There is not one republic called 'America'; there are two.

This is not "Geography 101" because everyone knows that in a geographical sense there are three Americas:

1) North America (Canada, the USA, and Mexico)
2) Central America (a collection of small banana republics forged by bloody Spaniards out of the kingdoms of even bloodier indigenous tribes), and
3) South America (a gaggle of larger, richer nation-states also forged by Spaniards (and Portuguese) but home to quite a few European expatriates not of Spanish descent)

No, I am here speaking of one geopolitical republic -- 50 sovereign, culturally disparate but politically, economically, and legally united States of America. A republic that beyond its many other internal disparities, is really two Americas.

I am not whining like Jesse Jackson, about the White Oppressor and the poor, downtrodden Black slave; that's no dividing line at all any longer. The last time I checked I think Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, et al didn't have the kind of problems that countless impoverished whites in America struggle with every day. No; their biggest problem is selecting the carpet color for their newest jets. No, there are people of every skin color and national extraction in both Americas.

I am not talking about the (so-called) Christians -- who dutifully 'attend church' and play holy for one day out of the week but in all other ways live exactly as the heathen do -- as over against the unabashed, avowed enemies of God, many of whom deny His very existence. Those two human categories have struggled together since Cain and Abel; certainly since America's founding generations. It's not our job to sort them out, and in any case, the two Americas are populated with those of every faith and religious belief.

I am not referring to the donkeys and elephants (economic and/or social conservatives versus their counterparts in the liberal camp). That false dichotomy is merely the ugly progeny of the old North-South "divide and conquer" strategy of The War To Enslave the States, wherein wily mercantilists pitted half of America against the other half to keep historical illiterates at one another's throats...thus more easily robbed. No, there are voters of every political party and persuasion in both Americas.

I am also not referring to the ongoing spitting match between Conspiracy Theorists / 9-11 Truthers and the dupes who believe any story that the government and MSM puts out -- although that is a festering wound in America just now.

Nor do I refer to the educational haves and have-nots. There are high-school dropouts and PhDs in both Americas.

By "two Americas", I am speaking of an historic, tectonic rift in our republic. It is a rift that is (to a lesser extent) occurring in every First-World culture and economy. You will never hear about these two Americas from the racists, political pimps, denominational partisans, or statist intellectuals:

MY America is made up of Americans of every conceivable ethnic, economic, and geographic condition who have made the conscious effort -- the sacrifice and the personal investment -- to jump into the 21st century with both feet. In MY America, we're grabbing onto the Information Revolution for all we're worth, and we intend to ride this wave of truth wherever it leads!

In YOUR America, you're too busy to see historical watersheds; not interested in the larger picture in geopolitics and technology. You're working on your golf game, or watching your favorite team.

In MY America, we're increasingly home-based and/or self-employed. Our time is our own, and we blame no one else for our failures. Nothing in life is guaranteed, but we'd rather work at 100% capacity and have our family enjoy the full fruits of that labor and market wisdom. No, we don't have much insurance, but we also don't go to doctors for every little bump and scratch, knowing that insurance (or fellow 'Taxpayers') will pick up the tab.

In YOUR America, you're increasingly looking for your next job in a cubicle or on a production line somewhere; never sure of what lies ahead, and always bitching and moaning about how 'management' or a hundred other bad guys are making life unfair for you.

In MY America, we're the second generation of 'home schoolers' thus we realise that the home-based life of our forefathers is even better with computers and the internet. Home-centered life (instead of living in a K-12 student beehive, then in a corporate-cubicle or other workplace beehive) means that those of us with school-age children are teaching them to be lifelong learners in 'academic' studies as well as arts, craft work, and practical life skills. Classical learners have always known that the lines between areas of knowledge are far more blurred than academic specialists will admit; less defined than 'subjects' will accomodate.

Thus in MY America, our kids grow up right alongside us with home-based businesses, professions, laboratories, foundries, studios, workshops, farm plots, barns and pens... every endeavor is undertaken as a family, with neighbors and community members, and with folks of like-minded faith. It is a whole life with fulness of joy and sorrow -- just as it is for adults.

And contrary to popular government-school mantras, in MY America, our children are not only better socialised; they also run circles around their government-school counterparts academically. Moreover, they are voracious readers and researchers. They can grasp ethics and economics; can deal in formal logic and thus dissect the pap and drivel of the political demagogue as well as of the religious careerist.

In MY America, many children are carrying their home-based learning over into online collegiate studies (as early as age 11-12 in some cases for undergraduate enrollment), and are able to perform extended research in some cases under world-class tutelage...with nary an institutional campus in sight.

In MY America, our children's days are not chopped into tiny segments for 'subjects' marked by Pavlovian bells that signal they must file, drone-like, down hallways to the next 'subject'. Like adults, our children enjoy the natural wonder of learning from ALL of life, indoors and out, in work and play.

