For years we have heard Republican politicians speak of returning to a more traditional America, complete with all of those good old traditional values. In June of last year at the Roast and Ride motorcycle event in Iowa, presidential hopeful Rick Perry announced:
America’s freedoms are the best in the world, and we need to fight for them every day. You deserve a President who will wake up every day, go to the Oval Office and defend America’s values, traditional values of this country Western values all over this world.
Honestly, that is a very scary statement. Perry is for America’s freedoms but wants to go back to a time when many Americans had none? It also brings up some hopefully obvious questions. First, what are the traditional values of this country? Second, why all over this world?
Newsflash, the Middle East is not in the West. They have their own traditions. Traditions that go back thousands of years. We may not agree with most of those traditions today, but that is their history. America on the other hand has only been a country for 239-years.
So what are the values of a good old traditional America? Thankfully, history provides us with a great record of these values that so many Republicans want us to go back to, and it may not be a good idea.
Slavery
Now here is an American tradition most Republicans just seem to sweep under the rug. Most would like us to believe that because it was so long ago, we should get over it. Well sorry guys if some of us still remember the fact that this country was built off of the blood, sweat, and tears of slaves and immigrants. (Insert your own Donald Trump reference here).
How about the white’s only bathrooms, seating areas, and eating establishments? School segregation, church bombings, and lynchings? Not thousands of years ago either. We’re talking decades. In fact, Mississippi didn’t vote to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution until 1995. Also, it didn’t become official until 2013. Good old American traditions.
Women’s Rights
I’m sure many of the Republican men would love to get back to the traditional values of having their own personal cook, laundry cleaner, and servant available 24/7. This type of slave was then called a wife. Oh, the values of traditional American. When women were seen and not heard.Or, if they were heard, it was on a black and white television catering to the man’s needs.
Raising the kids was also a woman’s priority. A traditional America where women couldn’t work or vote. Sadly the right to vote was not granted for women until August 18, 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women the right to vote. I say sadly because even with that historic milestone, for decades women were still expected to fulfill their traditional? roles. Even today we are fighting against an old school style of thinking. From income inequality to personal health choices, it seems traditional America just doesn’t want to let go.
Gay Rights
Now this one strikes close to home for me. Luckily my mom, and especially my dad, have been supportive of me on this issue no matter what. If it were up to the modern day Republican agenda, I’m sure gay people would be hunted down and sent to Christian conversion camps to “Pray the gay away!” The number of people that were persecuted just for whom they loved is astounding. Traditional America was not exactly a peaceful, or safe, time for those of us considered different.
It all came to a boiling point at a club called the Stonewall Inn in 1969. As police raided the Inn, a riot broke out that changed history. What is now known as the Stonewall Riot, became a launching point for the Gay Liberation Front and other organizations. According to history.com, ?It is also regarded by many as history’s first major protest on behalf of equal rights for homosexuals.? 46 years later, with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 are unconstitutional, gay rights have taken a huge leap forward.
I would add religion here, but honestly that would probably be a book writing endeavor. While I know that there are good people of various religious faiths, the atrocities and harm that people have committed in the name of Christianity, and holding on to a traditional America, is both hypocritical and shameful.
These are not the traditional American values I want to see come back. Hard work, helping your neighbor, non-discrimination, equality for all, and a legal system that is fair to the poor, not only the rich, are just a few of the values I would like to see traditional America defined as.
