Kid Rock has nothing to do with
this post. His knowledge of how
to treat the American flag is
mythical, however. :\
Now, the only reason I bring this up is because the other day, an Internet acquaintance of mine and I were talking about political party differences between my country and his (he's in Germany) and naturally taxation came up (check the comments to see the convo). He referenced that little chestnut of historical Americana, "Taxation Without Representation" via the Boston Tea Party, and suggested it was our "founding myth."
I did take issue with this, but only the part where he suggested that it was our "founding myth."
Oh, I agree it's a myth in that the "Boston Tea Partiers" were likely Freemasons who probably worked it out with the British East India Company (run by Freemasons) to let them throw British East India tea into the harbor, thus making it a kind of "false-flag operation," and thus, a myth--but the idea that our country was founded on this myth? Nah, that's not accurate to me at all. So, here's how I replied (emphasis added for effect):
My country's founding myth is that all men are created equal and that we have "inalienable rights" like the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Firstly, when our "founding fathers" said "all men" they clearly meant "all land-owning white males" since, according to the rules they, themselves, wrote, only men who owned land would be allowed to vote.
Secondly, all men (and women) are not "created equal," they are "created equally." Which makes that not just a myth, but a grammatically incorrect myth. In fact, saying we are all created "equally" is a more accurate statement than saying we are all created "equal" since that suggests "equal" is a state of relative identicalness. Saying we were created "equally," says we were all created in the same way--via a sperm penetrating an egg.
But saying "we're created equally" allows for things to go south once a human is conceived. You get your random-ass genetic combinations, you get your genetic mutations and you get your recessive genes kicking in (or not). We're all created the same way, but then random chaos muscles in and who knows how we're actually born? From there it all depends on your parents, where they raise you and how rich you are.
Third, we don't have universal health care here, so "life" is not guaranteed.
Fourth, if we're suspected of terrorism we can be detained and held indefinitely if the government decides to. So there goes the "liberty" part.
Finally, in order to afford a home, food, electricity, the Internet and so on, we need to have a job that consumes 8-10 hours of our lives (including commute time) every day. Adding that to 8 hours sleep and an hour for each meal and that leaves 3-5 hours per day for that "pursuit of happiness" stuff. Of course, add in chores, dealing with family, replying to emails running errands AND trying to keep up with the news, and the pursuit of happiness gets relegated to your next vacation, which is usually just 7 days long.
Sorry--you said something about a tea party? Yeah, those guys are arguing over a myth, too.
Oh wait, you probably meant the Boston Tea Party. We've now got these right-wing morons who think America is under attack by liberals. They've been holding "tea parties" (aka protests) to voice their anger about government run health care. See, THEY believe the myth that government-run health care will put private health care out of business and that the government will decide who lives and who dies and that it'll make us all Nazis (since Nazis were socialists)...
I'm sorry, I think I lost track of your point...
And then there's the myth that terrorism is a real threat to us, when statistically, we have a WAY bigger chance of dying from cancer than we do from terrorism.
I'm sorry, I should stop typing now...
Indeed, I should.
Orignal From: American Dream or American Myth?
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