Hyphen-Nation

America has become a hyphen nation. A nation of people who identify themselves as something hyphen American. "African-American"; "Conservative-American"; "Liberal-American"; and many others. People love to let others know where they stand, and with whom they stand. However, they seem to identify more with the label ahead of the hyphen, rather than what comes after.

Many people tend to identify with their group, their label rather than identify with being an American, a citizen of the United States. This is something that keeps us, as a people, divided against one another. There are even people who think that those who are not a member of their little pre-hyphen clique are "not real Americans". Because they don't think the same as they do, and believe in the same solutions, and goals, their opinions, and suggestions have no merit, or place in their idea of American culture. There are people who would go so far as to attempt to rewrite history as to make their little clique the founders, and heroes of America, rather than show the people as they actually were, from their own words from their writings, and their own actions, as evidenced by history.

Why have we become so enamored with the idea of the Us vs. Them mentality? True, it's nice to belong, and have like-minded people around us, but We The People should only have one side, when it comes to political matters. And that side is the side of The United States of America, not a person's political party, political ideology, race, religion, orientation, gender, or ancestry. When it comes to the direction our country is going, we should concentrate on what Unites us, not what Divides us. United, we should be standing. But since we are so Divided, we have fallen, and fallen hard.

No matter what our political ideology, political party, race, religion, orientation, gender, or ancestry, we are ALL Americans. It just seems that there are a lot of people who have forgotten this.

Election day. The day where the course of the country is going to be about the same, because we are simply repeating the same mistake that has plagued America once George Washington left office. We are doing the same thing, over and over, because we keep looking to the ruling elite to guide us. I don't mean Democrats, or Republicans, my dears, I mean politicians. And it doesn't matter if they they paint themselves blue or red, politicians of both parties see themselves as the rulers of this country.

The problem lies in the political party system, and the numerous OTHER labels that have been slapped on the American people to keep us divided, and against each other.

Republican

Democrat

Conservative

Liberal

White

Black

Hispanic

Latino

(blank)-American

Christian

Mormon

Catholic

Muslim

The list goes on and on and on.

The problem with all these labels is the simple fact that many people will identify with the label before they identify themselves as American. And this has been encouraged by people who look for political power, and prestige. These people want us divided against each other, and to keep us ignorant of other points of view.

And we, the people, allow this.

We allow ourselves to be divided, because we prefer to gather in like-minded groups. We, as human beings, tend to prefer to hear our own ideas quoted back to us, and want agreeable friends. The problem with that, is that we do not learn, do not see other points of view, and become insulated against the outside. The label-makers see this, and then do their best to vilify the "other" side, and make them look evil in the eyes of their followers.

We have allowed this to happen because we can be very lazy. Doing our own research is hard work. We tend to think in stereotypes, because it's easy. And it's very easy for the leaders of each individual group to paint the "other" as the bad guy, because they know our fears, they know our beliefs, because they have guided them, and molded them. Because people don't like to think for themselves.

We need to reject labels. We need to do our own research. We have the resources, we have the ability. We need to go beyond our comfortable routines, in order to get to the facts, or else this travesty will continue. We need to stop considering ourselves Groups first, and Americans second.