Maybe now this country should make some rules and allow an "AMERICAN" nationality.

[John T 744]

How about that. I'm part Irish nationality, Sicilian(I'll break your legs nationality) part Spain Spanish where my 98 yr old sweetheart of a grandmother still works out 6 days a week and part Mexican. My Grandfather rest his soul went to Columbia University and he was always known to be extremely intelligent..

So what does that make me besides a mutt that likes to bite..lol

How about an America as in nationality. What, is there a time frame that this country needs to go thru for us to earn this right?

Bull! We should have this right now. 300 yrs of world dominance it's time we make some rules for ourselves instead of worrying about other countries on this planet.

Our moral is disgustingly low. It time where called American first as a nationality.

What do you guys think? Do we deserve this right?

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

If you were born here, it already is your nationality.....

I know what my heritage is, I know where all of my ancestors came from, but I have never, ever thought of myself as anything other than American. I was born and raised here.

I think you are trying to make another point in your post, a more socioeconomic one, but it is not clear enough for me to respond.

Beth

[John T 744]

In was trying to make a point that really can't be made. Your ethnicity can't be changed no matter if your born in America or not. If your born here your nationality is automatically "American". I'm sick & tired of people using race against other people when where all "Americans".

There's so much bicchen and complaining about this country that it has came to the point that you can burn the American Flag and it's OK because of the "Freedom of Speech here". Total lunacy.

Where a country that is fraying at the edges is what it seems like. Any little thing we have to argue about it.

There's so much separation.

You go to a foreign country and the people living there tend to talk so highly about their country and over here all we seem to talk about is what's wrong with our country.

So in reality I guess I can't make the point I was trying to make because it doesn't make sense. I just wish some people would be more patriotic to their homeland and stop acting like this country is going to invade our freedoms, take away our rights, and on and on and on and on.

By far America is the best place to live and maybe people should start looking at that instead of looking for all the negativity all the time.

Simply put--- Our Media Sucks!!

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

It's not all the media John. not by a long shot. Saying it is all the media's fault is just shooting the messenger.

Are you trying to say we need to stop helping others first and help ourselves, because as a nation we are behind others as a result of the help we have given? That our GDP is reduced because of the outsourcing of jobs and the increase of imports with a severe reduction of exports?

Because if you are saying that, I not only agree but have been saying that for years. I argued with a college professor about it many years ago......

We all want to believe we live in the greatest country in the world, each citizen of each country wants in their hearts to feel an allegiance to their homeland that makes them proud. No one would deny that. Just look at the Olympic athletes who go to the games, setting politics aside, to play for their homeland. They have a fierce pride and connection to the land they pledge their allegiance to.

We are a nation in trouble. We have been broken for decades, but have been too busy pointing fingers back and forth to grab each other squarely by the shoulders and look each other in the eyes saying you are my brother, you are my sister, and while we disagree I love you but we all have to wake up and fix this together.

I have not seen so much discrimination (of many kinds) in this country for decades. It lay like a sleeping dragon, and we all tiptoed around it and past it, knowing it was there and just quietly ignoring it. But it is not gone. It has awakened.

Beth

[John T 744]

Yes I am saying some of those things. We get ourselves involved in places we don't belong. I was in Lebanon back in my NAVY days and watched from my ship first hand how these religious fanatics over there were just bombing each other back and forth. You can see it clearly at night.

Where exhausting ourselves to the limits and driving the value of our dollar down the toilet and chasing away all of the jobs here because we get taxed to death.

America has an enemy that they should look at and try to solve it. Their enemy is themselves which is "We the People".

We should try to right the ship here and screw the middle east because it's in there bloodline to combine Religion and politics and that will forever be a deadly mix.

Our real problems are right here.

As for the Media- there trust levels also went down the toilet. Where talking "political news media". These media outlets have agenda's and it's not to tell the truth. It's to push their messages to the masses. That's not what their job should be. So yes I do hold blame on some of the political reporting media.

I am glad I grew up in the era I did and I feel sorry for my girls because today everything is much different and I wouldn't say its for the better either.

[RPetry 564]

This perceived malaise is like a movie that keeps on repeating slowly, every 40 years or so. Doubt if it is endemic to the American experience. More likely human nature. Its generational claptrap.

In the late '60's and '70's, my parents were appalled. Riots in major cities, political assassinations, Vietnam war, protests in the streets, hippies with long hair, free love, and crazy mind blowing drugs. Watergate, oil supply embargo, Jimmy Carter, gas lines, 18% interest rates, Japan eating our lunch in business. The future was bleak, and the US going to hell in a hand basket.

History. My grandparents and our country in general went through some tough times in the '30's and through WWII. Great depression, labor strife, riots, strikes, and deadly violence. No jobs, bread lines, farmers foreclosed or abandoning land to beg for work. A real, long term stock market crash. Banks failing, lifetime savings lost. Millions left destitute and relying on charity. Unemployment rates from the mid teens to the mid 20's from 1931 through 1940. Extreme political strife. ~ 420,000 dead Americans in the European and Pacific war theaters.

So what happened? This country picked itself up by its collective bootstraps, both times, and made a better life for my parents and my generation.

So here we sit in our air conditioned homes, with food on the table, silly smartphones in our hands to connect to the world, and fret that MSMBC/ Fox News, Conservatives/Liberals, and Congress does not agree. The educational system in the country is second rate, and the young today are questionable in character and ability. The country is broke, and our collective economic, cultural, and social systems are going to hell. The future of our children and the U.S. is dim.

Nonsense. Our county and most of the world is much improved, astonishingly so, up to today in my lifetime and those of my parents, grandparents, and long gone past generations.

That trend is not going to change. It's a lesson of history.

Edited July 23, 2013 by RPetry

[John T 744]

Boy that was enlightening Rick:) Very well said I might add. You make all very valid points. I guess I am showing my age(Even though I am younger then you..hahaha but maybe not in spirit). Its probably the never ending Human cycle which it looks like you were alluding to above.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Rick,

Nice post. Can I have extra butter on my popcorn? :single_eye:

Beth

[RPetry 564]

... I guess I am showing my age(Even though I am younger then you..hahaha but maybe not in spirit). Its probably the never ending Human cycle which it looks like you were alluding to above.

John,

I just turned 60, I would guess that you are in your late 40's or early 50's. Review your life. Look how much so many things have gotten better!

Mundane stuff, like auto reliability. When was the last time we had to pull out a jack and change a tire or even get dirty try to keep the thing running? I'm old enough to remember a total of 3 over the air TV stations. Consider the choice most have today with cable. A hard wired telephone call to Ca. from NJ. was something like $3.00/min. in the '60's!

Terrorist threats today do not hold a candle to the Cold War. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, we were on the verge of nuclear Armageddon. To those too young, in simple terms it means most within 40 miles or so of major American cities are dead within a week or so. And it was a very close call.

Mass starvations in China, India, the near and far East. Like in millions of dead. From not having enough food to actually stay alive.

More citizens have more opportunities, and the ability to live their own life as they wish in this country than ever in my lifetime. No, it is not "Leave it to Beaver", but who in their right mind would want to live that way, then or now?

There is some odd peculiarity for many older people to yearn for "the good old days". IMO that is dementia. If I had a .38 revolver and an iron clad guarantee from a God, I'd pull the trigger in a flash to come back in a 100 years to live my remaining life in the future.