L&T Publisher Earl Watt
Notwithstanding the perverted protesters calling for the death of Jewish people, Americans are much more alike than we are different.
Out of respect I use the term African American so that I am not perceived as offending someone, but I don’t prefer to say it because it denotes that someone of color is somehow not just as American as anyone else. Asian-American, Irish-American, or any other hyphenated depiction creates a subset of the whole. By its very existence it is divisive, drawing a piece away from the body.
For a nation to be one, we have to have a commonality. And we have several.
Citizenship is a commonality among Americans of every walk of life.
I’ve yet to meet any American who isn’t interested in making life better for themselves or their children, if they have them. This is common among all people of the world and so it goes without saying that it is also a commonality among Americans.
While we differ to what degree and how, we all want the government to work for the people. A governmental abuse to one is abuse to us all, whether that be an instance of police brutality or any other political use of the government. We may differ on how to help the poor or to what extent we expect government to regulate our businesses, but we are each expecting the government to work for the people, not for their own personal interests.
We all believe in a safe and healthy environment. Does that mean we all believe life as we know it will no longer exist in a few years because of carbon dioxide? No. We may differ on the degree to which we believe we should adjust behavior, but clean water, breathable air, preservation of forests and wildlife, and clean public spaces are just some of the environmental issues where we all agree.
When it comes to earning a living, there is widespread consensus that capitalism is the best system of rewarding labor and innovation. History is the best teacher, and capitalism has clearly shown that innovative advancements that have led to healthier living, more efficient production systems, and motivation to produce to care for our families while providing a necessary good or service for society prosper under capitalism. The more repressed and socialized the system, the less production and innovation.
While we support capitalism, we also reject gouging and abuses of a free market. That’s why we have laws against monopolies and support healthy competition in the public square. Competition drives the quality up and the costs down. Thats something that is virtually universal among us all.
We reject racism as a whole. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a knucklehead out there spewing hate and discontent. But society as a whole rejects racism outright. Some try to divide us along these lines because they benefit from the subset system rather than a system where we all are equally participating in the public square. And, we all agree that this hasn’t always been the case. America’s history reflects the same biases seen throughout the world when it comes to racism and bigotry. But America has also gone through great efforts to move beyond human history’s connection to slavery and racism and has one of the most diverse societies on the planet. True racist regions tend to purge and purify to eliminate and make very uncomfortable those who, in their view, don’t fit in. Everyone is welcome in America, and it is a core value that makes us who we are. We may differ on how many foreigners we can accommodate at once, but we are all from somewhere else, whether that be the earliest settlers who crossed the Bering Strait or the European, Asian and African groups who came later, we all recognize that what has been created here is a magnet to those wanting to breathe free.
Too often, we allow an issue to split us down the middle, but the core values remain the same — freedom of religion, of speech, the pursuit of happiness and so much more — and those are what bind us together.
We may have differences, but they pale in comparison to what we share.
