United or Divided?

Watch the episode here:

• The real reason we are divided
• What if the United States unified towards what we want?
• Engage with questions, instead of an argument
• The balance game of giving everyone a portion of what they want
• Unworthy freedom

Hey, what’s shakin, hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today, we’re going all in. Happy Independence Day, say happy, you know, but at the same time, I’m sitting here thinking it’s like, this is my first episode ever on the show in 360 Something episodes that actually drops on July 4, which is pretty awesome. And I’m sitting here thinking, it’s like, what the heck do I talk about? I mean, if you’ve listened to me for the past couple of years, you would know that I’m very much a patriot. And I love America, I love this country. I don’t think there’s any other country in the world that affords us the opportunities that we have. And there’s a lot of people, what’s interesting is that I, there’s a lot of people that I don’t feel believed that way in our country anymore. However, a lot of the rest of the world still sees this as the ultimate place to come. Especially in some lower income. Countries, they don’t go to Europe, they come here to the US to try to find opportunities for their family. I was at a restaurant in Florida, this was Jesus. I think, last year, I don’t think I’ve ever told this story. 

But there was a server there that I had seen for a while a restaurant that I frequently visit. And he comes up to me, he’s like, Man, I take my citizenship test in just a couple of weeks. And I got all excited. I stood up and spoke to him, and, you know, just congratulated him and everything. And then I asked him the question, I’m like, Dude, what made you decide to do this, he’s like, You know what he’s like, I came here. And he’s young, too. He’s in like, his young 20s. And so it’s like, the rest of my family, they’re thinking about coming over here now. Because here, he’s from Morocco. There are not as many opportunities in Morocco by far and Morocco is actually a pretty decent country. From a development perspective, I mean, they’ve gotten some pretty civilized areas in Morocco. And he’s saying is like the education that I can get here, the opportunity to make income, while I’m here, I still send money home to my family, because what’s, what I make here goes even 10 times further in Morocco, there’s just no other place like this. 

He goes, I love it. And I’m like, What are you looking at doing is like, I actually might even join the military. I’m like, Oh, my gosh, are you for real? He’s like, yes, he goes, I firmly believe that you know, that he’s like, this is my country now. And I firmly believe that it’s my responsibility to actually protect the freedom that I’ve been given. Like, man, I mean, I hugged him on the spot and just was very grateful for his perspective on this. And over the last couple of years, I mean, I’ve been on this planet for 43 years now. And over the last couple of years, I have not seen as much civil unrest, as I have in the last three years. And there are all of these things. There are all these topics, right? And now there are all these subcultures that used to not exist. And then we start to create these subcultures from subcultures. And all of these things, this is the point of what I’m going to get at today because I know what I want to talk about with you. All of these things in these classes, it’s like, it’s such a contradiction. 

You know, when any of these if you want to call them cultures, or subcultures, or identities, or whatever it is, whether it’s transgenders, whether it’s homosexuals, whether it’s women, whether it’s men, for that matter, whether it’s African American, any of these things that say that they are different, is actually creating a class but they’re saying we want to be the same but then at the same time, the focus that is being put on these different cultures and subcultures and classes of people is actually division. That’s the thing that doesn’t make sense to me and you know what, there’s a quote by Morgan Freeman. And we’re gonna play it right here. I want you to listen to this ready. Black History Month, you find ridiculous. Why are you gonna relegate my history to I’m off? Oh, come on. What do you do with yours? Which month is life history month? No, no, no, come on, down. I’m Jewish. Okay, which mother’s Jewish history month? There isn’t 1001 You want one? No, no, no, I don’t either. I don’t want Black History Month. Black history is American history. How are we going to get rid of racism and stop talking about it?

I’m gonna stop calling you a white man. I’m gonna ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You want to say when I noticed a white guy named Mike Wallace. You know, I’m saying Morgan’s got it right. He absolutely has it right. And that’s why I’m not talking about that today because today I’m talking about unity. I’m not going to put any more conversation, or mental energy into talking about the individual classes, because we need to stop talking about the classes, we need to stop talking about these divisions that exist in our country, and focus on specific things because we are forgotten at this point, what took place over 200 years ago. And what took place over 200 years ago was not division but a unification, a unification against a very common enemy. At that time, that was King George, in Great Britain. 

There were a lot of issues, taxation without representation. And we formed a group of like-minded people, and we unified to form the most powerful country in the entire freaking world, one that has set the standards over and over and over and over again. And now you start to see things like the difference, like, the US dollar is not the thing that’s going to be in the money reserves anymore across the world. And a lot of countries are breaking away from the US Dollar as the standard even as the gold standard of the economy, the worldwide economy. And the reason is, is that this country is no longer unified. What have we unified towards something that actually we all want, which is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? End of the story, if we just saw it after that, and recognize, here’s the kicker, if we recognize that we all want the same thing. We really all want the same fucking thing. We just have different ideas on how to get there. And that’s where dialogue has to be established. So no more subcultures no more classes of people, none of that, because that is division. This is a very short episode today because we need to get back and remember what brought us together, to begin with, which is unification over 200 years ago, what will continue to destroy the country is divided. 

So when you hear somebody at a, an at a table at a dinner table, start to talk something like that, start to engage them with questions rather than arguments, as in what do you think we should do about this? Well, do you know what people have opposing thoughts? What do you think about that? How do you think that you can meet their needs and meet your needs, at the same time? Start asking those unifying questions instead of arguing certain points. President Barack Obama had an amazing, amazing quote, for how we’re looking at our country and how we should look at our country. This was many years ago. I really have a lot of respect for this man. Just an incredible family guy. I mean, he was president for two terms. Any president, by the way, I respect I don’t care if you’re Republican, a Democrat, or anything like that any President I respect because the weight of the office goes on that individual. Who cares, they’re human, they still make mistakes, no matter what side of the aisle they’re on, no matter what their political or spiritual or, economic or racial beliefs are. 

There’s still a position to be respected there because of the way that they have and the job of the president United States is literally to unify. Literally to unify. We’ll leave you with this today. This is what President Barack Obama said. We the People recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights. You hear that responsibilities, as well as rights, that our destinies are bound together. Whether you like it or not, they’re bound together. That is a freedom that only asks what’s in it for me. Freedom without commitments to others of freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism is unworthy of our founding ideals and those who died in their defense. Happy birthday, America. Let’s get back to getting back together.

Go ALL IN.