WHILE MANY DO DISCOVER AMERICA…
(some are just more adept at discovering it…than others)

Just exactly who and what are we as a people and a nation?

We’re asking that question at the start of this new year because we’re heading into another election cycle for President of these United States; and, from the looks and sounds of things, very few of any of those candidates (from either party) seem able to properly answer it. To just say that we’re “a nation of immigrants”, as so many do while pandering for our votes next November, only half-way answers that question. The other half and perhaps the more important half of that question is to ask…what are we after we’re here?

America is not just a country cobbled together from a mish-mash of folks who’ve come from just about every race, national origin, or religion, on earth. They’ve come here because America…is an idea. An idea aimed at having a much better society based upon the principle that such a society can only exist, and be sustainable, if it is a secular and pluralist one, under a governance of law guaranteeing that all have an equal opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, in their own way, with the guiding motto for this grand ideal being -E Pluribus Unum-…from many…one. Thus, from the moment one is either born here, or arrives here from somewhere else, we’re expected to consider ourselves Americans first…and something else…second. Anyone who does not, or cannot, accept that concept…does not understand the idea of America.

Unfortunately we’ve spent the past four decades or so de-emphasizing that assimilating ideal, promoting instead our racial, national origin, religious, and cultural “diversity” instead. A misguided notion which has, in turn, divided us into erstwhile “communities” as a squabbling stewpot (with each “ingredient” claiming to be more equal than the others) which is anything but “American”, and, which our politicos attempt to gloss over by proclaiming that such “diversity” makes us more like a grand layer cake of many flavors. Others, with a perhaps more misanthropic and realistic perspective simply say…no…that emphasis on diversity just makes us more like a fruitcake…with too damned many nuts in it! Either way what that boils down to is this: While many do discover America…some are just more adept at discovering it than others…and these are the ones who then truly become American.

Well, as we’ve often pointed out before, it’s time we quit placing so much emphasis on …Pluribus…and concentrated our efforts more strongly on…Unum…instead. Otherwise, and before we’ll realize it, we will no longer be able to call ourselves…American.

CENTURION