A Letter to the Nation Concerning Belonging

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this will be my third letter having to do with my unemployment. What can I say? It’s on my mind. If it’s any consolation, I’m trying to keep it varied within the subject. Oh, and I put it in Everything Else because it's a letter, but if it belongs in P&C I totally get it.

Dear America,

It’s been a while since I’ve considered myself to be a patriotic American. We’ll ignore, for the time being, the reasons for this that include my heritage. Let’s just say that as bloodlines go, I’ve got enough in me to be pissed that this country both marched my people off their land into Oklahoma, and, declared its independence from the empire. Add to that being raised in Louisiana, a state so rich with customs and traditions wholly separate from any other passed down and celebrated in the other 49 states, it still wouldn’t be that weird if we seceded. I tried to include those things in more detail into an early draft, and it just took over the letter.

So, I’m just going to focus on the political reasons I don’t considered myself patriotic.

For the last, oh I don’t know, eight years, I’ve tried to shy away from attaching blind allegiance to any group that has the possibility of labeling me with descriptors that I don’t think apply to me. Descriptors like hate or greed or ignorance. I’ve tried to itemize my politics as much as possible so if and when someone asks me if I’m pro or anti-American, I can throw a list of yay or nays back at them without ever actually answering the initial question. Douse their accusatory flame, if you will.

I was comfortable with that responsibility. The responsibility of educating myself on the important issues and how my views differ from the decisions of my government. It was the only logical course of action to take in anticipation of having to defend myself against a generalizing international community. I needed arrows so I became a fletcher.

So, I separated myself, mentally, from the club house of the Americas and instead decided that I was a “citizen of the world” who happened to have a blue passport and paid taxed to the United States. Technicalities that I couldn’t overcome due to certain legal obligations outside of my control.

And then something happened. I got fired. Not exactly an Earth shattering shock to anyone familiar with my previous place of employment and my disdain for everything that they encompassed, but, still something bad at the worst possible time for something bad to happen. Anyway, I was laid off, but that’s not what got me thinking about America. It’s what happened after I got laid off: absolutely nothing.

I still haven’t found a job. I look every day. I apply every day. I seek out a new role in my community every day, and still, I am unemployed. I am unemployed.

Well, I don’t need to explain what an American thing that is becoming. And I think it’s me being unemployed that has gotten me thinking about America again. I think it’s what’s gotten me feeling better about being an American again.

I don’t mean to make a ridiculous statement like Americans are the first ever to be unemployed, or that we’re the first ever to have a large number of our citizens be unemployed. What I mean is that this is the first time our, my, your generation of Americans has experienced a drop in our worth as a nation to this extent.

The unemployed American population is a group that has collectively, and metaphorically, been kicked in the balls and is now rolling around on the ground waiting for the stars in their vision to go away. And it’s a group I am now a part of.

The President, our President, whom I voted for, has a way with words. He has a calming and informed manner of speaking that before, for me, always felt relevant, but now feels critical. He’s the man that is going to make the decisions that determine maybe not how easy it is to get my next job, but how easy it will be to get a better one after that. The real one. He’s the one that is going to be the face of the push to help me run again after I’ve pulled myself back onto my feet.

So, how does that translate into me suddenly feeling that unmistakable, and previously avoided, feeling of pride swell ever so slightly in my chest?

Well, I’ll tell you.

The reason I chose to think of myself as a citizen of the world, as I stated before, was one of protection. I was protecting myself from the association with our nation and its attitudes and policies. Because they were not my attitudes and policies. They weren’t a lot of people’s. The government in the recent years has been the obnoxious drunken uncle at the wedding, toasting these “done up sumFemale Doggoes” on this, their special day. And I, we, are the red faced nephews slouching in our chairs wishing we could will ourselves invisible.

But unemployment is different. The economy is different. It’s not a brown bearded foe we can attempt to bomb back into the stone age or a tiny slant-eye we can tariff into poverty. It’s not something we can drill into at the cost of our Mother Gaia or a phone conversation we can subpoena at the cost of our humanity. It’s a situation where the problem makes us suffer and the solution allows us to use our minds creatively, instead of our government creatively coming up with ways to make us suffer due to a problem situation.

