MaxedOutMama
Monday, November 01, 2004
Democracy, Freedom, Patriotism & Hope
This is going to be a very personal post - something I don't normally do. The reason for it is that last night it occurred to me that regardless of the outcome of this election, a lot of people were going to be very unhappy. Everyone had to make a hard choice in this election, and most people don't agree whole-heartedly with either candidate. But we forget that fact in the heat of the struggle and political rhetoric. We forget it as we're talking to other people, trying to persuade them to our point of view. No matter how hard we worked to make our own choice, once we made our decision we tend to become passionate in advocating our point of view.
Regardless of whether your candidate wins or not this week, there's no real reason to be upset about the outcome. On this Monday before election day, we already have enough data to know that an unusually large number of voters are participating in this election. That's good. Democracy works as long as we all care. Our country won't be defeated by external enemies - it will go down when a majority of people stop caring about it and believing in it. That hasn't happened. It's not going to happen in my lifetime.
After you've cast your vote, you might want to make an effort to thank the first soldier you see for defending the privilege and honor you just exercised. Those in the Armed Forces and the National Guard have risen nobly to the challenges they've faced over the last few years. Not only that, but our young people are still joining up at a time when they know they'll face action, and many reservists and people who were totally out of the Armed Forces rejoined after 9/11. Immigrants who aren't even American citizens yet have joined.
I think we should all remember what they're doing for us. I think we should all honor that. I think we should all pause to realize just what that has meant to them and their families. I think we should all keep that in our minds before we demand spending on our own particular social programs. Some will die to protect you and me, and some will come back maimed for life. Before we start asking for help for ourselves, let's make sure that they and their families are being taken care of adequately and that they have good equipment and excellent weapons when they're out in the field.
You might also want to thank the next police officer you see. They've been pushed hard to deal with the extra security measures that were needed after 9/11. They will be. They need extra funding to do their jobs, and that means more tax dollars allocated to them. It's a good investment.
I've noticed from looking at the domains on Site Meter that quite a few foreigners have at least glanced at this blog, and I have a few words to say to them. If you live in Europe, or Asia, you probably believe that American patriotism is a jingoistic affair. You probably believe that our patriotism is a matter of "we're better than they are" and "America is the best country". You may even believe that we're a country of narrow-minded, provincial, self-absorbed, rich, uncaring, environment-destroying, platitude-hurling fools recklessly exercising supreme power. You believe that because this is what you read in the press. They haven't gotten it right.
Let me explain what American democracy, patriotism, freedom and hope really are, if you have the patience to read the explanation.
Democracy is a wonderful thing, because it means that I don't have to be right all the time. My responsibility is to make the best, most reasonable decision I can and then vote that decision. If I'm wrong, millions of people will correct my error, and when things get really difficult I take comfort in that knowledge. It's a lot harder to be a dictator or live under one. The dictator ruling a country, or a movement, must make the decisions and be right all the time. If he's not, his country or movement loses.
Because I live in a democracy, my choices and my opportunity to be heard don't end tomorrow. If I disagree with the policies of the next president, I'll simply contact my congressional representatives, and so will the rest of the people who care about the issue. There is such a thing as collective wisdom. This is the basic strength of our country, one which has sustained us for several turbulent centuries. Our political system gives us both stability and flexibility. This is what we mean when we're talking about democracy. This is what our presidents mean when they talk about the strength of democracy.
We don't feel powerful. In comparison to some other countries, of course, we are. But we're not the most populous country by a long shot. Look it up. Geographically, we're not the largest country. Look it up. We're not the largest economy by a long shot. Look that up. Our average income per citizen isn't the highest either. We don't have the best social program, which means that our citizens don't have as much individual security as those in some developed nations. We may maintain a large military force, but this stems from historical necessity and is a matter of meeting our responsibilities. We don't want to spend our money this way. We have real needs here at home, and spending all this money on other populations in other countries has always been controversial. We are the largest single contributor to AIDS programs in Africa, and that is a matter of responsibility as well.