TIn MY America kids either watch no television at all (some parents threw out the TVs years ago, and began building a family library instead) or their parents limit their time in front of the TV to an hour or so per day. Thus, kids in MY America have read literally thousands of books by the time their "K-12" career is over. They have knowledge and richness of experience that is miles ahead of the knee-jerk, insipid television fodder that kids in YOUR America have had pumped in for 15 years.

In MY America the more analytical kids go on to PhD studies in the sciences; others are right-brain oriented, focusing on art, music, or a valuable handcraft for many hours of the day, as is their wont and passion. They're overseen by us, their loving parents and tutors who care more about their future -- and their contribution to the world -- than any government employee will ever do.

In YOUR America, your kids bring home meaningless rote homework, study dis-integrated dribs and drabs of 'subjects' to pass tests (on material they'll never apply to anything), and engage in 12 years of social programming to operate in age-segregated gangs that are nothing like adult life, which of course leads to all manner of social pathology and illegal, immoral, or at least totally pointless 'rah rah' activity that only prepares them to be the next generation of assembly-line workers (always work as a group!) and couch potatoes, looking to the employer, the government, or the insurance company for life's necessities.

In MY America, we're staunchly pro-Constitution; this means we're not for small government, but for tiny government. We no longer fear our employees. We're law-abiding, educated Nontaxpayers, off the April 15th hamster-wheel. We own a marked-up copy of the Tax Code. We keep ALL of what we have earned, but we also pay every local, state, and federal tax that we owe according to the laws.

In YOUR America it's true that some of you are also pro-Constitution -- you just don't walk your talk. You fear your IRS employees and allow Congress to use that agency to skim 1/3 off your paychecks. You assess yourself (under penalty of perjury!) and sign that promissory note every April 15th, like a dutiful hamster. You've never even seen a copy of the Tax Code, much less tried to read it or mark it up [I show you how to do that on one of my blogs; not as big a deal as your CPA and Congressman make it out to be.]

In YOUR America, you toil from January 1st until May every year for the financial benefit of those who unabashedly violate and despise the Constitution you pretend to care about? I have no idea why you do this, because you complain all year long about it. Maybe in YOUR America they don't care about the Constitution as much as they fear the boogeymen at IRS?

In MY America, we intend to begin indicting, convicting, and incarcerating crooks in Congress. By merely enforcing the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the 9th and 10th Amendments thereto, we hope to see dozens or more of the worst violators and crooks in the US House and Senate serving hard time in their State Penitentiary for multi-trillion-dollar fraud, racketeering, and other high crimes against their Sovereign State and their constituents in that State.

In YOUR America, you're planning another year of petitions, marches, and political rah-rah for both sides of every conceivable issue, special interest, and social malady.

In MY America, the Christians among us no longer "attend church" to hear a religious careerist spout a prepared monologue. We don't 'go to' church because we found it palpably pointless and in fact deadly to our real faith. Instead of "going to church", now we ARE the Church as Christ commanded -- meeting in homes just as they did in the early Church, and just as most of the world's Christians still do.

In YOUR America, the mega-churches are losing members, as are the little plastic-banana 'ministries' both rural and urban. People aren't leaving the Christian faith; they're leaving a silly amusement park racket that has produced spiritual death for generations!

In MY America, there's no church 501c3 corporation, no real estate or mortgage, no paid staff and trained singers and dancers, no 'Sunday school' hoohah, or ministry-for-every-imaginable-market-niche. In YOUR America, the new 'aerobics with Jesus ministry' just didn't stem the exodus, so somebody's going to have to re-negotiate the $11.5 million mortgage on the 'church' complex!

In MY America, we've cut up our plastic, and the younger couples among us are not applying for plastic in the first place, after seeing what debt did to their parents. We're saving more before taking on a mortgage, and buying more modest homes as our grandparents did. We're driving 'beater' cars until we pay off the debt, and paying cash for the cars we buy. We're not eating out every other day (or every other meal). Some of us are saving and building our homes out of our pockets. Even if the process takes years (our $360k home took seven! A LONG time to wait!) when we are finished, we've paid for our house ONCE, not thrice (with a mortgage company making the other 200% of the price of the original house). In other words, in MY America, the financial pressures are far less, because we don't jump after every material thing as though it's necessary for life. We've learned: it isn't.

How can two such disparate civilisations exist in these 50 States of America? I don't know, but they do. I know that in YOUR America, folks talk long and eloquently about 'Breaking the Matrix' and it's all the rage to portray American life with nefarious conspiracies and blood-struggles-to-the-death against strong armies beating down your proverbial door...with you as the patriot and conquering hero. But in MY America, that's a load of hooey. If there's really a 'Matrix', we already broke it.

The major lifestyle sacrifices and adjustments I've just described are being performed by literally millions of American families. MY America is real, and life here is blessed beyond your ability to imagine, from where you stand in YOUR America. But you are welcome to immigrate, my fellow American, one step at a time.

www.america-again.blogspot.com
www.americanglasnost.blogspot.com
www.paganchristiansnomore.wordpress.com
www.taxcodeforall.blogspot.com
www.reformedtothenthdegree.blogspot.com