It’s a problem America is going to have to think her way through. Oh, I get chills just typing it. A puzzle to solve. Imagine that. We are the midnight IT man whose computer has gotten a virus. We are the mechanic whose truck has broken down. We are the Iron Chef whose secret ingredient is chocolate.

We are all in an amazing position to finally kick ass in the most internationally accepted way possible. We get to figure our way out of a problem that we are supposed to be the experts on.

You know who figures their way out of problems? Macguyver does. You know the one thing that MacGuyver never felt like to me? An insufferable f*cktard.

Lame? Maybe. Hokey? Sure. Cheesy? Absolutely. Complete, foaming at the mouth, guns-blazing, beer guzzling ass hat? No, never.

And that’s why I’m feeling this little bit of pride. We might actually solve a problem here, ladies and gentlemen. And we actually might do it without coming off like complete ass hats. Two firsts at once after almost a decade of neither. It’s like there’s electricity in the air.

And for right now, ring side to the big event, for as long as I can afford it, an unemployed American is something I’ll wear as proud as I used to wear the American Flag on my Boy Scout uniform, before I started making a list of yays and nays, and before I decided that America was something to be denounced as quickly as possible, before I could be counted among them.

I am a cynic, and I am a realist, and I always plan for rain on a sunny day. But for right now, now in this time when the statistics on CNN directly include me and my family and my friends, let me hang on to this small glimmer of hope and pride for the government that is in charge of the land I have come to love and belong to. Let my pride in becoming one of the millions of Americans that are being threatened by a national problem make sense. Let me hold on to the hope that being born an American citizen when I was just means that I had an opportunity to be onboard at the ground floor for this nation’s next rise to greatness through intelligent and peaceful socioeconomic success.

Let me quietly consider having an American flag hanging off of my home for the first time in 12 years, if only because I’m going through the worst low I’ve ever gone through, professionally, in my young adult life. Because it feels like the most appropriate time to feel good about your country is when it’s in the toilet.

Thanks for indulging the soapbox,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
Canada's still up there, don't f*ck this up

Ok, last one about not having a job. I promise.

*Edit: I tried to move this to P&C myself by editing it. We'll see if that works.

I haven't felt patriotic about this nation since probably my middle school days. Part of that is because I simply don't subscribe to the notion of nationalism anymore. *shrug*

Humanity needs to get past its tribalistic nature and finally evolve. Its well past time we throw off our barbaric roots.

With all of America's numerous faults, I am still very happy to be a citizen of the USA and believe that the American Experiment is worthy of preservation. I take very seriously the committment to help forge a "more perfect union". If that isn't the very definition of patriotism, I don't know what is.

I reject out of hand the jingoistic notion of "love it as is or leave it" fascism as a substitution for patriotism. That's the sort of "love" that makes for great Maoists, but folks like that suck ass as Americans. Having seen enough of that sort of blind loyalty and susceptibility to demagoguery abroad, I have even less tolerance for it here.

Yes, we can be a bunch of ignorant oafs. We can be entirely too antiintellectual. We often glorify mediocrity and extol the virtues of swinging our phalluses as some sort of all encompassing solution, but we eventually get around to setting things right.

As Winston Churchill once put it "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, but only after exhausting all other alternatives".

God damn, Chiggie, these letters always surprise me with how great and insightful they are. The fact that no one is paying you big piles of cash money for your writing is a f*cking crime.

Offering to do it for free all the time probably has a lot to do with it, but I appreciate the outrage anyway.

I would glady trade our Canadian Prime Minister for your American President.
Let's just elect him as the leader for ALL of North America.

Judge_Digger wrote:

I would glady trade our Canadian Prime Minister for your American President.
Let's just elect him as the leader for ALL of North America.

Seriously. You guys down south wanna trade? Act now and we'll toss in Jack Layton free of charge.

We have a prime minister?
Seriously though - if we added Canada to the US, Canada would have about the same electoral votes as California - would we ever see a Republican president again?

