The American personality drives us today

The American personality might be characterized as an easygoing, sentimental, fair-minded ruthlessness. We tie yellow ribbons 'round the old oak tree at the same moment we dispatch a wing of B-52s to carpet-bomb the enemy. No murderer in the world gets as many appeals from his conviction as an American murderer. But when we have finished being fair (about the same length of time that a French murderer has to spend in prison before being released), we fry him. (Tony Blankley)

Americans are New World. We are not Old World. Traditionally in the past, the vast oceans around us insulated us from all the Old World's travails. And we are still New World enough to be anti-war and isolationist since the oceans protected us against all things: smart, dumb, idealistic, Old World, or otherwise. Along the way we Americans changed, too. The urban/rural shift is the obvious one. So also is the naming of new children as the most popular names change to more family type names with Old World origins. This trend cannot be dictated, it is American.

So how can a Country as large as the USA be so seemingly evenly divided over major issues such as immigration, our place in the World, and foreign wars. Perhaps it is our American personality, and perhaps it is just talking past each other. The follow on suggests considering trying to convince the others, or just listening to them. Perhaps I and many others are working not against political opponents who think another way, but just working against an American personality adopted by about one half of my fellow citizens.

So do I fight in the arena of debate and ideas, or surrender to not wasting my time fighting an American personality? Do I write and blog, or go silent?

One can make their peace in many ways. I have made my peace. The events of 9/11 made the oceans inconseqeuntial, and now my children and grandchildren are under threat of life and western standards of life. The threat is obvious by the attack of 9/11. It is the Islamic fascist barbarian group of madarassa indoctrinated thugs who will tell us how to live their way.

Even the American personality will say no, and after much diplomacy, will also come to fight for our way of life. All this suggests less a debate than just providing information to the other half of the American personality and let them, and us, assert ourselves.