Spoken like a true white man brother.
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Spoken like someone who owns property and is tired of every special interest group claiming I need to pay them for the right to retain that property.
"I'm black! If you want to continue to drive, you need to pay me!"
"I'm a student! If you want to continue to have a car, you need to pay me!"
"I'm a man in a woman's body! You need to pay for my surgery because no one understands!"
"Hi, I would like to have your vote this year. If elected, I plan on issuing bonds that your grandchildren will still be paying off so that we can preserve the history of the Treyvon Martin skittles wrapper and erect a one square mile park around it dedicated to re-enacting the "hands up" of Brown that never happened but serves as what could have potentially been an indication of institutional racism."
"Hi, I'm here representing unions against right to work legislation. I'm a career student but believe it should be okay for unions you are not a part of to control your ability to apply your trade skills and must pay them dues for benefits you never actually receive as you are not on the union roster."
"We need to do something about the roads. The roads are failing. Raise gas taxes, or sales tax because people benefit from shipped goods... or something!"
"Shit is backing up into people's homes! We need to vote on a new bond issue that your grandchildren will pay for to fix this! Please ignore the fact that we have asked for this same bond issue each year for the past twenty years and there is still shit backing up into people's homes with no work having been done to fix it!"
"Excuse me, sir, but would you like to express your support for shifting our state to Green Energy? It will only increase your utility bill by 40% and will ensure that the spotted tree snake continues to bite people in the face."
"What are we supposed to do about all of these children who cross the border illegally? We must house them! Let's spread tuberculosis and measles across the U.S. and issue stipends to families who agree to adopt them! The churches will get a cut of the pay so that they can preach about how holy and righteous it is to accept bribes to house foster children. Once again, your grand children will be on the hook for the bill. Well, actually, your great grandchildren - but that's assuming your grandchildren don't commit suicide from all the bills you passed on to them in order to make the nation they will grow up in 'better.'"
"Excuse me, young man, surely you recognize the importance minimum wage plays in establishing a living wage, would you like to show your support for raising minimum wage and jacking the cost of fast, convenient food up by 20%? How unfair is it that people who work don't get to enjoy a decent living."
Gee, dumbass, I can't imagine why anyone who works can't afford to live.
All of these ****s need to find another tree to bark up before I begin issuing my opinion at 2,700 feet per second.
I agree. In world history every culture has been conquered, relocated, or enslaved at some point, and bounced back. To deny that NA have the potential to do so is bigoted.
Success has been sporadic until the last 20 years. NA who had assimilated in the past were still removed from their lands. Most of the assimilated NA you're referring to are coastal, but even until the 1960s they were deemed second class citizens. Look up the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. There are actually only two federally recognized reservations in Virginia (in King William County), but we have pockets of communities all throughout the state, which are similar to a large cities' "Chinatown." Reservations are self imposed prisons that encapsulate all the psychological trauma of a prison.
The complication is in the psychology of a conquered people, which leads to pride in an attempt to correct cognitive dissonance. American Southerns waving their stupid flag 150 years later after being defeated is the same. Time usually heals that.
A part of the problem is that success is measured in wealth and possessions, but NA were happy before without those things. Money won't fix their problem.
Thomas Sowell talks extensively about this type of issue. I posted the video, before - but it's worth posting, again:
[video=youtube;Eu_bKJ11O0M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu_bKJ11O0M[/video]
Another interesting one can be found here:
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Bluntly, the issue is culture.
I was born into a family of German descent. My great great grandparents moved here from Germany (at least on my father's side of the family) and began farming in an area southwest of St. Louis (which would become to be known as St. Ann, but would be incorporated into St. Louis as a suburb). They opened up a hardware store (first one) and sold hardware to the farmers and community. From this, a sheet metal shop branched off. The building is considered a local historic landmark and there's a street bearing my family's name. Part of the St. Louis Arch was built under contract by my grandfather through that shop.
My grandfather served in the Navy with the Construction Battalion. He was a very versatile man in his talents, though by time I was born, he was in late stage emphysema and died when I was around 4 or 5 - so I only got to know him through looking at some of the things he did and built - and through what my mother and father told me of him. Still, I could see the influence it had on my father.
