Alleged Online Intelligentsia

Yea, verily, I am here to tell you that them who blather online, myself included, may not spend much time in the real world.  Or be worthy of much of your attention.  Seriously.

So how's that working for me?  Well, I am fortunate in that I became aware, intelligent, and an adult before the internet arrived to influence my opinions.  Which means I have learned to research think, accumulate information (and opinion) from multiple sources before I made up my mind.  And in one of the greatest gifts (and best decisions) of my life, I married someone who would challenge and change my opinions to be more consistent, and reasonable.

Today's source of outburst?  I regularly check in on multiple news sources from varying viewpoints to get not only a variety of opinions, but also different views.  I was raised in a home that tended to lean Republican, generally, though there was some indoctrination from my schooling, and some environmental influence.  I grew up in Stearns County, Minnesota.  This has been referred to as one of the most Catholic counties/regions in the United States.  There was only one Roman Catholic church in my home town of Sartell, but in nearby St. Cloud, there were easily a dozen more.  Many of them had schools connected to the parish, well-enough off to offer robust extra-curricular programs.  My grade school offered boy's wrestling for all 8 grades, while football and baseball were only for our final 3 years.

None of my sisters held any delusions towards "athleticity", as I did, so I do not recall how many female sport offerings there were, but this was mostly before Title 9.  While Title 9 was signed into law in 1972, it did not apply to my school until some time during the 1974-1975 school year because it wasn't until then that the school was eligible to accept federal funding grants.  We got a science "Cart" about halfway through my 5th grade, and it was a pretty big deal we had more than books for science class.

I mea, I did stick it out through 8 seasons, 3 of football and 3 of baseball, along with two of wrestling.  I also did get to do four years of Band.  Mind you, I was never a starter, or even a valued backup, for football or baseball.  I was a lineman on offense and defense, with, so far as I can remember, only one penalty (offsides, as a defensive lineman, when I was pretty certain the enter moved the ball), fill-in right fielder who never got a single at bat or ball hit at him (I did properly back up the first baseman when a ground ball turned into an easy out, the last of the last game in 8th grade).  

In band I did find my niche, and thanks to the local Catholic high school outreach program, which is where I got to meet a bunch of future high school classmates, and see a bit of the bigger world.  Which did enlighten me as to the lunacy of attempting to play high school sports as I got to find out I was one of the smaller guys in town, and when God passed out athletic skills, the best I got was the ability to, most of the time, walk without falling on my face.  Most of the time.

But to get back to my point, some of the indoctrination came from the school and religion.  Back when Roe V. Wade enabled legal abortion, we were encouraged to bring in newspaper and color it black, use it to make black wreaths, which we brought over to church to hold a mass for all the murdered babies.  Granted, I was still (barely) in single digits in the age column, so medical nuance and procedures appropriately were well beyond me.  It wasn't until many years later it became apparent that when medical procedures were ignored and idiots were permitted to make medical policy, we were allowing quite possibly the least-informed among us make medical policy.  Clearly, we learned nothing.

I say that when I look at the current administration which upgraded from Clown Car of idiots to a cruise ship full of fools, especially with RFK - that is Rotten Fucking Kook, the current "health " secretary.  A nutjob who was confirmed to be the best individual for the task by members of the U. S. Senate, some of whom allegedly held medical licenses and at one point in their lives took an oath to do no harm.  The very definition of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s tenure as the Secretary of Health is harmful.

But my point?  Yup, why bother listening to online pundits?  These days, many of them aspire to the "position" of "influencer" which I suppose means more advertising money for them to live.  Sure, they get rich.  But Are they worthy of being listened to for their influence?  It seems the latest MAGA-influenced debate on "Heritage American-ness" is more tempest in a toilet.  Apparently the further back you can claim your ancestors were here in America, the more "American" you can claim to be.

Which is tragically humorous, I suppose, as the entire MAGA movement has done exceptionally well at making out country far less American-like than it's ever been.

Let's start with their favorite hot-button issue - immigration.  The current President is a first-generation American - which by their own definition makes me, a second-generation American by 4 years, which is the age at which my Grandmother was when she came to this country.  

But to drill all the way down, there is a population in this nation who certainly would have the right to complain about immigration - the Native Americans.  My son's 7th grade History teacher had a poster in her classroom of a group of armed Native Americans with the title "Fighting Illegal Immigration since 1492".  If anyone deserves to complain, it might be them.

But simple years do not define American-ness.  For many years, the people who came to this country were not the rich oligarchs, their offspring.  It was the people who were starving, suffering, not able to worship as they wished, or forced to worship in ways they did not believe.  They were people who came looking to make more of themselves and provide more opportunities for their children.  They did more to build this country than the bloviators who worried about American-ness.  

Leaving aside the current War, in which the Idiot in Chief fell for the Israeli plea to beat up on Iran, most of the wars in our history have been self-defense, and while we lost millions in these foreign entanglements, we usually only asked for enough territory to bury our dead.  Sure, we built over-seas bases for our military, but that meant that we sent thousands of our young men and women to these foreign lands, paid them out of our treasure, to spend some of that money in those overseas lands.  For many years we also sent food and medical aid overseas, shred our knowledge and helped to improve the world.  We also shared many of our bad habits, like ignoring the environment, glorifying wealth, and conspicuous consumption, we're hardly the best stewards of our not-boundless resources.

But about this American-ness debate, what is it?  It's designed to let us do what, as Americans, we do best.

Disagree.

Which is the point, I suppose.  So many of our ancestors decided to leave, but the recognition that the current battle is unwinnable is a skill that can be helpful.  Sometimes, fighting the unwinnable fight can be noble - at least if you can retreat with your respect, and resources to hold what you have, that's not a win, but it is survival to fight another day.  And possibly win that battle.  That's what we do.  

As for me, the "real world" is where I work, live, and generally find friends.  Some of them have migrated from this online world, but then there are those of us who try to live in both.