Most of the time I write about politics. Today is different.
There’s a lot of talk these days about “existential
threats.”
Trump, climate change, radical Islam, income inequality, Iran,
and all matter of things are touted as existential threats to America.
Politicians and talking heads rail about how close we are to losing everything
we hold dear solely because of one or more of these.
Their breathless hyperbole overshadows what I see as the
real existential threats to us as a country, as a nation, and as a society. I
worry about these much more than any of the above, mainly because they threaten
the very foundation of America’s uniqueness in the world.
I think of America less as a physical entity than an
incredible idea; a concept so revolutionary in world history that it’s hard to
imagine how it was ever created, much less how well it’s endured and evolved
over the years. It’s accomplished an amazing amount of good in the world. Not many other nations can make the same
claim or even come close.
At its core, America was founded on faith. Not a religious
faith, mind you – although it largely reflects the best of Judeo-Christian
values – but faith in the American people to govern themselves responsibly and to
competently manage their own lives without unnecessary government interference.
The founders had faith that the American people and the leaders they chose would
be basically good, honest, fair, hardworking, and interested in maintaining a
nation that reflected and respected those same basic virtues.
Which, for much or America’s history, proved to be
true. The faith in the general goodness
of the American people and their government was validated, time and again. Through world wars. Through social upheavals. Through natural
disasters here and abroad.
That faith is now under attack every day. That’s an existential threat.
I still have faith in the basic goodness of the American
people and their belief in the concept of America. But I fear many in our political institutions,
and the media, don’t share that faith. If anything, I now believe that many of
those simply do not trust the American people or the concept of America anymore.
And the more this becomes apparent, the
more many Americans start to doubt whether anything or anyone should be trusted
anymore.
The information we get bombarded with every day is a
veritable Tower of Babel – thousands of voices expressing a thousand different interpretations
about the same subject or event. Some
are put forth out of ignorance; some are obvious lies; some are carefully
crafted messages to hide the truth; others are designed solely to push a
narrative.
The most dangerous to our society are the ones that
intentionally seek to sow distrust – and often hatred – among Americans based
on race, ethnicity, age, religion, economic status, gender, sexual orientation,
education, or political party. And there
are far too many of those divisive messages every day to be accidental.
Lost in all this is that America isn’t really that divided –
certainly not nearly as much as the media and the left would have us
believe. The vast majority of Americans
aren’t racists. They don’t care what anyone’s religion may be, or their
age. Far from hating the rich, most
aspire to be rich or at least well off. Most
don’t care about a person’s gender or sexual orientation – you’d be
hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t have a good friend or family member who
isn’t gay. Most if not all want their kids to grow up with a good education and
get a decent job.
And most Americans love this country.
This is despite the constant barrage about how awful America
was and is.
For reasons I’ve never been able to understand, there’s been
a concerted effort for the past 50+ years by the media and the left to cast
America as a purely evil entity. It’s been perpetrated in the textbooks used to
educate our young. In popular culture.
By professors at our public and private universities. It’s been going on
for decades.
Over the decades the emphasis has shifted from what America
has done right and at times wrong, to focusing almost exclusively on what
America has done wrong.
It’s now gospel among many in academia that America’s
history is largely one of oppressing and victimizing the poor, people of color,
and non-Christians around the world. It’s
been a participant in genocide, a promoter of slavery, and a destroyer of
native cultures. It’s invaded other countries to seize their resources and
otherthrow the democratically elected leaders of those countries. It’s fought
wars and slaughtered hundreds of thousands in its quest for world domination.
According to them, America is and always has been run by rich
white men for their own benefit. They only got rich on the backs of the poor,
women, immigrants, and minorities, and by plundering America’s natural
resources. And by destroying anyone, and
anything – including the environment – in the process to get what they
wanted.
In short, America should not be proud of its history, but
ashamed.
This is what they’re teaching. That’s an existential threat. It’s like Orwell’s
1984 where history is constantly rewritten and edited so “truth” becomes
malleable. That scares me.
Not because America hasn’t made mistakes – it certainly has,
and these should not be ignored. But the sum total of the effect America has
had on its people and the world at large is overwhelmingly positive. Ignoring
the good America has accomplished is as wrong as focusing entirely on its
mistakes.
The rest of the world recognizes the good America has
accomplished and what a stabilizing force it is. However, you rarely hear that; instead we’re always
told the rest of the world hates us because of our power and how we wield it on
the world stage.
Other world leaders, including our allies, might not always
like America because of that. Yet while they might not say it outright, most of
them – and their people – prefer that America be the world’s superpower. The
alternatives are not nearly as attractive.
Doubt that? Try this:
ask friends in other countries who criticize
America as an arrogant bully what other country than America would they prefer
to be the world’s top superpower. China? Russia? Another country? You’ll hear crickets
…
So when you constantly hear how terrible and unworthy America
is to be a model because of its flawed history and the way it treats
minorities, women, and illegal immigrants, realize that’s simply the opinion of
a minority with an outsized megaphone.
Most of your fellow citizens don’t agree with that minority.
Nor do the citizens of most other countries around the world; that’s why so
many of them long to come here. You never hear about anyone struggling to emigrate
to China or Russia, do you? Or about Americans desperate to leave this country
for another in search of a better life for them and their families …
Even the Hollywood types and celebrities who constantly
promise to leave America because of its rampant racism, misogyny, injustice, or
whatever, never actually leave, do they?
America is not perfect. Far from, it. That’s true. Nonetheless,
few other nations in the world have done so much to lift people from poverty
and sickness, and liberated so many from tyranny, as America has in its brief history.
Something to remember.
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