Are we all on The "Plantation?"

 Humans are made uneasy, sometimes even scared, by "different."  When we were kids, a new kid in school had to be... what is today's grown-up word?... "vetted" before he became a part of the integral group.

This has been true all through human history.  It won't change.  And... it isn't a bad or good thing, just an element of life.

What used to make America Great (among a number of things) was that people who were "different" came here ready to contribute but also ready to assimilate.  They assimilated habits, attitudes, ideas from those already here BUT those already here also learned about and adopted habits, attitudes and ideas from the newcomers.

Were there fights?  Yes!  Was there disrespect and derision coming from both sides?  Of course.  But the end was that when a person who came to this country showed that they could do a job, would respect the truth and tell it, as well be happy for the opportunity to become part of the country... there was acceptance, assimilation, and the "melting pot" became a fact and was proven to work.

Even today, Blacks see discrimination when they are not automatically accepted as they are, or their behavior and ideas are not embraced.  Why is that discrimination?  Why aren't they expected to go through the same "rite of passage" that the rest of us had to experience?  Italians were disrespected, not accepted, nor were their ideas of life when they arrived.  It took time for them to embrace American life as it existed, get used to the habits and mores of those already here... but when it happened, they became a part of the whole. 

The exact same thing happened to the Irish, the Scandinavians, the Spanish, and all the other nationalities that came to American shores.  There was no difference in the challenge.

There WAS one difference, though.  and that was that most people of color did not choose to come to America.  They were enslaved by their own people, sold to middlemen, and the brought to America where Plantation owners continued the enslavement.  THAT was profoundly different... and injurious.

But no person of color today in America that wishes to be a part of America has any impediment different from every other citizen if he or she wants to strive to be a successful part of America.  Look at the success of President Obama... of Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Supreme Court Justice Thomas, Senator Tim Scott and others.  They succeeded because of effort and showing a desire to join with others to accomplish positive things.

The biggest impediment to to Blacks today is an attitude that many of them hold that was fostered by the very political party that claims to want to "help" them... the Democrat Party, together with the portion of them that can be labeled as "Race Profiteers."  Giving anyone, regardless of background, education, skin color or foot size, money because they are not succeeding in school or in the workplace is not helping them...It rewards the imprisonment of dependency.

What should have happened was the creating of programs that rewarded success, mandated successful teaching, in school and in trades, that was proven by accomplishment.  Don't reward birthing children into single parent homes.  Hunt down "fathers" and enforce their support of the children they father.  Show respect by expecting accomplishment and success even as you make tutorial help available where needed... provided the recipient(s) work to benefit from the help.  Reward 100% attendance in schools.  Then step back and see how the colored community matches and may even outpace the accomplishments of those from other parts of the world when they come to America.  They are just as able and I claim we disrespect them by not expecting superior accomplishments and contributing to American Life in major ways as a regular thing.

But...back to the headline...

Has anyone else noticed how all of America is starting to look like one giant plantation?  One controlled by a limited group of "overseers" and brooking no challenge to their authority?

We now life under a dual dictatorship of the government bureaucracy and angry minority of various deviant purposes.  We now are being forced to promote beliefs, actions and attitudes of which we disapprove.  Once we were prepared to ignore beliefs found abhorrent in the interest of civil individual freedom. 

Suddenly we have to promote behavior, mistreatment of children, and deviant lifestyles or we find ourselves fired and unable to support our families.  That is no different from being enslaved on a plantation or being an indentured servant!  We no longer even have the right to decide what power we want to use to power our cars, or cook with, or walk around without a diaper over our faces if the overseers declare that we must.  And that is also true about medical procedures.  Now our plantation overseers can declare we need to be injected with something on the grounds that "IT IS GOOD FOR US," all to be taken on "trust" and without any proof that has been checked for truth and accuracy.  That has already happened during the COVID fiasco.  And it is being threated again, and will be activated whenever the overseers deem it necessary to prove to us that THEY are in control and that WE must obey.

It is a large plantation and often feels as if we have a degree of freedom, but stop and look around and you'll see the same walls being built around us that emulate the process that hunters used to use to trap wild pigs.  Put out free food!  Put up a fence next to the food!  Keep putting out more food!  Add a second side of the fence!  More food!  Build a third side of the fence and add more food.  Finally put up the gate and you have the pigs trapped and you can feed them OR NOT at your discretion because you now own them.  Our government denies it but that is what they are doing to our entire country.  When they have the right mix of people here they will finish the fencing, shut the gates and they will own us and no longer try to hide it.

