What is the state of our 230 year old Union on this July 4th?
Still strong?
Still defiant?
Still together?
I think it's at one of its most precarious states, personally.
As is a common theme on the piece of the internet, I truly think that there is so very little that links us together beyond just mere geographic location.
Blue states vs. Red States, Liberals vs. Conservatives vs. Libertarians, and so on and so forth.
It's funny (in a tragicomic way) that in this day and age when you practically have the same stores and utilities in whatever part of the country you're in, that our bonds are increasingly nonexistent.
I wonder what links me to another 27 year old male in, say, Tennessee. We are both citizens of the same country, pay roughly the same taxes, and have the same protections on the federal level.
But do we share the same cultural values?
I don't know. I feel more and more divorced from other Americans, and the sense I've gotten from my friends and comrades is that this isolation is shared.
I'd like to say that our current administration with its mantra of "you're with us or against us" is to blame, but I think it's just a symptom of this new isolation.
Where the crux of it lies is that we have forgotten (and have been forgetting since at least the 1960's, if not earlier) that this is a nation unified by shared ideals and culture. Ideals and culture that are forever evolving, but remaining steadfast to the core belief that all people are created equal and deserving of equal treatment.
So why is it that right now everything must be broken down to black or white terms? Why are we dehumanising each other now when most likely we need each other the most? Why do we refuse point blank to listen?
Because it gets in the way of downloading the latest hits on our iPod-friendly cellphone.
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