I have a tremendous amount of patriotism in a very weird way. I absolutely love this country, but have little good to say about my government. However, I am not ashamed of being American, I don't blush at the genocide and violence that brought our nation into being, and I don't apologize to people who see the US foreign policy as a a totalitarian overlord bent on slaughter and world domination. I have no control over these things. They are the facts of history and history in the making. The only thing I have is my vote. I voted for Barack Obama and it is nice to see someone I respect head the government that controls so much of our lives. I will maintain my staunch patriotism, but even though "my guy" is in the White House, I will still hold my government accountable for the mistakes and abuses of power it will certainly make, even with W and Cheney in retirement. This country's government was bought and sold a long time ago. If Obama is a fighter and is willing to loss political battles for the sake of this country's citizens, then I will brim with pride at making the right choice. The more likely outcome is that politics will remain as they are and decisions will be made based solely on the fact that they help ensure re-election for incumbents on both sides of the isle. When your democracy has a higher retention rate then the old Kremlin, you have a serious problem. I will remain patriotic in my schizophrenic way, but the election of Barack Obama has not instilled me confidence and devotion. I am not ready to take up the mantle and fight in the streets for the policies of my government just yet, but I am damn proud of being an American and not in that creepy cultist Toby Keith sort of way. It would be nice, though, to be as proud of my government as I am of my country.

I was listening to the radio this morning and heard one of the commentators on a talk show state that national polling has revealed that 2/3 of Americans can't find Iraq on a map marked with country names on it. Worse yet, of those polled, a majority stated that it didn't matter that Americans didn't know dick about geography. It appears that even Churchill's rather understated observation (that wars are how Americans learn geography) was hopelessly optimistic.

Perhaps I am just a dick elitist, but my takeaway from this is that Americans are not just straight up ignorant, but there seems to be a sort of willful pride in this particular brand of American knownothingness. It is as if waving the flag and reciting the pledge is somehow an adequate substitute for being an informed and responsible citizen.

Sigh.

Dysplastic wrote:

We have a prime minister?
Seriously though - if we added Canada to the US, Canada would have about the same electoral votes as California - would we ever see a Republican president again?

We may not see the Jesus loving, Gay hating, pro-life, theocratic "republicans" ever again and that would be a good thing. I hope the current kick in the nuts the party received will signal a return of real conservative politicians. The kind that would not try to outlaw abortion or gay marriage, or push for evolution being struck from curriculum and make prayer a requirement in the classroom. The modern republican is best described as a "Christian Democrat." Even from a fiscal standpoint they bear no resemblance to their former selves. They passed the biggest government entitlement program ever, but to be "republican" they decided to cut taxes as well, while fighting two wars. All they had to do was quietly repeal the "paygo" requirement the the first Bush instituted, and which Clinton worked under, to make their "conservative" dreams come true.

Anyway...politics...Always makes me rant and rave. Time for a smoke break.

NSFW, but relevant.

And probably even better (still NSFW):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQEcM...

Apparently Paleocon's answer to my plea to let me have my brief moments of pride in being part of an American underdog that not only exists, but that every working man and woman can get behind, is to absolutely refuse to.

This is retribution for me saying a variation of "America" 19 times in 1400 words. Don't let him tell you different.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Apparently Paleocon's answer to my plea to let me have my brief moments of pride in being part of an American underdog that not only exists, but that every working man and woman can get behind, is to absolutely refuse to.

This is retribution for me saying a variation of "America" 19 times in 1400 words. Don't let him tell you different.

Ever noticed how I get hit critically so infrequently? I also get a massive discount at the Craterside Supply.

My family runs a Russian conservative newspaper in the middle of the liberal city known as San Francisco. We get many letters.

There's a reason why most USSR refugees who come to America become conservatives. We have a fresh perspective on how great this country is, and just by how much the good outweighs the bad, the "gone right" outweighs the "gone wrong", we see it, unlike a large part of its entirely unappreciative, short-sighted, and ungrateful population, which has grown ignorant and disrespectful to the wisdom of the country's founders.

Few of us voted for Barack, and those few the rest of us will never understand. Not when its coming from Soviet refugees, people familiar with Soviet history, people who have experienced things like "national free healthcare system" firsthand, and know the famous words "let's just take everything and split it". People who see the class war being artificially inflamed right now by Barack Lenin. Once again.

While modern Russia's finally on its way to appreciating and growing healthy capitalism, even Putin sees America's future. He warned Obama about it in direct text.

Only 8-15% of American college professors are conservative. Thanks largely to the liberal college system, we have a generation of the brainwashed. Brainwashed with idealism about the nature of the human race itself. False enlightement is such a powerful draw. Of course, the brainwashed never know they are brainwashed. They think it's something for the movies. Something silly and unrealistic. It's those conservatives who are brainwashed, low-tier apes stuck in their medieval ways. Still stuck with such ancient barbaric concepts "nationalism", "borders", "language", "culture", "REALITY".

