We Need More Assimilation

We Need More Assimilation

If we are a nation of diverse ideas, thoughts and cultures then why don’t we act like it?

If this is true, and I believe it is, then why do some work so hard to make us all the same?

When we move into a new neighborhood or, as Kathy and I did, a new state, we don’t expect Montanan’s to start modifying their culture for us.

No, we assimilate and help preserve what they have already created.

We accept their traditions and honor the way things are done here.

That’s why we came here.

We like what they have and want to share in it not change it.

It doesn’t mean we don’t have ideas to make the place better, but we hold those thoughts because this is their home and we must listen and understand what is important to them.

It seems to me we’ve lost the idea of assimilation.

Whether it’s a city, a state or a nation, when you move somewhere you should become part of it, not try to change it.

I watched that happen to Oregon as folks from California moved north as laws, rules and politics made it impossible to afford to live there.

The problem is some, not all, of those folks brought their failed ideas with them, voted the same way they did in California, and destroyed Oregon.

We see the same thing happening all over the United States.

It got especially bad with the pandemic.

People in Blue states moving to Red to get away from the government overreach.

I’m gonna be real honest here since I’m trying to be more vulnerable, the problem being this will open me up to my harsh, hating, critics. Oh well, here goes.

I think the problem, or one of the problems is, arrogance. For example, people leave California, come to Oregon, see things that could be done better, in their minds, and rather than becoming part of the solution, they ram those idea down the throats of people who have lived here for generations.

The newcomers fail to understand the culture and push their ideas as if they are a religion handed down from God.

I see this in rural Oregon.

People push new rules on people they don’t know, with lifestyles they have no clue about, and when those people say no, the newcomers take ownership and think the old-timer should leave.

They push through process and politics, their ideology, acting as though one day the old timers will see “The Light.”

We see this in the Timber Industry. Loggers, foresters, landowners who have been managing the forests for generations all of the sudden lose their voice because some attorney with an uneducated judge, decide they know what’s best. Who pushed the issue? Well-meaning, novice, armchair quarterbacks who know only what they read in a book.

Perhaps it’s time to stop trying to change people and instead listen to them.

Consider for one moment that you may not know all that you think you do and just because the real expert doesn’t have a degree or wear a suit,  doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t out rank you in knowledge.(experience)

I remember a rancher in Eastern Oregon telling me a story.

Her family has raised cattle near Rome Oregon for 150 years.

They built manmade lakes for cattle and wildlife in the desert.

Some newcomers, who have never been to their area, used the courts and fought to keep them from watering their animals in the local river.

She went to Portland to fight to change the rules.

She stood on the banks of the Willamette River and say 30 miles of river encased in concrete and pollution.

She said to her self “and these people want to tell me how to manage my river?”

She lost the case.

Can you imagine what our nation would be like if newcomers practiced assimilation rather than arbitration?

Instead of shoving their ideas down the throats of those who’s roots run deep into the fabric of the place they found, these newcomers would remember what they left and why.