To your points:

1) Your right about “Failing” I agree that is probably a poor word choice.

2) Though I know you didn’t intend the “Stop Complaining” attitude, that is what came across strongly to me. Often we don’t intend things (I don’t intend to be as broadly negative as you see me as), but our message conveys things we might not have inherently intended. Your response, as genuine as it might have been, disturbed me deeply because it had what I felt where undertones of what I described in the above post.

3) Finally, to the “yes-women and yes-men” comment. It’s true, that from what you see in the comments, there seems to be a lot of preaching to the choir. However, my guess, and my hope, is that that is not exactly the case. I have friends and family that I believe read this blog, that I know don’t agree with this sentiment.
I greatly enjoy that you choose to comment on here, in helps me think and creates meaningful dialog. Don’t feel you are the only one reading though.

Looking forward to more conversations on this topic. I’m trying to learn.

now, obviously there is the issue of reader diversity. that is a legitimate issue. by and large, people tend to comment on blogs that they agree with. unfortunately, most dissenting commenters tend to be persons who want to pick a fight instead of have a conversation. that’s the nature of the beast and it’s really no one’s fault. we tend to group with people we agree with.

i’ll stop with that. this has nothing to do with the post above and don’t want to push the conversation too far into a digression. just wanted voice my concern.

no harm, no foul. peace.

I just felt that for the July 4th post, “prophetic” was a bit generous.

I was trying to illustrate my point with an example. I could have selected others, but yours had a nice ring to it in making my point.

No provocation intended. Sorry if that was the chord that was struck with you.

@aaron. i’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to do there, other than provoke me. would you care to expound?

As I explained at least in my last followup post, my main beef was not with the fact that he criticized the country at all, or really with any of the particulars. I granted, for example, that lots of people have their challenges today, and that certainly there have been worse problems in the past, mainly among other-than-caucasian people.

My complaint mainly was that the enlargement of the bad in America (or the church, or other Christians), and the minimizing of the good seems to be a theme here. After all, he said the experiment was “failing”, rather than imperfect, or in need of improvement. The use of “failing” suggests to me that he thinks the experiment is mostly bad. It seemed an awfully damning conclusion to reach in light of the reality of life in America, the progress that has been made here, and yes, also by comparison to much of the rest of the world.

I did not say that just because we are better off, then we should not sweat it that there is still work to do and progress to be made. I said nothing like “Look, I’m sorry for you, really I am. But, things aren’t going to change around here, your[‘re] just going to have to get over it and be happy with where you are.” The point I meant to convey was that I feel that a little perspective is in order, partly in light of the plight of others currently around the world. The comparison is not meant to try to excuse the shortcomings in America, but to try to highlight that in spite of the fact that all people everywhere are born in to sin, and that the natural plight of man throughout history is that his life is “nasty, brutish, and short”, and that the natural impulse of Man is to, as a pastor I knew used to say, “get all you can, can all you get, then sit on the can”, America is doing well in spite of all of that. Not perfectly, but much better that most places and times.

I also did not say “stop complaining”, as the pic at the head of this post reads. Now, another poster did say effectively that, as best as I could gather from his rantings, but I did not, and would not. Not only do you have the right to complain, but I agreed to a certain extent about your July 4th complaints.

I only meant to point out that in the July 4th post, as with many other postings here in my opinion, the tone is unnecessarily negative, judgmental, and dare I say it, closed-minded and under informed. I do mean that constructively and respectfully, because I perceive Ariah to be sincere and an all around good guy, evidenced most vividly for me in his love and delight and respect for his wife and daughter. (I also do not think that Ariah means to be negative, judgmental, or closed-minded and under informed, and I intend to put some meat on the bones of those assertions with Ariah at his invitation at least privately going forward.)

The reply posts here tend to be terribly fawning and sycophantic (“prophetic mirror”, Blake? Come. On.). If Ariah is wants to expand his thinking, and learn from others’ opinions and perspectives (and I think he does), then he needs more than to have yes-women and yes-men to chat with. Same goes for me (which is why I drop in to read) and for anyone else.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

And while looking up the exact wording I found this one by him:

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute – a white skin.

I would agree that we are blessed beyond belief by living in the USA and we should never take that for granted. But one of the richest blessings we have is the ability to speak our minds and express our feelings about what our country is doing at home and around the world.