Labels

Labels are fine in the right places. Warning labels on machinery, very practical. Ingredient labels on the food we buy, necessary to avoid all kinds of problems. Labels on our clothes telling us how to wash them, necessary to avoid some embarassing situations. There are numerous places where labels serve a useful if not necessary purpose. However, labels do not belong on people.

Liberal, conservative, right, left, hawk, dove, etc, etc, etc,. I could go one ad nauseum about the labels that are attached as early as childhood to people. Why do we need labels? I think I can tell what people believe in by talking to them and listening for a while. I don't need to label them. I either agree with them or not. But that doesn't define that individual for me. People are complicated and they hold numerous beliefs. With some exceptions just because you disagree with someone on one issue doesn't mean that you will disagree on all issues. Although if someone is coming at you with a gun or knife drawn, the differences are more than philospohical and you need to take appropriate action.

I fear that we are so far removed from the America that our founding fathers envisioned that we have lost sight of the fact, that the right to differ was one of the reasons our ancesters left England, France, Boliva, the middle east or the far east to live here. Freedom to speak our minds and to believe how we feel most comfortable believing is the right of every American. It doesn't mean that one way is more correct than another. Our flexibility and willing to change is what has allowed us to flourish and why others want to live here.

However, living here is not free and comes with some conditions. You learn our language and abide by our laws. That is not to demean your culture but if you are planning to live here for an extended period of time, it makes sense to me, that you would want to be bi-lingual, that English as a second language would open more worlds to you than just being able to speak one. I, personally, believe that it insults the host nation, if you don't at least try to learn some basic conversational language. If I decided to move to Spain or Greece to live or stay for an extended period of time, I would at least learn enough to know how to order food, get a cab or bus and know that I was going to end up at the right location.

You hear about having to live in a Global community. That is true more and more businesses are operating in countries other than where they were founded. At one time, English was the language of business. Now if makes more sense to know Hindi, Catonese, Spanish, and a smattering of other languages just to put your new employer, employees and/or vendors at ease.

But I digress from labels. Whether you are a hawk or dove, lean to the left or right or center, it does not make you any less an American. Nor does it necessarily make you correct or incorrect. It means you have your opinion and I have mine. At some point in time all options will be tried, even those that haven't even been thought of. Will they all work? Probably not, but at least we will have tried something different that hadn't been tried before. That might lead to something that does work.

So enough with the labels. We are all Americans and as Americans we can disagree with each other without pulling out guns and killing each other (ooops a thought for another blog).

Oh, a parting thought to the Governor of the State of Texas, if you really think you would be happier becoming part of Mexico or even a soverign country of your own, have at it. But I would think long and hard about it. America may not be perfect, but I wouldn't live anywhere else. Politics change with the wind, what is in today, will be out tomorrow. The glue that binds Americans together is tougher.