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Comment by pohl | Hacker News Reader

It makes me sad that we (the United States) have entirely lost our e pluribus unum. In some quarters, folks consider the mere idea to be communism. Of course they're not exactly deep thinkers, those folks, but that's the dominant POV in the deep red state in which I live.

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Externally, America had never looked as united as America has liked to project. Segregation, Jim Crow laws, "No Irish, no Italians" signs in windows, rife religious sectarianism and a law enforcement system with a long history of directed violence.

It probably seems like America is getting divided more starkly, but to outsiders its just more of the same from a country that had a civil war over slavery. It waxes and wanes but it never really goes away.

It was meant as a goal to strive for, not an end already achieved.

In the other quarters, I'm not sure that the e pluribus unum melting pot concept is any less obsolete. All of our various factions seem headed in the direction of fracture and balkanization, we just vary on the details.

I would argue that, to this day, in most quarters, e pluribus unum is deeply engraved. It’s presence can be considered a true test of one’s metal. Any newly minted ethos just won’t do.

> newly minted eth

Cryptocurrencies make their inevitable appearance in the thread! :]

> In some quarters, folks consider the mere idea to be communism.

And in other quarters, they believe we have permanent, irreconcilable differences based on race, sex, and sexuality making the whole idea of "out of many, one" unthinkable.

At bare minimum, one would think we could all agree that it's a good thing to honestly teach our nation's actual history — rather than trying to ban teaching it so that we can pretend that systemic racism is not and never was a thing.

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