Dissolving The Paranoid.

WARNING: the following is a rant. If you do not want to be ranted upon, scroll down to the ObamaCare post below.

I noticed this headline on DRUDGE REPORT: "2017: 'The Year America Dissolved'..." It links to this "analysis" (and we use the term loosely - ed.) of America's future brought to you by the ever-paranoid, conspiracy-theorist hawking Alex Jones and Infowars.com.

I'll leave it to Matt Drudge to explain why he would link to such garbage; my point in mentioning it is simple - America descending into tribalism won't happen, because it can't happen. And the why is simple: We are not Europeans. Nor are we Africans or Indians or Asians.

We, are Americans.

As much as The Left / Mainstream Media has tried to Balkanize us, divide us into tribes based on some kind of "identity" and play us one group against the other, they never really succeeded. And they haven't because most Americans do not tend to see themselves in that way. It is not in our national DNA. It is in the French DNA. And the Zulu. And the Japanese. But not ours. When we look for identity bigger than ourselves, we don't tend to look to some separate ethnic or cultural tribe - we look to Old Glory.

Yes, we like our own heritage and our unique condition, and yes, we often wear it on our sleeve (or on our kilt, or turban, or ao dai... -ed.), but surface appearances can be deceiving. When things fall apart is when we Americans are at our most united. Look at what happened after 9/11. I learned many things from my experiences in Katrina, but the one lesson that has stuck with me most - outside of never trusting government or the media - is the strength of our people. In the face of real dissolution, people came together to help utter strangers - color, income, accent - it didn't matter. Yes, we had the looters and the free-for-all folks, but they were the numerical minority (and/or the NOPD - ed.). In the end, we didn't recoil into tribes when the chips were down - America is our tribe.

That is not to say that things are looking rosy. The Euro-socialist policies imposed by The Left / Mainstream Media in the last 40 years are failing, and Obama and pals are trying to fix things with even more of the same - hastening the inevitable reckoning of these fantasy policies with fiscal reality, and angering even more of the American people. Obama/Reid/Pelosi will take a drubbing at the polls in November, and likely another in 2012. As the conservative / independent majority in this country gains power and begins to push for repeal such Lefitst sacred cows as ObamaCare, redistributionist tax policies, and the other components of the Nanny State, there could well be violence. But expect it to come from a vocal minority of The Left as they lose their power and their gravy train - not from the Right.

But even if events do turn bad, it will be temporary. We will recover. We will prosper. We will not become a 21st century Yugoslavia. We, are Americans.