead. I love Perk and I suffer trepidations that that same holy fire will be directed at me. Only human you see..... But I have been around and around in battle after battle with chucky and so much so that I see him now as family. We aren't all perfect and there's no accounting for taste. So I didn't come into the thread taught and ready to spring.

 

[agent00f]

Whether he was or was not I can't say but my bet is that he is not who he pretended to be. I chose to think that because it makes me feel better and it comes from a bleeding heart liberal.

I have myself of the rare occasion offered some noble sentiment or another, fully expecting and receiving the satisfaction that I would indeed be crucified, and when I forget from the fact this knowledge isn't cemented in stone, I experience rage instead. I love Perk and I suffer trepidations that that same holy fire will be directed at me. Only human you see..... But I have been around and around in battle after battle with chucky and so much so that I see him now as family. We aren't all perfect and there's no accounting for taste. So I didn't come into the thread taught and ready to spring.

It's only a joke because said family was white enough.

 

[Younigue]

Sorry Perknose, I was distracted by Moonie. I love this post and I agree. I want very much for Americans to work together toward the betterment of all people's. Your post is very poignant and the sentiment is important to me. I hope for a United country but I have yet to rectify within myself the gulf between care for all (and I do... ok, except the evil among us hence the reason I struggle with Trump) and choosing who to care for based on skin color, economic standing, positions of power, sexuality, different mental abilities, religion, even political pov. But it seems like far too many are taking it beyond not caring (that's plenty destructive) to hate. Combating hate to bring it to unification through compromise feels hopeless when hate isn't just reluctant but devoted.

I will continue to hope but I won't stop calling out ignorance. I feel it's my duty to show intolerance to the intolerant.

Thank you for this post!

 

[Younigue]

Whether he was or was not I can't say but my bet is that he is not who he pretended to be. I chose to think that because it makes me feel better and it comes from a bleeding heart liberal.

I have myself of the rare occasion offered some noble sentiment or another, fully expecting and receiving the satisfaction that I would indeed be crucified, and when I forget from the fact this knowledge isn't cemented in stone, I experience rage instead. I love Perk and I suffer trepidations that that same holy fire will be directed at me. Only human you see..... But I have been around and around in battle after battle with chucky and so much so that I see him now as family. We aren't all perfect and there's no accounting for taste. So I didn't come into the thread taught and ready to spring.

I'm not sure it is for the speaker to decide whether he or she has been noble or not. Have you considered that your idea of noble could be leagues and leagues from someone else's idea of noble? Or that your noble is in fact arrogance? Arrogance is too easily inflated self importance and hurtful to others for a multitude of reasons. It will never be as simple as forgotten memories of... however you put it...

I dare say, you know nothing of crucifixion. You do however know that you have chosen a path that separates you and that your words often garners strong reaction.

No, no one is perfect nor should any one try to be. All any one can do is do their best and forgive themselves when they don't or if it's not enough.

Laughing at cruelty IS beneath you. I believe it in my heart.

Now, tell me I'm funny Mooniebaby! <--- I think because we're besties you are obligated. Or I just might tantrum on your ass! Probably not but... maybe!

*boop*

 

[Moonbeam]

I feel it's my duty to show intolerance to the intolerant.

My thought are that you have this wrong. You should show intolerance to intolerance that manifests as intolerable action that is justifiably stopped rather than intolerance of the intolerant because they are only intolerant because they were conditioned to be that way by being made to feel intolerable. You just throw gas on the fire if you do that. When the intolerant act to violate your rights justice demands it ends. The use of force must end the moment the threat does.

 

[Younigue]

My thought are that you have this wrong. You should show intolerance to intolerance that manifests as intolerable action that is justifiably stopped rather than intolerance of the intolerant because they are only intolerant because they were conditioned to be that way by being made to feel intolerable. You just throw gas on the fire if you do that. When the intolerant act to violate your rights justice demands it ends. The use of force must end the moment the threat does.

Agreed. I misspoke or at least didn't finish my thought there. But I must confess, I do indulge in troll-likeness to amuse myself at the expense of hate and ignorance spewers. My biggest indiscretions are toward the individuals typically. I don't even believe in grouping people together to hold in disdain.

 

[Younigue]

My thought are that you have this wrong. You should show intolerance to intolerance that manifests as intolerable action that is justifiably stopped rather than intolerance of the intolerant because they are only intolerant because they were conditioned to be that way by being made to feel intolerable. You just throw gas on the fire if you do that. When the intolerant act to violate your rights justice demands it ends. The use of force must end the moment the threat does.

Hey, I didn't realize I was responding to you. Somehow I wish I had disagreed with you in some way about something. It's just our way, ya know? *wink*

Also, TELL ME I'M FUNNY!

And....
*boop*

 

[Moonbeam]

Laughing at cruelty IS beneath you. I believe it in my heart.