America has always been militarily isolationist. Always. Our population didn't want to participate in World War I or II, but in the end we were drawn in. We have bases around the world because we took over a large part of the responsibility for defense of the countries we helped to defeat in World War II, not because we ever intended to dominate the world. We helped rebuild those countries with a massive infusion of foreign aid after World War II, because we thought desperate people would be likely to become subject to tyrants once more. In the end our people decided we needed to invest in peace and security around the world, so even as our veterans returned home and could not find jobs or housing, we sent money overseas.
It worked. The thriving economies of Japan and Germany show that. The constitutions we helped them implement allowed those peoples to develop their own economies and their own education systems. The problem was never with the people of those countries - it was with their ruling systems. In the end the Japanese and German economic miracles helped to lift the countries in their regions, and now the wealth of technical and business expertise that they possess can and will be used to help other developing countries. This is promising for the entire world.
Right now our people are suffering because of NAFTA. By dropping trade barriers we've accelerated the shift of our own manufacturing base to other countries. The same, of course, is happening in other developed countries like Germany, France and Japan. But even though this costs us jobs, we believe that in the long run dropping trade barriers will lead to the prosperity of other countries, and that it is an investment which will pay the world and us back over generations. Our current unemployment rate is 5.4%, which sounds good, but behind this statistic lies the reality that many of our traditional good-paying jobs have disappeared and a lot of hard-working people have less security now than they did twenty years ago. This didn't happen overnight. It is a long-term trend - but it is a big issue in this election.
The USA has always sacrificed the good of one generation to the next, and the good of our own people to that of the world. We've profited and grown strong by doing that, but it never seemed like that the outcome was assured while we were making those sacrifices. In part, we've done this because we are an immigrant people. There is virtually no area in America that doesn't have a lot of first-generation immigrants. Right now it's conservatively estimated that 18% of our population is foreign-born, and those who crunch the demographic numbers expect that percentage to increase to something close to 25% before it starts dropping again. By the standards of many cultures, we aren't a people at all, but a random conglomeration of ethnic driftwood.
But we are a people and a nation. America is strong because the people who live and work here believe in our nation. We believe in it when it hurts to believe in it. We believe in it when we're called to sacrifice ourselves for it. We believe in it because because so many of us have fled here to seek economic hope, freedom of religion or conscience, to escape tyranny, and to live under the rule of law instead of the whims of dictators. We believe in the founding principles of our nation because they have worked for us, generation after generation. We believe that those principles will work for other nations in which the people are suffering under oppressive political and economic situations.
When our presidents talk about freedom (and they all do), this is what they're talking about. It's the freedom to make decisions and the ability to share in the responsibility for making decisions about the future of our country.
We believed in Afghanistan, and we still do. We believe in the European Union, although we have a much better idea of just how hard it will be to achieve its promise than most of the Europeans did when they instituted it. It's difficult to integrate peoples of different political backgrounds, cultures, languages and regional economies. We have a lot of experience with that. It can be done. It's better than war. We believe you'll make it work.
Most of us believe in the future of Iraq, and in a few years many more of us will. We support the United Nations, although we think it should be more effective. An organization that is not prepared to truly address the massacres of millions in Rwanda or the current genocide in Sudan is not yet an organization that really believes in justice and mutual responsibility. But it will be. The US helped found the United Nations, and we will always support it. We won't support it in name only - we'll support the principles upon which it was founded. Eventually we believe those principles will prevail, because those principles of mutual responsibility, democracy and hope are the principles which have succeeded in countries around the world.
I'm going to explain what our presidents mean when they speak of patriotism (and they all do). They refer to the fact that our people are patriotic. They refer to the fact that we believe our founding principles will work for us, eventually, in precisely the proportion to which we live up to them. (The worst tragedies our people have ever faced have been the tragedies we inflicted upon ourselves with slavery, bigotry and racism.) They refer to the fact that our population is willing to sacrifice individually to work for a better future and more hope for more people, some of whom do not live in our nation.
They refer to the fact that our firefighters, policeman and bystanders ran toward the burning buildings to rescue rather than running away from them. In emergencies, we make common cause. They refer to the fact that when the UN shut down shop and left New York, our workers kept going into their offices. They refer to the fact that when our stock market crashed, our people kept investing in it.
