A student asked me to send this anonymously - this will be the one and only time I'll comply. My hope is that this will get the ball rolling on blogging and comments.
I consider myself a member of the majority. I am a Christian, I’m white, and I believe in helping myself before helping others. One thing that frustrates me is the fact that the majority has to give up certain beliefs in order to protect the minority. The topic of religious censorship really annoys me. One issue is taking the words “In God We Trust” off all our currency. I think that is a little extreme. If I saw Allah or some other religious figure printed on foreign currency, I wouldn’t care, much less be offended by it. Our currency has had that phrase written on it since 1864 and that doesn’t need to be changed now. Another would be the legal actions that have been taken to remove “Under God” from our Pledge of Allegiance. The pledge was written over 100 years ago by a man who BELIEVED in God. And why is Christmas break called “Holiday break?” It’s pretty obvious that the break is centered on Christmas. Hanukkah doesn’t even start or end on Christmas break.
There’s also the topic of abortion. It is the mother’s choice. If she wants to have her baby aborted, then so be it. If abortion was illegal, what would happen to a rape victim who became pregnant? I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want a constant reminder of what happened to her walking around, but I could be wrong. I think it is ironic how it’s considered offensive to call a person “black,” instead of African. Why isn’t it offensive to call a Caucasian person white? Then there’s all the stuff that’s written in Spanish. It’s EVERYWHERE. It has its own section in restaurant menus, stores, amusement parks, bathroom signs, and even when you call a 1-800 number, the computer says “For English, press 1. For Spanish, press 2.” We live in America. If you want to live in another country, at least learn the native language. If I were to move to another country, I would learn theirs. My mom tells me that about once a week she has someone come up to her with a question, and she can’t answer it because she doesn’t know whatever they’re speaking. And they get mad at her for it.
I’m not trying to offend anyone by my opinions. Minority rights need to be protected, but only for things like equal education and job opportunities. We shouldn’t be wasting time in courts over whether or not it’s okay to pray in school. We live in a democracy and in a democracy, majority rules. Don’t forget that.
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3 comments:
While I can agree with you on many of the topics that you covered I cannot help but voice my opinions for those I am unable to back.
For starters, I'll go back to that time-honored saying that the US is the "Melting Pot of the World" and the truth is that the US is extremely diverse. It has been for a long time and it doesn't look like it’s going to cease to be anytime soon.
Before I begin with your first paragraph and express my views about it I thought of a quote that similarly portrays the feelings I received from reading your post.
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Now, as for what I feel about the topic you covered in your first paragraph, the whole Christianity elitism bit, is that the problem with it is that the trend in the US is continuing to show that, while the population is increasing, the number of people that classify themselves as Christian is decreasing. A study showed that the percentage of Christians in the US in 1990 was 86% whereas in 2001 only 77% of American's regarded themselves as Christian. That is a 9% decrease in 11 years. Christianity, while still holding the vast majority, is losing some of its hold as the solely dominant religion in the US. 23% of the American population states that they are not Christian. That number includes a wide variety of beliefs (or the lack of a belief) ranging from Agnostic to Zen Buddhism.
The fact that a nation should be united under a god that, well, 23% of the country doesn’t believe in (unless you believe that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share the same god) seems a bit silly to some. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I wanted “one nation under God” removed from the pledge, or that I want “In God we Trust” removed from our currency. Honestly, I couldn’t care less either way. But to say that a nation is united “Under God” and saying “In God we Trust” can give the impression that those that do not trust in god or do not want to be united “Under God” aren’t welcome in the country; which is certainly not an image we want to convey. Sure, as you stated it, “the majority has to give up certain beliefs in order to protect the minority.” But what I don’t get is how taking two words out of our national pledge of allegiance giving up your beliefs? Isn’t the church supposed to be separate from the state? I would hardly classify that as giving up your beliefs which are unrelated from the US government.
Oh, and by the way, I call it “holiday break”. Calling it “Christmas break” gives the feeling that someone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas should still be in school. Secondly, why would a “Christmas break” last two weeks when Christmas lasts for one day? Kwanza is included in this break, lasting from December 26 to January 1 (which also happens to be New Years), and let us not forget Festivus on the 23rd of December. Certainly more is included in that holiday break than just Christmas.
I can agree with you on the topic of abortion. I feel that it should be the choice of the mother to decide to get an abortion. So I won’t even bother to talk at all about that.
I too find it ironic that calling a person “black” is offensive where as calling someone “white” isn’t. I also find the term “African-American” as a term to describe all persons with dark skin to be a strange thing as well. For starters, not all black people are African and nor are all black people American, many live in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, or they may live anywhere else in the world. Lumping all black people into the category of “African-Americans” to me is just plain ignorant.
On the topic of Spanish in America I agree with you to an extent it may seem like we’re making it easier for the illegal immigrants that come into our nation to live here and continue to leech from our country. On the other hand though it is also true that as many as 30 million people consider Spanish to be their primary language in this nation and of those people a large majority are legal citizens of this nation. In addition to being legal citizens, as much as 85% of the primarily Spanish speaking population knows English to some degree, be it key phrases or fluently, or they are making an attempt to learn it. By continuing to keep it simple to speak only Spanish in our country we may be making it hard to motivate Spanish speakers to learn English but it also makes life possible for many of those that are in the transitional phase between being Spanish dependant to becoming a fluent English speaker.
Your closing paragraph seems to hold strong when I hear you say “Minority rights need to be protected…” but then you come out and say that those rights should be limited to only jobs and education. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you also mean in things such as court and various other things that have a bit more focus on government influence. I believe that all rights should be upheld equally for all citizens, or all persons legally in our nation. Now, more than ever, that has been difficult for our country because of what happened on 9/11. It opened the eyes of the public and turned them towards a face that could be used to personify who was responsible for what happened that day. That face is the face of the stereotypical Muslim: the Middle-Eastern man or the woman wearing the hijab. It is very evident that not all Muslims are terrorists and not all Middle-Easterners are Muslim. It’s sad to see how some of these people are treated and looked upon in our country.
I guess I’ve droned on a bit perhaps but I still feel as though I was unable to say even half of what I felt like I should have and want to have said. So I guess in closing I’ll just say: yes, we do live in a democracy, and the aim of a democracy is to do what is best for everyone; not for 80-some percent of the nation and leave the rest behind and forgotten. The aim of democracy is to do that which is best for all.
“Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people.” – Abraham Lincoln
Just so Meerkat knows Jews, Christian, and Muslims (for the most part" do all belive in the same god.
I agree with most of that except for the part about abortion. The "big deal" with abortion is that many people(including myself and most christians)see it as murder. The way we think is, isn't the prevention of life the same as taking the life of someone who is already born? If you think no, because it is painless, then is it okay to murder someone while they sleep so it doesn't hurt?
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