I will always think of Reagan fondly, and pray, to our Creator, that America survives this presidency. Good night and good luck.

shihonage wrote:

Of course, the brainwashed never know they are brainwashed. They think it's something for the movies. Something silly and unrealistic. It's those conservatives who are brainwashed, low-tier apes stuck in their medieval ways. Still stuck with such ancient barbaric concepts "nationalism", "borders", "language", "culture", "REALITY".

I will always think of Reagan fondly, and pray, to our Creator, that America survives this presidency. Good night and good luck.

"Wake up, Casey. The '80s are over."

As an Aussie, I've always found that American's always seem to have to demonstrate that they are more patriotic than the next person. As if their love of their country is measured by how much they talk about it. It's just the little things, the constant national anthems being played (every sporting game), the flags everywhere and the general attitude

I am hugely patriotic to Australia. I think we have the best country in the world. But i don't go round waving flags and singing my national anthem everyday just to prove that.

This maybe just me stereotyping but I definitely noticed it when I was in the states.

I'm not slagging off here, it just seems excessive to me. But then again, we aussies are notoriously laid back about everything.

Think of the trend starting as a celebration, but then getting carried into tradition. We want to celebrate our achievements, and do, which is fine. But even if the achievements are absent, the celebrations still happen, and that's when we look like tool boxes.

People want to love their country, but, those of us that gave up on the idea a while ago tend to get excited when something looks genuinely good and is coming from our nation. At least that's how I feel. I'm happy to not be as ashamed. As far as turning the corner to getting a tattoo of Old Glory on my chest, well, that might take longer. Like my entire lifetime.

AP Erebus wrote:

I am hugely patriotic to Australia. I think we have the best country in the world. But i don't go round waving flags and singing my national anthem everyday just to prove that.

Though your country does advertise how great it is all over our TV networks over here. Not that we mind, that Australian girl in the ads is pretty hot.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Think of the trend starting as a celebration, but then getting carried into tradition. We want to celebrate our achievements, and do, which is fine. But even if the achievements are absent, the celebrations still happen, and that's when we look like tool boxes.

Doug Stanhope -

...all of a sudden you take pride in accomplishments you had no part in whatsoever... if you're American you'll go "f*ck the French! f*ck the French, if we hadn't have saved their ass in two World Wars, they'd be speakin' German right now!" And you go, "Oh, was that us?" Was that me and you, Tommy, we saved the French? Jesus! I know I blacked out a little after that fourth shot of Jägermeister last night, but I don't remember... I know we were going through the Wendy's drive-thru to get one of them "Freschetta" sandwiches that looked so alluring on the commercial, but then we ordered it and realized we had no money, and we had to ditch out before the second window, and those douchebags in line behind us with the bass music probably got our order and we laughed about that. But I don't remember savin' the French. At all! I went through the last ten calls on my cell phone and there's nothin'--incoming or outgoing--to the French, lookin' for muscle on a project! I checked my pants, there's no mud stains on the knees from when we were garroting Krauts in the trenches at Verdun. I think "we" didn't do anything but watch sports bloopers while we got hammered. I think "we" should shut the f*ck up!
Switchbreak wrote:
AP Erebus wrote:

I am hugely patriotic to Australia. I think we have the best country in the world. But i don't go round waving flags and singing my national anthem everyday just to prove that.

Though your country does advertise how great it is all over our TV networks over here. Not that we mind, that Australian girl in the ads is pretty hot.

Well thats just good business =P

For the record, my wife and I went to Paris last year on vacation and they were all very delightful people. I think they might have been taken off guard because we were both so happy to be there. It's funny how that happens.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

For the record, my wife and I went to Paris last year on vacation and they were all very delightful people. I think they might have been taken off guard because we were both so happy to be there. It's funny how that happens.

You told them you were from Canada, right?

I didn't outright say it. But if they just assumed in the first place, it would have been rude to correct them.

In all seriousness we never tried to hide the fact that we were Americans and they never acted like they held it against us for a second. We treated their city with the respect a place as amazing as Paris deserves, and they paid us back by treating us with the respect a couple deciding to spend their money in a foreign country deserves. It goes back to the thing I said about not being ass hats.

