I am an American.  I was born here. My parents were born here. My grandparents, however, were immigrants.  In those days everyone who came to this country went through a process that made them aware of our rules and regulations and our way of life.  It made them proud to be part of such a great and powerful nation which was bursting with opportunities.  My paternal grandfather worked in a steel mill and eventually died while working there.  My grandmother initially found housing for those immigrants who came through the steel mill.  She became interested in this process and gradually started to help others find housing when they came from other countries in Eastern Europe to work in the same mill.  She didn’t work for the mill or officially start her own business, but she was able to help many people find housing by buying small houses for them to rent until they could buy their own places.  These immigrants became proud of this country with its securities and its opportunities.  All of this was based on responsibilities and an innate incentive to work hard and raise a family of responsible citizens.  When you invest your time and your life by assimilating, you end up loving the process that gave you the opportunity to live and grow and raise a family and help others to do the same.

At what point in our lives did words like patriotism and nationalism and Americanism become epithets?  The whole idea of America and its freedoms implies work; requires work.  Each of us must search for, and find and grasp opportunities when they appear.  They don’t find you and surround you. You must do the work.  You must become responsible and teach your children to become responsible.  Then and only then can you reap the rewards of our freedom and then become proud of the processes we live by and truly appreciate the country that made them possible.  At that point, after the toil and sweat in whatever type of endeavor, you become increasingly proud of our country and its freedom and opportunities.  Love of country implies responsibility and hard work.  Remember that this country has given you the opportunity to find your own way by working responsibly for your own life and its rewards.

There is a growing segment of our society that no longer adheres to the above ideas.  This growing segment increasingly turns ideas and practices and responsibilities upside down.  These people would like for the government to do the work for them, and to provide the processes and the research and the rewards for them.  Ultimately thinking “Why should I work? The government can, and will take care of me.”  This is backwards and upside down and very wrong.  Why?  Because the people who think this way are no longer invested in the welfare and health of our country.  They are only interested and invested in themselves.  They are no longer proud of our country, and they would like for everyone to feel the same.  They no longer believe in majority rule, the idea that what most people think about the rules and processes of our country is right.  This upside down approach has never worked historically and they fail to realize this. The wrongness of the government as sole provider is obvious to intelligent and thoughtful people. But there is a barrage of propaganda against them.  This has infected our educational system, our news media, our politics and our way of life.

This has to stop!

The vast majority of hard-working, thinking people must awaken as a united populace and say collectively that we have had enough of this wrong thinking.  We are proud of our country and its freedoms.  We are proud to be Americans.  We each have the power of one vote.  We need to be willing to use it to preserve our responsible way of life.  We are the people!  God bless us and may God Bless America!