FAMILY VALUES and THE AMERICAN WAY

As a child growing up at the tail end of the cold war, I remember the good guys and the bad guys. I remember right and wrong. As I got older, and learned about the world, I realized that the Russians weren't the devils I was led to believe, and I also learned that we Americans were not always the good guys.

Along the path to becoming more geopolitically aware, I too have lived, loved, and lost. Sometimes my failures in love and romance were my own stupid fault, and sometimes they were the fault of others.

I have been exposed to a catalog of American political views, some I agreed with, and some I did not. I have noted that sometimes our political viewpoints polarize us from one another and sometimes they even obstruct our fondest hearts desires.

Does it really matter whether or not I am a republican, or a democrat or even a communist? Does it matter whether or not I like or dislike guns, whales, or gays?

When I am dead and turned to dust, will it have mattered whether or not I wanted my daughter to date an American black man, or whether I fought my whole life to prevent just this.

Does it really matter whether or not I liked or disliked tacki internet porn? Does it matter whether or not I prayed to Jesus, Budda, Hindi, Mohammad or Abraham? In the end we will all be dust in about 100 years, and only a scant few of us will be remembered even historicly.

I believe what really matters is "how did we live the days of our lives". We Americans are living in a Golden and Magical and Gilded age. What did we do with all of our wealth and privledge?

Did we spitefully hate and avoid those different than us? Did we do nothing but abuse our modern benefits of Jet Travel, Antibiotics, Family Planning Science and Cellular Phones?

What was the BEST thing I have accomplished with all of my wealth and privledge? Cavort with hookers? Eat rich food? Look at internet porn? Lust for fallen women who would only care for my money? Or did I take a different path? I hope I have accomplished more than just vice and food and baubles. I endeavor to maximize my value to the world and limit my sins, but, truth be told, I often fail in this goal.

Imagine what the Sages and great men of history could have done with internet access, or with the power to be transported safely around the world on only a few weeks wages. Would they have wasted these gifts? Would Mark Twain, or Thomas Jefferson have been interested in hookers and cheap shishkabobs? Would their actions with my advantages have made me look spoiled and shallow? I hope that I would not have TOTALLY dissapointed our American icons from Jefferson, to Franklin, to Twain, to Laurel to Hardy, but I am what I am.

What should really be important for any American to do with their advantages is to somehow make the world a better place. Our pursuits should not be simply to feed ourselves, or mate ourselves, as well as we can on our "fiat money" allowances.

American men are not guilty without accmplice in not fully utilizing our gifts and benfits. We have our accomplices and culpable twins. American women are no less guilty for the condition of America, and the shameful waste of our American Dream at the peak of its power.

American women have been socially engeneered to be intellectually frivilous and hollow. For the giant bulk of our countries history we have trained our daughters to be "silly" or "cute" or "dizzy". We have not collectively striven as a population to engeneer our daughters to be geopoliticly perceptive, or to value individual character over glitz and fluff.

We Americans are now stuck in a situation where a giant portion of our female population is "first generation out of the kitchen" AND often frequently in positions of responsibility and power.

We have allowed our America to become a country where two professional level incomes are neccessary to allow a family to live a clean, safe, and fruitful life.

What did we Americans do with the days of our lives? How did we maximize our collective national interests when we were at the apex of our economic and military power? We will never be as rich as we are today. We will never be as powerful as we are today. Our collective hearts and souls will never be as innocent as they are at this moment. What have we decided to do with all of our glory.

Some of us have built quality lives and been industrious. Some of us have choosen to seek out the younger and more beautiful mate at every turn of the corner. Some of us have hurt others for our own gain, never displaying repentence even in our most private and solitary moments. Some of us have been terribly injured, and choose to use these injuries as an excuse to cavort with hookers in Thailand, or to have cheap affairs with men from the office. Very few of us have lead lives of example.

We allow superficial and meaningless political feuds between warring factions to prevent us from finding love and building decent lives.

How many men are there in America that harbor anger towards "feminists" or "modern women" because of real or imagined injuries they have sustained from the same?

How many men hear an intelligent woman speak and because of her views on local or national politics decide that she would be "cold" or a "bitch" or that she would automaticly reject them or somehow purposely steal from them or injure them?