Respectfully,

1) Dude, Chig...DUDE...how could you not think this is P&C? This is entirely P&C! I hope we're still cool after you read my response, because I like you a lot and think you're a great guy. Stellar, really. It's easier to get along with people in real life than on the internet, for whatever reasons.

2) Thank you, shiho. You rock, dude.

3) Chig - no president is going to help you find a job, especially not one whose policies are frightening to business owners. There was a lot of liberal talk under Bush about people wanting to move out of the country. Now there's a lot of conservative talk about closing one's business or moving it out of the country - by coincidence, I just spoke to a business owner today who thinks he might have to do that. He wasn't saying it for effect, because it was just us. Will he do it? Probably not, just like liberals mostly didn't move out of the country. But the way that liberals felt under Bush is the way that conservatives feel under Obama. Which is why this thread is entirely P&C - a love letter to Obama, who is a politician, is controversial.

4)

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Think of the trend starting as a celebration, but then getting carried into tradition. We want to celebrate our achievements, and do, which is fine. But even if the achievements are absent, the celebrations still happen, and that's when we look like tool boxes.

Please do not take any unintended offense at this, because I mean this in the most cerebral manner possible - but I don't think you get to explain this, especially as uncharitably as you have. You are explaining the general phenomenon of American patriotism at the same time that you are telling us that you've basically never experienced it. Can I explain what it feels like to be a woman, or a minority? I couldn't. And I don't believe we are celebrating achievements, for the most part. I believe we're celebrating our ideals, which are some of the best ideals in the world, and they are certainly not exclusive to us, but they are far from universal. Ideals themselves do not change depending upon who was elected most recently, or what war this year's president thinks is a good idea. Those ideals are worth celebrating regardless of how well (always imperfectly) they are presently being realized, and I celebrate them.

People on the left seem to want to make enthusiastically patriotic Americans out to be dumb hicks a lot of the time. Why? What if what we are celebrating are the great things about our country, even though not everything is perfect and never will be? America is a great idea. Democracy, free speech, freedom of religion...these are good ideas. These used to be revolutionary ideas, even though we now take them for granted.

Again, I feel like the critics of patriotism assume a very low level of introspection and reflection on the part of those they criticize. Maybe there are people like that; I'm sure there are. But there are a lot of us who have given it a great deal of thought, who think about issues like human rights on a regular basis, who knew about bastards like the Taliban before 9/11, and Darfur before it was ever covered in the news. I think about man's inhumanity to man, and I am very, very glad that I live in America, and I celebrate it. And if I feel like right at the moment, right now, things in America aren't quite as good as they could be? That doesn't interfere with patriotism, which I would define as love of country, any more than a bad day in my marriage makes me stop loving my wife.

I think you're projecting a lot of your own hang ups about fanatical liberals on me, but, that's probably a communication breakdown on my part. Anyway, I'm not going to itemize back because we'll just go round and round for no reason and I'd rather we stay friends.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but, I don't think it applies to me very much at all.

And one more thing. I wasn't writing a love letter to Obama. I was rejoicing in being part of a problem where the solution doesn't involve having to compromise morals. I HOPE Obama is the man for the job.

Barack Lenin? Really?

Can we please keep this bullsh*t in P&C. There's a reason I don't go there.

EDIT: [/grumpy]
Is there no way to discuss patriotism without getting all political?

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

It’s a situation where the problem makes us suffer and the solution allows us to use our minds creatively, instead of our government creatively coming up with ways to make us suffer due to a problem situation.

That's debatable. Very debatable you damn Kensians. Chicago school rules!

shihonage wrote:

Brainwashed with idealism about the nature of the human race itself. False enlightement is such a powerful draw. Of course, the brainwashed never know they are brainwashed. They think it's something for the movies. Something silly and unrealistic. It's those conservatives who are brainwashed, low-tier apes stuck in their medieval ways. Still stuck with such ancient barbaric concepts "nationalism", "borders", "language", "culture", "REALITY".

I like this. I like it a lot. The key in my view is a rejection of tribal affiliations on a mass scale. America the concept is great, but I feel no more attachment or give no more worth to an average American than an Average Russian. Human scope is simply too small. The tribal and barbaric is still fine, just be concious of the scope of tribes. University of Oklahoma is too big, but OU rugby, whom I all know and share a common experience with is small enough.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

I didn't outright say it. But if they just assumed in the first place, it would have been rude to correct them.