These are not empty words or platitudes, and here's where I have to get really personal. One set of my grandparents were immigrants of German extraction. My grandfather was inducted into the German army when he was 17. In the wake of defeat he was caught up in the overwhelming domestic turmoil in that country, as all the political institutions collapsed, people continued to starve, and inflation and revolution swept Germany. He told stories about being paid with a wheelbarrow of currency which was not enough to buy a stick of butter. He told stories about bands of people leaving the cities at night to go out and dig for potatoes in farmers' fields, and about the farmers forming into bands and shooting at the raiders to protect the food meant for their own families. At one point he was almost summarily executed by a vigilante band.
My grandfather eventually made it to France, and met my grandmother there. They came to this country right before the Great Depression, and my father, their first child, was born in 1929. They suffered bitterly in poverty, because no work was available at all for men like my grandfather. When World War II started my grandfather was too old to be drafted, so he enlisted voluntarily and spent years in the Pacific. To the end of his life my grandfather was an American patriot, not because he ever grew rich in this country, but because he knew hope when he saw it. His children and grandchildren have college degrees and a better life. That's American patriotism.
The man with whom I share my life is a naturalized US citizen. He comes from a Central American country, and came here in his early twenties. He too tells stories of armed men lining up the villagers before ditches and shooting them. His grandfather escaped one of those mass executions very narrowly. I call him Chief No-Nag because he is partly Indian (not Asian, but one of those Central American tribes) and because he's sensitive about it; the Indians are discriminated against in his country. (And, of course, because he's a man and very sensitive to nagging.) When Chief No-Nag was sixteen the harvest failed, and he walked for over a day to find a village that had corn. The only corn he could find was partly rotten, but he bought a fifty pound bag of that corn and carried it back on foot. Eventually he got an advanced degree and had a very good job by his twenties, but he left all of that behind and started all over again when he reached this country.
He thinks the luckiest day of his life was the day he became an American citizen. These aren't empty words, either. He means them. In 2001 I was very ill, and unable to work. It was very possible that I would never be able to work again. Chief No-Nag had lost his job at the company for which he had worked for over twenty years. The company had become uncompetitive and shut down, and his entire industry was collapsing so he had little hope of finding another position. He is older than I, and the plight of the older worker in this market is a bad one. We weren't doing well at all, although we both had savings. We were living off of those savings, basically. He had exhausted his unemployment, and I was unwilling to apply for disability, because I believed I could make it back to being a productive human being, but not without the help of my own desperation.
In the wake of 9/11, we started to buy into the stock market with our savings. It was terrifying, but each time the market fell another 200 points I bought more stock, only to watch it be worth less the next day. Chief No-Nag was in agony, and I was so scared I would have started shaking if I hadn't already had occasional tremors. "We've got to do it," I told him. "We've got to. It's time to invest in America. These are all good companies. The foreigners are going to pull their money out. The big banks and pension funds will have to protect themselves. It's up to people like us. This country is all we've got. It's the only reason we have anything. We've got to do what we can now - if we don't these people will win." Chief No-Nag agreed, although he looked pretty white for a person with brown skin, and he couldn't sleep. So I kept it up. And I kept it up. And I just kept buying until the money ran out, although I couldn't sleep either.
Well, things were pretty tough around my house for quite a while. I thought the stock market would be suppressed for a decade, perhaps longer. Every one who seemed to know anything said that there would be additional attacks. But you know what? Osama flopped. The stock market gained back most of its value. I've already made a good profit off of those investments for Chief No-Nag, which is a good thing because he's retired now. Investing in America always works if you're looking for a long-term investment. In this case it worked as a short-term investment too.
Other people, you see, thought like Chief No-Nag and I did. Other people refused to be intimidated. Congress passed a tax package which favored business investment in this country. People joined the Armed Forces. People ran to help instead of running away from the problems. If all of Washington blew up tomorrow, I'd do exactly the same thing I did then. I'd invest in America, with whatever I had. Most of us will.