How many women hear a man attempt to articulate a difficult opinion about American race relations, or gun control and suddenly decide after 2 minutes that this man is a "bigot" , a "racist" or an " uncivilized right wing redneck" ? How many women have forgotten that the security to voice their opinions and their ability to safely close their eyes at night is due in no small part to the fact that very many American men have "guns" and would be effective in using them against a foreign occupying force.
How many women ignore the man with only a blue-collar job and believe he is not good enough for them?

In the end we here in America only have each other. We might have feelings for the Thais, or the Belarusians, or the French or any other fancy and colorful nation. But in the end, in the very end, we only have each other.

I propose that American Family Values and the American Way consider the benefits and limitations of what I call "STRANDED POLITICS".

"STRANDED POLITICS" refers to what our interpersonal and sexual politics would be if we were suddenly stranded in the middle of a giant forest with no hope for escape or rescue. If a strange man and woman of reasonable age were to suddenly find themselves stranded in the wilderness, with no rescue possible. How should the man treat the woman? How should the woman treat the man? Does it matter at this point whether or not the woman loved the Clintons, or that the man was a surfer or played with remote control cars? Winter is coming, there are wild animals out there that will eat these two people. How should they treat each other in order to be as happy in the future as possible?

Should the woman not learn to use a firearm? Should the man not coddle and take care of her when she was pregnant with his child? Should the woman help hunt and kill a deer? Should the man not nurture and help care for their baby? Should they not pick and preserve food together? Is "cross training" in the ways of the wilderness not the smartest method to ensure their survival? Should the woman not allow herself to be taken care of and fed when she must stay close to their cabin with their young child? If you take the most rabid and militant American feminist who today professes she does not even like men, in the darkest of cold forest nights would this same woman not respond to the security and love of her forest husband? Would this hard and cold American "era" supporter not also ultimately give the most sincere love in return to her "forest husband and small child"? Would the most unlikely pair not ultimately love and cherrish each other after only a short time in wilderness seclusion?

What functional form would "stranded politics" take when it had evolved between a man and a woman in this environ?

Would the man ultimately beat, rape or hurt his companion? Would he force his strength and size upon her and make her only his submissive prisioner?

Would the woman sabatage and delay the families progress? Would the woman poison and injure their baby? If the man was attacked by a cougar, would the woman watch him being killed without firing a shot? If the mans leg was broken, would the woman not assist him back to the cabin and feed and care for him until his health was mended?

If two strangers would come to love and care for each other in a cold forest in the middle of nowhere, and "stranded politics" were to become the order of the day in making their lives as decent as possible, then why is our modern American political politics such a large factor in deciding whether or not love will bloom or die?

Why should the Bush's or the Clintons need to be a central galactic feature in the minds of Americans looking for love? Why does it matter what church one goes to or how much money one makes when a potential nuclear family can be created?

Why can we Americans not accept each others small differences and understand that in 50 or 100 years, we will all be ashes anyway? What did we do with the days of our lives?

We Americans have been gifted the most bountiful and plentiful country the world has ever known. It seems that most of us can only bicker among ourselves and hide ourselves amongst artificial tribes or cliques.

American men running off to Thailand to have sex with hookers are an embarrassement to America. American women displaying equally lonely or destructive sexual habits at home or abroad are equally embarrassing.

If you are a man you should remember that regardless of how ridiculous and pompus some American women look and act, they are lionhearted in their core. You should not judge the character of 150 million women based upon the words and deeds of a few lonely and sometimes greedy individuals.

If you are an American woman you should remember that regardless of how caddy some mens behavior is ( to include behavior with Thai hookers) they would all proably take a bullet for you in an instant if you were threatened. They would all proably jump into a freezing lake to pull you to the shore, and they would all fire a gun with VERY STEADY hands at a foreign enenmy who threatened you.

Our collective task as Americans should not be to correct or sanction abhorent behavior on the part of male vacationers abroad, or the behavior of women who would embarrass a cosmo editor. Rather our collective national task should be to "socially engeneer" a country where the citizens are so busy loving their husbands or wives that they could no more consider taki or scandalous behavior than they would consider putting their bare foot on a hot coal.

People that are in love don't display stupid behaviors.

We need more people in love here in America.

Michael Miller
Indianapolis,
February, 2007