The gray area

A quick little rant...

It seems that those I align myself with politically and educationally tend to go one way and those opposite, well, opposite. Of course I'm generalizing here, never a good tactic for debate or even backing up a claim but I digress....

What I'm trying to say is, it seems each "side" argues (yep here comes the generalizations) for one very polarized opinion.

Side A says: Eek education is all about indoctrination into social justice and communism (or socialism), environmentalism, removal of patriotism or anything to do with the constitution or Founding Fathers, replacing it with a one world order, pro-UN global society that hates Christianity.

Or something like that.

Side B says everything opposite (no need to list it, you are a smart reader and can figure it out)

And then there is little old me, usually siding with A and ranting about the wrongs of side B, but yet I say

Wait! There is a gray area!

America is a great nation, one many people only dream of, but yes we as a nation are not perfect. No one person or place is. We have faults. But we have things worthy of praise. Our values, our founding documents, our collective individualism and desire to help others and better ourselves and nation is something extraordinary. Few realize this, but talk to anyone from say, Cuba, Romania, Cambodia who came to our shores for what we offer and you will hear some great stories. So we can't just side with A and say we are the best most perfectly,  awesome country,  America f*** yeah, but we also can't say America is all that is evil and wrong with the world.

We cannot decimate the planet from an environmental perspective, but we should really bring in logic to the equation. No matter how many reusable bags I use, China will still be responsible for 30% of the smog in my  skies. Worshipping sustainability in the sense we become a third world stone age world is not the answer, but why not try and clean up the littered highways?

We are a predominately Christian nation, but there are other religions out there and we are not a Christian nation per se. Christians should pray for God to guide and protect our nation, but if a Muslim girl wants to wear a hijab or a school wants to teach that Hinduism is a religion of India and looks to books such as the Bhagavad Gita for guidance, so be it. We as Americans are not all one kind of people and that makes us great.

Face it. We are a global society. While we should have patriotism and love of our nation, we need to realize there is a world out there that interacts with us daily. We should be familiar with other cultures, religions, customs, languages. Chances are, you will have a neighbor from Italy and another from South Africa, a co-worker from Singapore, a boss from Brazil... you get the idea. We can love our country and know about other peoples.

We need to recongize these gray areas and focus in on them instead of polarizing everything. Only then can we get somewhere.