That's American patriotism. It is not an unthinking thing, or an uncritical thing, or a matter of blind loyalty. It's the net result of our accumulated experiences, which tell us that this country and its principles are the best thing we have found. So we fight huge battles internally about social justice and what the correct agenda is, and we are very conflicted about projecting our power overseas. But we're prepared to fight the battles we absolutely must in the world to defend our country, and we're prepared to defend our principles, which are that other peoples want the same hope and opportunity for themselves that we want for ourselves.
We believe that if they're given the faintest glimmer of hope they will chase it as hard as we chase our goals. We overwhelmingly reject the proposition that other peoples in other countries are somehow basically inferior to us or different than us. We know this because we have immigrant groups of these people in our country, and they're just like us. We know what desperation feels like, because it's what led many of us here, to this country. We know what hope feels like, because it still sustains us. We know what gives us hope. We know what will give other peoples hope.
That's American hope (and yes, all our presidents talk about it). The terrorists don't understand this, because they think we're strong, fat, complacent and secure. They think we can't stand insecurity and pressure. Osama thought he could inflict real damage on this country by shaking up the stock market and our economy. They think we won't risk our lives to defend our country.
We know we've always been fighting for our lives, one way or another. We know we're fighting tough battles every day and we can't afford to get complacent. We know we're going to win, one way or another, not because we're so strong, but because so many of us in this country have had the experience of being weak and threatened. We know when to start worrying, and what to do about it, and the experience of starting over is deeply embedded within our national psyche. We've got the flexibility and determination to do what we must. That's American hope - not wishful thinking but a sort of subconscious knowledge that striving will get you somewhere, and even if it's not quite where you wanted to be, it will still be a better place than you were before you put in the effort.
Chief No-Nag and I wish you all the best, no matter what country you live in. Thank you for reading and trying to understand the reality behind all the words. Thank you, America, for our lives and for our hope. Our thanks to all soldiers who defend us and our future. Our thanks to all of the citizens who are also worrying about the right course for this country and went out to the polls to vote their best opinions and their best guesses. Thanks to all of our allies, past, present and future. God bless you all.
Regardless of whether your candidate wins or not this week, there's no real reason to be upset about the outcome. On this Monday before election day, we already have enough data to know that an unusually large number of voters are participating in this election. That's good. Democracy works as long as we all care. Our country won't be defeated by external enemies - it will go down when a majority of people stop caring about it and believing in it. That hasn't happened. It's not going to happen in my lifetime.
After you've cast your vote, you might want to make an effort to thank the first soldier you see for defending the privilege and honor you just exercised. Those in the Armed Forces and the National Guard have risen nobly to the challenges they've faced over the last few years. Not only that, but our young people are still joining up at a time when they know they'll face action, and many reservists and people who were totally out of the Armed Forces rejoined after 9/11. Immigrants who aren't even American citizens yet have joined.
I think we should all remember what they're doing for us. I think we should all honor that. I think we should all pause to realize just what that has meant to them and their families. I think we should all keep that in our minds before we demand spending on our own particular social programs. Some will die to protect you and me, and some will come back maimed for life. Before we start asking for help for ourselves, let's make sure that they and their families are being taken care of adequately and that they have good equipment and excellent weapons when they're out in the field.
You might also want to thank the next police officer you see. They've been pushed hard to deal with the extra security measures that were needed after 9/11. They will be. They need extra funding to do their jobs, and that means more tax dollars allocated to them. It's a good investment.
I've noticed from looking at the domains on Site Meter that quite a few foreigners have at least glanced at this blog, and I have a few words to say to them. If you live in Europe, or Asia, you probably believe that American patriotism is a jingoistic affair. You probably believe that our patriotism is a matter of "we're better than they are" and "America is the best country". You may even believe that we're a country of narrow-minded, provincial, self-absorbed, rich, uncaring, environment-destroying, platitude-hurling fools recklessly exercising supreme power. You believe that because this is what you read in the press. They haven't gotten it right.
Let me explain what American democracy, patriotism, freedom and hope really are, if you have the patience to read the explanation.
