Sunday,  July 1, 2012 • Vol. 12--No. 353 • 9 of 32 •  Other Editions

Why not just be an American
by Rev. James L. Snyder

• As we celebrate another birthday of this great country, I cannot help but think back on some of our history. What a grand history we have had. I know some people are ashamed of our history and so we have revisionists rewriting American history. Nevertheless, I certainly want to celebrate the real America.
• My wife and I were relaxing after a scrumptious supper and were watching a little bit of TV. I was half dozing, as is usually my condition after such a supper, when my wife startled me with a question.
• It was a news program on television updating us with the latest political scratch-talk. If it were not for politics, the airwaves would be silent. Oh, for those wonderful sounds of silence. Personally, I would be glad to double my tax rate if in doing so we could put to silence all this political-scratch-talk. I call it "scratch-talk" because whoever is talking is trying to scratch somebody's back even if it is just their own. I guess we have a lot of itchy backs in this country. Thankfully, we have an endless supply of backscratching politicians.
• It does not matter which way the wind is blowing each political party says it is blowing in their direction. I guess you have to go to eight years to Harvard and have a student loan debt of $120,000 to understand how that works. If you do not mind, I just do not want to know how it works.
• With the politicians unable to create work in our country for common Americans, the real Americans, they sure know how to work a situation, usually to their advantage. If they could put all of this to work for the good of the ordinary American, I would feel happier about paying my taxes. As it is, I pay my taxes but not happily.
• Back to my wife's question. "Who are," she said very carefully, "the real Americans in this country?" Then she paused for a moment and followed it with this question, "Who does America really belong to?"
• Well, those two questions got me thinking.
• Who are the real Americans? Are they Republicans, Democrats or Independents? I know there is a bunch of other miscellaneous political parties but I cannot think of them right now. Which one is the American Party?
• If I do not like any political party, where does that leave me? I am all for parties, but the whole idea of a party is for people to have fun. I do not see any political party where I could have fun. The strange thing today is, if I do not "belong" to some political party I am not able to vote in this country. Moreover, if I do vote, who in the world do I vote for?
• My wife and I got to talking about this and I, for once in my life, posed a question. How would you describe the average American?

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