Has America stopped respecting and being governed by the Constitution?

My generation revered the Constitution.  Beginning in grade school...and right through High School...all kinds of History classes were linked and compared to the Constitution, comparing and contrasting it's content against other governments in other times.  The Founding Fathers were also shown great respect for the thought and considerations they embodied in the Constitution, and than the Bill of Rights...and even the declarations and wording of the Declaration of Independence.

Not so anymore.

My grandchildren to to highly ranked schools, several now in Middle school, one in High School, one in College.  They had almost zero teaching centering on the Constitution.  Any time spent on the Founding Fathers seemed designed to find fault and to "bring them down" to a level that was disrespectful of their person's and, by extension, their work product.  Their teaching seems designed, through criticism as well as neglect, to create disrespect for the "idea" of America.

Today technology seems to rule.  Technology is a wonderful tool, although I often think that the young people of today have become too dependent on it; they don't know multiplication tables in their head, they often can't do simple math and need a calculator, a slide rule is an unworkable puzzle to them, and except for the math "nerds" Algebra and the solving of simultaneous equations might as well be Greek (and don't get me started on languages and vocabulary).  They can't write legibly...even printing is questionable, and they can't "problem solve" without "Google" or "Bing" and they are lost if the internet goes down for even a moment.  They "text" to each other even if in the same room, and walk down streets and malls blind to the actual world around them.  Most don't know their elected officials on any level, have no idea of how any government actually works, can't create a budget, read anything that takes more than 3 minutes, and can't be bothered to be civil to anyone.  Discuss the assumptions that the founding fathers had when they started to consider and create and write, and you get puzzled, confounded faces.

The concepts of "opportunity", "consequences", Pursuit", "earning", "civility", "responsibility", and "respect for others"...among others...is foreign to them.  They are familiar with the concepts of "being owed", "privileges", "my rights", "someone else's fault", and other narcissistic traits.  Their schooling (not sure if that term is appropriate any longer...perhaps indoctrination would be more truthful) and their experiences as they went through their school years have indicated that this is the way to look at life.

"Someone" has done these folks a disservice.  And that "someone" is us...all of us.  Oh, I could write for hours on the Progressive infiltration and present control of the entirety of our educational (Yeah...right!) systems, from Kindergarten (note the Germanic origin of the word...our school system is based on the Prussian Model that was intended as much for indoctrination and regimentation as it was for any real education.  Basic reading, writing and math was fine, but independent problem solving and thinking was not desired) through Doctorate Level Degrees and the application of Alinsky's Rules to turn out intellectually inadequate "graduates."  I could point out how many of the High School Graduates today cannot write a cogent sentence, cannot spell, cannot do simple math without a machine, and are unable to concentrate for more than 3 minutes on anything before wanted and...in some cases...needing to consult "Facebook" or the like.

But what is most disappointing is that it is our collective fault.  The not-so-slow disintegration of our society has not been done in secret.  It has happened out in the open and ... although couched in ways and terms that seemed legal, civil, and considerate at the time ... we all knew that we were allowing a diminution of our ideals and allowing avoidance of the concepts of "right" and "wrong."  Oh, we had excuses.  We had "reasons".  The end results was that we gave up the concept of standards and the expectation of "striving" in favor of the lowest common denominator; of not wanting anyone to "feel bad" about not being first.  And we gave up on the standards assumed in the Constitution to be a constant...that of "earning" one's way, of suffering consequences of bad decisions, of recognizing that there is such a thing as failure...and that one can actually learn from it and use failure as a sign-post to success.  This is the kind of thing that a study of the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire would have revealed to our children and grandchildren.  Such an understanding is essential to being a good citizen, whether having a College Education or not...but it no longer is taught in our Grade, Middle, and High Schools.  Oh, an occasional perceptive teacher who is dedicated to his or her students' well-being and success in life may include some portion in the course of a semester or year...but not many do, some because they themselves are not aware of its importance.

Is it too late to save the "idea" of America?  I want to believe that it is not, but...when close to 50% of us are living on the Government's tab rather than on what we have achieved and earned on our own, and that Government tab is creating what is approaching Nineteen Trillion ($19,000,000,000)Dollars in debt, it is hard to see any way to repay it without telling a lot of people, many of which will be determined voters if you take away their "free" stuff, "NO!"  Madison and Jefferson warned about the dangers once any democratic form of government served a populace who discovered they could vote themselves money that they didn't earn.  I fear that we are now there...