So glad you found your heart and home here in the US Republic and California is certainly a beautiful place to "land". Like countless immigrants in our history, particularly in the early 1900s, many came here from their birth countries for safety and opportunity and embraced the way of life here. Your experience and perspective of having gone through civil war helps support the strategy the WHs are taking with respect to wanting to avoid that here, however slow the alternate strategies appear to be progressing.

As far as your personal experiences with people who turned on you in a caustic manner, most here have gone through similar experiences. While I'll never say it's been "pleasant" (it has most certainly NOT), I actually thank God for shaking things up as He has to expose people's true characters. Wheat from the chaff. I feel more saddened for and disappointed with them, people I've known for decades, but like you am standing strong with the truth. I've lost friends I've known for decades due to political differences as well, but that's not about to change my values; it's just time to find better friends. Again, I thank the Lord for this opportunity to realign my (future) social circle.

You've been here in the States long enough to have seen the change, the degradation in society, politics, education, even business, over time, but by following news and analysis here at GAW you've also seen - all across the country and the world - some of the worst perpetrators being exposed (at least to GAW) and battles being won. We have a ways to go yet, but just keep standing firm in truth and I truly believe things will be better than they ever have (here and across the world), the way they always should have been, when we get to the other side of this ordeal. As difficult as this is to be aware of what's occurring in the world, I wouldn't trade it for being an ignorant, brainwashed sheeple who just parrots out what the beastly talking heads on FNM tell them to say. Truth will prevail.