What Holds Us Together?

[Dale00]

What holds us together and makes the U.S a country where everyone in the world wishes they could live? Could it be the items I've bolded below?

...Hilton Head feels like a very friendly small town. It’s a nice place. Every time we go out to eat, we leave with new friends. Everybody knows everybody. If you need something, someone is always willing to help. If they can’t help, they know someone who can. That other someone may not know you, but he’ll be happy to help you, too. This is a nice, close-knit community, for no obvious reason. I find that interesting.

Although perhaps there is something, somewhat less obvious, that holds this community together: Western civilization.

Respect for others. Property rights. The rule of law. Free speech and thought. Judeo-Christian ethics (even among those who do not practice a Judeo-Christian religion). Free markets. Self-responsibility, and “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s stuff.” And so on. There are reasons that Hilton Head is a nicer community than, say, Aleppo, Syria. Even though Aleppo has established families, influential churches, and community schools, just like rural Ohio and rural Tennessee. But Aleppo is not Ohio or Tennessee.

So perhaps Hilton Head is not converted from a bunch of individuals to a pleasant, close-knit community by families, churches, and schools. And perhaps my communities in rural Tennessee and rural Ohio weren’t, either. That’s the way it seemed, but I’m starting to think that there was something less obvious at work. Less obvious, but more ubiquitous. Something so omnipresent that I wasn’t even aware of it, like a fish isn’t aware of water.

Maybe western civilization is a good thing, after all. Amazing stuff, as a matter of fact. Heck, they ought to teach it in schools. But they don’t. They teach multiculturalism – that all cultures are equally wonderful. What if that’s not true?

Those in rural Ohio and rural Tennessee would suggest that western civilization has significant advantages, if they happened to notice it. I suspect that those in Hilton Head would share that view. Those in Aleppo would likely agree, in their heart of hearts, as well. Immigration patterns suggest that people all over the world take this view, as a matter of fact. Even the outspoken multiculturalists at the UN take this view – they wanted their headquarters in New York. Not Aleppo.

Immigrants don’t come here because we have money. They come here because we have western civilization. It’s wonderful. And everyone knows it. Even the multiculturalists, who put a great deal of effort into maintaining their blissful delusional apparent ignorance on the topic.

I believe that people all over the world are basically the same, but cultures are profoundly different. And immigrants coming here from all over the world, apparently, agree.

The world is not divided into nice places and miserable places because of an unequal distribution of natural resources, or brain power, or arable land. It’s because of an unequal distribution of western civilization. A civilization which we ignore at our own risk.

And everyone else’s risk, too, come to think of it.

https://ricochet.com/575163/western-civilization-the-invisible-beautiful-miracle-that-we-ignore/

 

[Poke78]

I was going to go for laminin and ligaments but I see I got it wrong...

Good article!!

 

[cjjtulsa]

Oh how fast those "bolded" parts are slipping away, though.

 

[MacFromOK]

Oh how fast those "bolded" parts are slipping away, though.

Indeed.

The desire of parents to provide a better life for their children than they (the parents) had, sounds like a noble one... until you realize that responsibility and many values are learned by having to do without things sometimes, and then having to work hard and save up for those things we want.

Instant gratification is killing this once-great nation IMO. :/

 

[killerpigeon]

You got your covalent, hydrogen, and ionic bonds.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[DavidMcmillan]

Those are a very big part of what makes us the nation we have always been, and even with current problems, we will always be.

However, as a society of individuals, the one trait we need to work on is self-control, instead of self-gratification.

 

[Legend]

I think it's the black angus beef we raise.