Every so often I will get a comment on something I've posted, in the way either of a comment to someone else's post or a post of my own, that I really have no right as an American living abroad to express any opinion whatsoever on events in America.
The most recent instance of this came from an Indonesian immigrant to America.
'Sure', he wrote, 'maybe you were born in America, and maybe you lived here for 55 years, but you don't live here now and you have no idea of what's going on. You say that you have family and friends here and you talk to them all the time, but that's still not the same as being here. It's easy for you to spread your libtard views online while you live in comfort and wealth in your villa and lie around on the beach. Just enjoy your retirement in the sun and leave America to those who live here, okay?'
This is not a direct quote, of course, but my translation of the gist of it from his poor English.
Generally, I am quite patient and sober in my replies to people online, especially with immigrants whom, as is understandable, may lack in knowledge of American law and government, history, culture, racial issues, and so on.
But in response to this particular comment, as you may or may not be able to imagine, I kind of tore this guy a new asshole. Figuratively, of course.
The fact is, in my nine years away from America, my interest in American politics and social issues has become much more lively than it was when I lived there. I seem to care more than ever, for some reason. Moreover, I was born more than a half century ago and have an experience of America that is much fuller than this young immigrant's. I lived through the years of racial segregation, I lived in a time when black people could not use the same toilet as whites, when black people lived in their own part town and whites lived in theirs. I lived through the riots of the 60s, through the civil rights marches, through a time when cities burned and people lived in fear. I lived in a time of multiple assassinations and more riots, and integration of schools and universities enforced by the military. The 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, right up to 2011, I was there.
And no, I don't lounge in a villa enjoying my wealth. I scrape by even here on Social Security. I live in a one room apartment. I cook my own food to save money. I have as transportation a motorbike, because there is no way in the world I could afford to buy a car. I live, in short, just as the common people around me live.
And I can tell you that there is nothing that is happening now in America that has not happened before. In every case, throughout the years, these painful spasms in society, these fearful shakings of the status quo, have been the birth pangs of a better society to come. As Solomon puts it, That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been. Sometimes things need to be torn down so that they can be either improved or totally rebuilt.
One's mere presence in a society is no asset whatsoever to the society if one insists on being part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
The most recent instance of this came from an Indonesian immigrant to America.
'Sure', he wrote, 'maybe you were born in America, and maybe you lived here for 55 years, but you don't live here now and you have no idea of what's going on. You say that you have family and friends here and you talk to them all the time, but that's still not the same as being here. It's easy for you to spread your libtard views online while you live in comfort and wealth in your villa and lie around on the beach. Just enjoy your retirement in the sun and leave America to those who live here, okay?'
This is not a direct quote, of course, but my translation of the gist of it from his poor English.
Generally, I am quite patient and sober in my replies to people online, especially with immigrants whom, as is understandable, may lack in knowledge of American law and government, history, culture, racial issues, and so on.
But in response to this particular comment, as you may or may not be able to imagine, I kind of tore this guy a new asshole. Figuratively, of course.
The fact is, in my nine years away from America, my interest in American politics and social issues has become much more lively than it was when I lived there. I seem to care more than ever, for some reason. Moreover, I was born more than a half century ago and have an experience of America that is much fuller than this young immigrant's. I lived through the years of racial segregation, I lived in a time when black people could not use the same toilet as whites, when black people lived in their own part town and whites lived in theirs. I lived through the riots of the 60s, through the civil rights marches, through a time when cities burned and people lived in fear. I lived in a time of multiple assassinations and more riots, and integration of schools and universities enforced by the military. The 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, right up to 2011, I was there.
And no, I don't lounge in a villa enjoying my wealth. I scrape by even here on Social Security. I live in a one room apartment. I cook my own food to save money. I have as transportation a motorbike, because there is no way in the world I could afford to buy a car. I live, in short, just as the common people around me live.
And I can tell you that there is nothing that is happening now in America that has not happened before. In every case, throughout the years, these painful spasms in society, these fearful shakings of the status quo, have been the birth pangs of a better society to come. As Solomon puts it, That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been. Sometimes things need to be torn down so that they can be either improved or totally rebuilt.
One's mere presence in a society is no asset whatsoever to the society if one insists on being part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
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