My father was in his 40s when he had me. By that time, he'd worked in several different job fields and come to a stable career. He was college educated, but never finished a degree (he was interested in the engineering trades). I grew up with a man who didn't do "do it yourself" jobs. He
engineered solutions to every problem on his own. The man knew no fear of design and construction. He could do anything from build computers and do minor programming (back when jumper settings mattered and you had to know the head and cylinder count of your hard drive) to be the architect of a home (he drafted up the plans on his own, down to individual and custom designed joists).
Before I was born - he remodeled the front living room of the house they lived in - the descriptions of him up at midnight with a chain saw kicking the front walls out into the front yard are hilarious.
I never truly understood -how- this impacted me until I got older and began living with people from other families.
A lot of people look at something and say: "Who do I need to call to do that?"
I look at it and say: "What formulas do I need to know in order to make sure I will do that right?"
I've grown up with literally no fear of learning subjects and absolutely no issue with building my own solutions to a problem (granted, my solutions can have a tendency to be over-complicated and over-engineered). It has made me far more valuable than I ever truly realized.
People without that background have completely different biases to their thought that they often aren't aware of. I was never raised under the idea that I had to wait for someone who 'knew what they were doing' - I saw my father learn things he'd never done before and apply them as well as any professional would have. It was only when he got older and was less able to do these things (or just wanted to spend his time doing other things) that he ever really started hiring professionals for jobs... and I compared their work to what I knew my father had done in the past. I understood why he insisted on doing his own work, especially after seeing some of the price tags.
My mother's side of the family was from different roots, coming more from the southern part of Missouri and supposedly with some native roots. I grew up with a grandmother who would tell us "Shh! Close your eyes and go to sleep!" when we'd try to start up conversation at night. She would take us down to the river to fish, had a lot of unofficial names for plants (but knew what they could be used for), and had a very practical way of life.
My mom's father liked to sit in his chair and read the newspaper in front of the TV. Happy children noises were a prompt for him to get up and tell us to knock it off. The same for all the dogs - dogs making noise got the newspaper. He liked his cigars and had a pretty sedentary life. Ironically - he's the only one of them still alive.
Not that he's a bad person - he's mellowed out, considerably, and after becoming an adult he's been far more interesting to talk to.
Anyway - Grandma always fed us with food, even when we didn't want any. She also was always trying to come up with ways to fatten my scrawny ass up. She asked if I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, one day - "Yes, please." ..... It was a peanut butter -and butter- jelly sandwich. *shrug*
Anyway - I grew up with little fear of the woods and hills. I see various plants to eat, plants to avoid, etc. It isn't as formal or complete of a knowledge as would come from a conservationist or something - but when you've grown up spending a few nights of the month sleeping on the ground or camping out for family reunions (which we used to do over one of the long weekends).... minimalist living is not at all a frightening concept.
I could be just fine, even in winter, sleeping in a tent. The only thing I'm prissy about is showers - I do like my showers. I could live out of a tent or cave so long as I could bathe before going into public (on my own, I usually don't give a damn).
So - there are a whole range of cultural factors that have influenced not just my experience and knowledge, but also how I look at the world and the problems I'm faced with.
I've been raised under such a culture of independence and individual action that the concept of asking someone for help is alien to me.
Other people are raised in cultures where so much is done for them that they have no idea that they are capable of doing on their own - the idea that some of these things can be done as an independent person just doesn't usually process in the brain.
I was always encouraged to learn, my dad liked to bring me along to see what he was working on if it was safe and I was willing. It's completely different from how some of my friends were raised - parents telling them to leave them alone - or parents caught up in sports/TV.
My views of what responsible people do and how they behave have been influenced by the culture I was raised in. Parents who fight and argue are an alien concept to me; as are parents who put each other down and always seem to be trying to one-up each other. My parents were never really antagonistic toward each other and had no desire to raise one's self over the other or sink them lower. That influences my concept of relationships and what a marriage looks like. Thus - I'm not yet trying to raise children from a "baby mother."
Culture is so much more than what knowledge is passed on from generation to generation. It's points of view that are passed on from generation to generation. It is how one views the world and their ability to work within it. It is how they envision their own future and how they envision other people.
But, I've rambled enough about myself, I suppose.
