Short of nuclear physics (or most types of physics), I tend to understand different subjects fairly well; unless I have never heard of something that would help me understand, and then some research is required. However, there is one thing I simply don’t understand, and can hardly tolerate, for which no research will ever avail me of an answer.

I was just reading this weeks US News & World Report, and ended on an article titled “In search of Christmas. Well, I understand what’s happening, what has been happening. What I don’t understand is why.

A Nation, founded out of the desire for justice and religious freedom, not only begins to forsake its religious background (whether Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish – though other groups are not exempt) but also adopts an attitude and predisposition toward all its members simply because they belong to different groups.

Understanding that only an approximate 8 percent of the US, and world, population can clearly argue on this subject, due to the abundant ignorance in which we live today, it becomes more increasingly obvious that most of us have forgotten why the United States was founded; why we all ended up here.

It wasn’t just the British who colonized North America. The French, the Spaniards, the Dutch, they all came here and built their future. “Americans” have always been a broad mix of peoples. The United States did not get a Spaniard- or French-free Florida, Louisiana or California; or a Mexican- and Spaniard-free Texas. Not only that, we took the lands that belonged to other peoples. Why? Because we felt entitled.

No one is beyond blame, because at one point or another most of us became part of those people who came to the New World in search of something. I am of Spanish and Italian descent; and I am Puerto Rican. I, like my parents and grandparents, was born a citizen of the United States. [More information on why I don’t use the term American.]

The Irish, Scottish, Italians, Germans, almost every nationality in the world has at one point or another migrated to the United States, or any part of the Americas. The Spaniards and French came to conquer; the United Kingdom didn’t want to stay behind. Unfortunately, many came as slaves, and the ones that were already here (the Natives) became so as well. With time, many groups have migrated en masse, and they too have been received with contempt (i.e. the Irish and the Italians).

We have welcomed them all, with different levels of skepticism. The Germans and the Japanese, the Irish and the Italians, Mexicans and Czechs; Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Buddhists; it hasn’t matters, we have everyone here.

There have always been, and may always be, factions that resent those unlike them, but – as a Nation – the United States has maintained itself above such undiscerning groups.

Yet, today, we fight over whether “Under God” can be said in the Pledge of Allegiance, but “In God We Trust” is what we say on all our currency circulating the globe, whether paper or coin. We have no problem telling the world, but we fight amongst each other. We tell the Israelis and Palestinians to get along, but we discriminate within our own borders, from our own people. And millions have fought and bled for the freedoms we hold as “Americans,” while – today – millions more worry that they might offend someone, who values them for his or her own, by exercising those same rights.

So, this is what I don’t understand. Why are we moving away from the principles and values that have guided us and faired us so well in the past? Why are we neglecting to even mention the word God, when it was religion that brought many over to this land? Why are we fighting with ourselves, when we know that it was working together that this nation has prospered? Why do we expect the world to see us as better than we see ourselves, and yet be self-righteous when they behave no differently than us?

For over 228 years, we, as a people, have become who we are, in spite of who we are. We are a Nation of many colors, tastes, languages and cultures; but we are ONE nation – Under GOD.

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Anyone who feels insulted or otherwise affected by any term or idea presented in the previous “discussion” can feel free to alert me as to their own clear opinion on the subject at hand. However, I make no apologies for my beliefs, religious, acadmic or personal; nor for my choice of language or terminilogy.