Humans are extremely adaptable creatures; so we tend to quickly acclimate ourselves to our circumstances until they become the "new normal." However, sometimes when you have a hole in the bottom of your boat, it's a better idea to try to address it than to just keep bailing water all day long. For example, here in America we seem to believe that...
1) The only religion it's okay to mock is the most popular one, Christianity: Roughly 80% of Americans are Christian; yet which religion is openly mocked by Hollywood and the mainstream media? Is it Judaism? No, that would be anti-Semitic. Is it Islam? No, those guys might kill you. Is it Hinduism or Buddhism? No, there aren’t enough of them around to draw notice. Ninety five percent of the attacks on religion in America are against the faith held by the majority of the people who sadly are a little too inclined to turn the other cheek to put a stop to it. All major religions deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect and that’s doubly true for Christianity since this nation was founded and shaped by Christians seeking religious freedom. If Christians don’t demand respect, no one should be surprised when they don’t get it.
2) Diversity is all about skin color: A lot of people would tell you that Nancy Pelosi, Sheila Jackson Lee, John Kerry, Dan Savage and Luis Gutierrez all together would be a “diverse” group. Well, what’s so diverse about five people who say the same things, think the same things and march in lockstep on every issue? The only real value of diversity is that it interjects new ways of thinking about and approaching a problem. If you take that away, diversity is meaningless and may even do more harm than good. If you don’t have diversity of thought, then you don’t have diversity.
3) The federal government doesn't have to pay off the money it owes: Ever notice that as our national debt grows larger and larger, people talk about it less and less? That’s despite the fact that by “2030, the Congressional Budget Office is estimating that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will make up 75% of our budget spending.” You may notice that defense spending isn’t included in there, nor is interest on the debt, Obamacare or any other government programs. We’re only 15 years away from that point and neither party is doing ANYTHING of significance about it. Worse yet, the Democrats are insisting that we’re not spending enough money. People may give lip service to the idea that the debt is bad, but if we’re judged by our actions, most Americans apparently believe that we don’t ever have to pay off what we owe.
4) Ethics are irrelevant for politicians: There was a time in America when politicians were held to a HIGHER standard of ethics than the average person. If you were a scumbag, people didn’t want you in office and if they caught you telling them a lie, it could cost a politician his job. Since the Clinton era, we’ve reversed that idea and suddenly scumbags are fine and we don’t care if politicians lie or not. When one of them misleads the public, the attitude is, “Well, what do you expect from a politician?” Incidentally, Republicans may not have as fully embraced this attitude as Democrats, but there are an awful lot of GOP politicians who seem to believe it’s acceptable to lie to the people that put them into office. If holding the politicians -- who are expected to lead us and make life and death decisions -- to a higher standard is wrong, then Americans shouldn’t want to be right.
5) It's fine for black Americans to be openly racist toward whites: Given America’s history, it’s rather ironic that the overwhelming majority of white Americans seem to want Martin Luther King’s colorblind world while a large number of black Americans actively support Bull Connor’s view that discrimination based on race works fine. Similarly, for every dumb jock in a fraternity who makes national news for dropping the N-word, there are probably a hundred black Americans openly expressing contempt and loathing for white Americans. Not every black American feels that way; in fact a majority of them probably don’t, but the biggest bastion of race-based hate in America is unquestionably in the black community.
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