Democracy is a wonderful thing, because it means that I don't have to be right all the time. My responsibility is to make the best, most reasonable decision I can and then vote that decision. If I'm wrong, millions of people will correct my error, and when things get really difficult I take comfort in that knowledge. It's a lot harder to be a dictator or live under one. The dictator ruling a country, or a movement, must make the decisions and be right all the time. If he's not, his country or movement loses.
Because I live in a democracy, my choices and my opportunity to be heard don't end tomorrow. If I disagree with the policies of the next president, I'll simply contact my congressional representatives, and so will the rest of the people who care about the issue. There is such a thing as collective wisdom. This is the basic strength of our country, one which has sustained us for several turbulent centuries. Our political system gives us both stability and flexibility. This is what we mean when we're talking about democracy. This is what our presidents mean when they talk about the strength of democracy.
We don't feel powerful. In comparison to some other countries, of course, we are. But we're not the most populous country by a long shot. Look it up. Geographically, we're not the largest country. Look it up. We're not the largest economy by a long shot. Look that up. Our average income per citizen isn't the highest either. We don't have the best social program, which means that our citizens don't have as much individual security as those in some developed nations. We may maintain a large military force, but this stems from historical necessity and is a matter of meeting our responsibilities. We don't want to spend our money this way. We have real needs here at home, and spending all this money on other populations in other countries has always been controversial. We are the largest single contributor to AIDS programs in Africa, and that is a matter of responsibility as well.
America has always been militarily isolationist. Always. Our population didn't want to participate in World War I or II, but in the end we were drawn in. We have bases around the world because we took over a large part of the responsibility for defense of the countries we helped to defeat in World War II, not because we ever intended to dominate the world. We helped rebuild those countries with a massive infusion of foreign aid after World War II, because we thought desperate people would be likely to become subject to tyrants once more. In the end our people decided we needed to invest in peace and security around the world, so even as our veterans returned home and could not find jobs or housing, we sent money overseas.
It worked. The thriving economies of Japan and Germany show that. The constitutions we helped them implement allowed those peoples to develop their own economies and their own education systems. The problem was never with the people of those countries - it was with their ruling systems. In the end the Japanese and German economic miracles helped to lift the countries in their regions, and now the wealth of technical and business expertise that they possess can and will be used to help other developing countries. This is promising for the entire world.
Right now our people are suffering because of NAFTA. By dropping trade barriers we've accelerated the shift of our own manufacturing base to other countries. The same, of course, is happening in other developed countries like Germany, France and Japan. But even though this costs us jobs, we believe that in the long run dropping trade barriers will lead to the prosperity of other countries, and that it is an investment which will pay the world and us back over generations. Our current unemployment rate is 5.4%, which sounds good, but behind this statistic lies the reality that many of our traditional good-paying jobs have disappeared and a lot of hard-working people have less security now than they did twenty years ago. This didn't happen overnight. It is a long-term trend - but it is a big issue in this election.
The USA has always sacrificed the good of one generation to the next, and the good of our own people to that of the world. We've profited and grown strong by doing that, but it never seemed like that the outcome was assured while we were making those sacrifices. In part, we've done this because we are an immigrant people. There is virtually no area in America that doesn't have a lot of first-generation immigrants. Right now it's conservatively estimated that 18% of our population is foreign-born, and those who crunch the demographic numbers expect that percentage to increase to something close to 25% before it starts dropping again. By the standards of many cultures, we aren't a people at all, but a random conglomeration of ethnic driftwood.
But we are a people and a nation. America is strong because the people who live and work here believe in our nation. We believe in it when it hurts to believe in it. We believe in it when we're called to sacrifice ourselves for it. We believe in it because because so many of us have fled here to seek economic hope, freedom of religion or conscience, to escape tyranny, and to live under the rule of law instead of the whims of dictators. We believe in the founding principles of our nation because they have worked for us, generation after generation. We believe that those principles will work for other nations in which the people are suffering under oppressive political and economic situations.
When our presidents talk about freedom (and they all do), this is what they're talking about. It's the freedom to make decisions and the ability to share in the responsibility for making decisions about the future of our country.