In all seriousness we never tried to hide the fact that we were Americans and they never acted like they held it against us for a second. We treated their city with the respect a place as amazing as Paris deserves, and they paid us back by treating us with the respect a couple deciding to spend their money in a foreign country deserves. It goes back to the thing I said about not being ass hats.

So I shouldn't have blared "Freedom isn't Free" from the Eiffel tower while waving an American flag? Oh damn. /sarcasm
People realize this. Or they are stupid or possibly don't know any better. Calling it asshattery doesn't change anyone without pointing out the why.

Dude, Fed, how do you get from this:

Fedaykin98 wrote:

People on the left seem to want to make enthusiastically patriotic Americans out to be dumb hicks a lot of the time. Why?

to cheering on someone who says this?

Shihonage wrote:

Only 8-15% of American college professors are conservative. Thanks largely to the liberal college system, we have a generation of the brainwashed. Brainwashed with idealism about the nature of the human race itself. False enlightement is such a powerful draw. Of course, the brainwashed never know they are brainwashed. They think it's something for the movies. Something silly and unrealistic. It's those conservatives who are brainwashed, low-tier apes stuck in their medieval ways. Still stuck with such ancient barbaric concepts "nationalism", "borders", "language", "culture", "REALITY".

Which, I might add, is horribly mischaracterizing what I said early in the thread.

So basically, the right complains about the left slapping them with insulting labels, so the right slap the left with insulting labels, leading the left to slap the right with insulting labels in turn, lather rinse repeat?

This is exactly what I'm talking about in regards to humanity being stuck on its own tribalistic nature. It's a never-ending cycle of silliness that, while we may dress it up in new technology, art, and rhetoric, boils down to the same thing we've always been: barbarians. Each new civilization that's born into human history regards the previous civilizations as barbaric in one way or another. But each one fails to realize that, in the end, it's the same cycle of mankind struggling for domination over one another through arbitrary cultural or geographical demarcations.

Which is exactly what's happening in this thread: we get the "left" versus the "right", each side back-slapping themselves while crowing how right they are compared to the [brainwashed/ignorant hick/arrogant/greedy/etc] people that comprise the "other side".

boogle wrote:
Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

In all seriousness we never tried to hide the fact that we were Americans and they never acted like they held it against us for a second. We treated their city with the respect a place as amazing as Paris deserves, and they paid us back by treating us with the respect a couple deciding to spend their money in a foreign country deserves. It goes back to the thing I said about not being ass hats.

So I shouldn't have blared "Freedom isn't Free" from the Eiffel tower while waving an American flag? Oh damn. /sarcasm
People realize this. Or they are stupid or possibly don't know any better. Calling it asshattery doesn't change anyone without pointing out the why.

Sadly, some Americans have a propensity for doing things like blaring "Freedom Isn't Free" from the Eiffel Tower and waving the American flag at ever turn. I have seen it the few times I have been to Europe. Loud, brash, smug Americans acting like jackasses because they think their love of America entitles them to look down at Europeans (among others) and be demanding.

Every guide book on international travel all but begs that American travelers stop with the sense of entitlement and demonstrate some basic respect for the people and culture of other sovereign nations. How hard is it to read and learn and, perhaps, pick up a few words of the local language to show that you at least understand that other people have different cultures than we do? However, the "ugly American" persona exists because many people in this country fulfill the stereotype so incredibly well. People in Europe want to like Americans but some of our own citizens are determined to give them every reason not to do so.

Those Americans aren't patriots, though. They are nationalists.

And the difference between a patriot and a nationalist is as great as the difference between day and night.

For what it's worth, this website has helped a lot with overcoming my instinctive bias against Americans. On a rational level I of course knew it's stupid to attribute generic labels to a country as a whole, but it's amazing how easy it is. Especially during the Bush era: when you don't know people personally it comes natural to look at them as you would at their leader. The trickle down effect so to speak

I sincerely hope Barack Obama can bring back a culture in which both sides respect each other again. Or at least acknowledge the other side also has the good of the country in mind, but disagree on the road leading there. Melodramatic as it sounds, this is part of what made America great.