As the thread is about who Americans are at heart and the immigrant contribution to it, here is something that found full flower here in America but had English antecedents from an18th century barrister, Sir William Garrow. He said the following in his defence at the Old Bailey of John Richards and Moses Butler, who were indicted on a charge of burglary in May 1784:

Gentlemen of the Jury, ... whoever is proved to be guilty of that offence, should be brought to the punishment they deserve; but on the other side, it is equally important to justice and humanity, that innocent men should not be fixed with a crime so atrocious in its nature, and so penal in its consequences; in proportion therefore to the malignity of the offence, and the certainty of the punishment that will follow the conviction of it, ought to be the clearness of the evidence by which it is supported, for it would be a dreadful thing on the mind of any humane man, to run any risque of placing an innocent man in that situation, that your verdict must do on conviction ...

In America we call this innocent until proven guilty and I beg your indulgence in it. Laughing at cruelty should be an anathema to any humane heart, but so should the charge be validated, that was what made me laugh. I even apparently wasted my time explaining that earlier in the thread.

 

[Younigue]

As the thread is about who Americans are at heart and the immigrant contribution to it, here is something that found full flower here in America but had English antecedents from an18th century barrister, Sir William Garrow. He said the following in his defence at the Old Bailey of John Richards and Moses Butler, who were indicted on a charge of burglary in May 1784:

Gentlemen of the Jury, ... whoever is proved to be guilty of that offence, should be brought to the punishment they deserve; but on the other side, it is equally important to justice and humanity, that innocent men should not be fixed with a crime so atrocious in its nature, and so penal in its consequences; in proportion therefore to the malignity of the offence, and the certainty of the punishment that will follow the conviction of it, ought to be the clearness of the evidence by which it is supported, for it would be a dreadful thing on the mind of any humane man, to run any risque of placing an innocent man in that situation, that your verdict must do on conviction ...

In America we call this innocent until proven guilty and I beg your indulgence in it. Laughing at cruelty should be an anathema to any humane heart, but so should the charge be validated, that was what made me laugh. I even apparently wasted my time explaining that earlier in the thread.

*zerbert*!

 

[Moonbeam]

I thought that weaponized boop was very funny.

 

[Younigue]

I thought that weaponized boop was very funny.

When you weaponized it or that I called it that? You understand why I need clarification right? This could just be a sneaky way of saying that you think that you are the funny one. Between the two of us? That's a never gonna happen scenario.

As for the heart of America. I do believe the majority are in fact good people with a desire to thrive not on the backs or necks of others. If not side-by-side then together.

 

[Mai72]

I love immigrants.

Why? Because they aren't entited like so many Americans. Most will work harder and have a stronger sense of gratitude than most Americans.

There are many who become millionaires. Shattering the myth that upward mobility doesn't exist in America anymore. The real reason is many Americans are just plain lazy. Me included. I'm working on it though.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

While reading this post I just had to do the following....

• Play the world's smallest violin
• Donate to starving kids in Ethiopia
• Pull and tug at my bleeding heart

It's so hilarious how liberals like to argue things not because of logic, reasoning, facts, or economics, but simply "because it's the right thing to do"

Nevermind facts, such as certain immigrants that refuse to adapt to our culture and learn the language. That's not going to affect our country down the road since it makes a language barrier right? We will all still hold hands 24/7 and sing lullaby's, just in 2 languages at the same time. Nevermind facts, such as certain immigrants that refuse to adapt to our culture and want to impose theirs upon us with Sharia law. I'm sure we can get along just fine and co-mingle with those completely 2 different points of view, right?

 

[ch33zw1z]

The fire underneath the melting pot has been replaced with dynamite. The fuse was lit in November. Hopefully we survive the blast.

 

[ch33zw1z]

While reading this post I just had to do the following....

• Play the world's smallest violin
• Donate to starving kids in Ethiopia
• Pull and tug at my bleeding heart

It's so hilarious how liberals like to argue things not because of logic, reasoning, facts, or economics, but simply "because it's the right thing to do"

Nevermind facts, such as certain immigrants that refuse to adapt to our culture and learn the language. That's not going to affect our country down the road since it makes a language barrier right? We will all still hold hands 24/7 and sing lullaby's, just in 2 languages at the same time. Nevermind facts, such as certain immigrants that refuse to adapt to our culture and want to impose theirs upon us with Sharia law. I'm sure we can get along just fine and co-mingle with those completely 2 different points of view, right?

The amount of Muslims in the USA that want sharia law pales in comparison to Christians that think we're a Christian nation and should run our country based on that.

I've spoke with a few Muslims (one was a white dude which did surprise me a little) and sharia law is simply not on their agenda.

Obviously this doesn't rule out everyone...

Sharia law isn't happening in this country.

Do you have any ideas how to help people assimilate? Or has the country of innovation and bootstraps given up?