Posted by:
united, we stand
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Date: April 18, 2017 09:22AM
lol, Betty G. When I moved to the South, I had to learn about sweet tea. I call it tea syrup, compared to Northern tea-drinking sweetness. When ordering tea in the South, Northerners give themselves away as being Northern by requesting "half cut" tea (half sweet, half unsweetened), but even that is still too sweet. Most all of the beverages are sweeteer than Northern recipes, being nearly at the level of sweetness as pancake syrup (not thickness, but sweetness). I think they're trying to send me to a diabetic hell. ;)
I am on my phone and the audio won't play from the link, but I'd lke to hear it later. Book by it's cover, I know, but to claim that America is the "most polarized" nation in the "Western World" ignores events like Brexit and other major divides among EU member nations. The author must have failed to look at a map. Overlay the nearly 4 million square miles of a US map onto any part of a map of Western Europe, and you will find the same diversity and divisions. We US citizens are not obligated to "remain true" to the ethnicity of our ancestors, nor claim that any one ancestry is "superior" to another.
And, we have a much "larger" conversation, laws and mores being of a common languange, tooling our thoughts and beliefs. I don't have to learn a new language to discuss sweet tea with Betty G, nor she to grasp my words, but we can argue how sweet is too sweet 'til the cows come home, and she will know exactly what that means. It means that we Northern and Southern will park ourselves on the porch, each sipping our own tea, talk both deep and shallow, shake hands or give a quick hug, and be off to our own until we meet again.
I also think that a lot of money is to be made capitalizing on our diversity. Do I think that "the other party" is "pure evil?" No, but that premise sure sells a lot of ads. Do I believe that all Christians want to kill all atheists (or all Muslims want to kill all Christians)? No, but every single act of hatred is publicized as "a member" of that religion, though not representative of the majority of the group.
Even pointing to this last election, were it not for the electoral college, we would still be at each other's throats over "voter fraud." For me, it was a defeat, but I can adjust and still conduct myself as a responsible citizen. "My guy" didn't win (not that she was a palatable choice, either). It doesn't mean that I need to tear the winner to proverbial shreds, but I do hope that he gets a better, wiser team to support him (c'mon - give me that. The man knows how to say "You're fired!")
And, I'm a "guilty" participant, but have no shame about it. Steve B.'s cartoons warm my heart, make me feel less alone, while others send him hate mail. Steve can still rub me the wrong way, but I will defend his right to do so.
But I digress. The point is, I don't know that those not reared in the US can view our diversity as the parts of the whole sum that they are. And, if I were to try to define "American exceptionalism," I would have to say that it is the collective belief that together, we are greater than the sum of our parts.