The most recent video made by our modern day Tom Paine expounds on the importance of the common bond versus the current emphasis on diversity. I think he makes some good points.
Now, when I was growing up we had the “melting pot” theory of America. My parents were first generation Americans and they spoke another language. The story goes that they were teaching my older sister the foreign language, but one day a neighborhood kid said she “talked funny”. That was the end of the second language for the kids. My parents wanted us to be like everyone else in America.
We kids always regretted not being taught that language as children; it’s not an easy language to learn.
It looks to me like we have moved from one extreme, “melting pot” we must all be the same, to diversity, we have nothing in common.
We are a very diverse nation and that is one thing that separates us from the Europeans, the Asians, the Africans, well, just about everyone else. That diversity is something to celebrate in the context of our unity, our common bond: we are Americans.
You need look no further than the Great Seal of the United States of America to find the meaning and intent of the founders of our country: E Pluribus Unum, which is the motto carried by the American eagle. E Pluribus Unum means: “Out of Many One”.
In his first inaugural address in 1801, President Thomas Jefferson stated "The essential principles of our Government.... form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution.... Should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."
I think it is time to refocus on the one, the common thread of our nation, instead of the many differences. Watch the video and think about it.
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