We believed in Afghanistan, and we still do. We believe in the European Union, although we have a much better idea of just how hard it will be to achieve its promise than most of the Europeans did when they instituted it. It's difficult to integrate peoples of different political backgrounds, cultures, languages and regional economies. We have a lot of experience with that. It can be done. It's better than war. We believe you'll make it work.
Most of us believe in the future of Iraq, and in a few years many more of us will. We support the United Nations, although we think it should be more effective. An organization that is not prepared to truly address the massacres of millions in Rwanda or the current genocide in Sudan is not yet an organization that really believes in justice and mutual responsibility. But it will be. The US helped found the United Nations, and we will always support it. We won't support it in name only - we'll support the principles upon which it was founded. Eventually we believe those principles will prevail, because those principles of mutual responsibility, democracy and hope are the principles which have succeeded in countries around the world.
I'm going to explain what our presidents mean when they speak of patriotism (and they all do). They refer to the fact that our people are patriotic. They refer to the fact that we believe our founding principles will work for us, eventually, in precisely the proportion to which we live up to them. (The worst tragedies our people have ever faced have been the tragedies we inflicted upon ourselves with slavery, bigotry and racism.) They refer to the fact that our population is willing to sacrifice individually to work for a better future and more hope for more people, some of whom do not live in our nation.
They refer to the fact that our firefighters, policeman and bystanders ran toward the burning buildings to rescue rather than running away from them. In emergencies, we make common cause. They refer to the fact that when the UN shut down shop and left New York, our workers kept going into their offices. They refer to the fact that when our stock market crashed, our people kept investing in it.
These are not empty words or platitudes, and here's where I have to get really personal. One set of my grandparents were immigrants of German extraction. My grandfather was inducted into the German army when he was 17. In the wake of defeat he was caught up in the overwhelming domestic turmoil in that country, as all the political institutions collapsed, people continued to starve, and inflation and revolution swept Germany. He told stories about being paid with a wheelbarrow of currency which was not enough to buy a stick of butter. He told stories about bands of people leaving the cities at night to go out and dig for potatoes in farmers' fields, and about the farmers forming into bands and shooting at the raiders to protect the food meant for their own families. At one point he was almost summarily executed by a vigilante band.
My grandfather eventually made it to France, and met my grandmother there. They came to this country right before the Great Depression, and my father, their first child, was born in 1929. They suffered bitterly in poverty, because no work was available at all for men like my grandfather. When World War II started my grandfather was too old to be drafted, so he enlisted voluntarily and spent years in the Pacific. To the end of his life my grandfather was an American patriot, not because he ever grew rich in this country, but because he knew hope when he saw it. His children and grandchildren have college degrees and a better life. That's American patriotism.
The man with whom I share my life is a naturalized US citizen. He comes from a Central American country, and came here in his early twenties. He too tells stories of armed men lining up the villagers before ditches and shooting them. His grandfather escaped one of those mass executions very narrowly. I call him Chief No-Nag because he is partly Indian (not Asian, but one of those Central American tribes) and because he's sensitive about it; the Indians are discriminated against in his country. (And, of course, because he's a man and very sensitive to nagging.) When Chief No-Nag was sixteen the harvest failed, and he walked for over a day to find a village that had corn. The only corn he could find was partly rotten, but he bought a fifty pound bag of that corn and carried it back on foot. Eventually he got an advanced degree and had a very good job by his twenties, but he left all of that behind and started all over again when he reached this country.
He thinks the luckiest day of his life was the day he became an American citizen. These aren't empty words, either. He means them. In 2001 I was very ill, and unable to work. It was very possible that I would never be able to work again. Chief No-Nag had lost his job at the company for which he had worked for over twenty years. The company had become uncompetitive and shut down, and his entire industry was collapsing so he had little hope of finding another position. He is older than I, and the plight of the older worker in this market is a bad one. We weren't doing well at all, although we both had savings. We were living off of those savings, basically. He had exhausted his unemployment, and I was unwilling to apply for disability, because I believed I could make it back to being a productive human being, but not without the help of my own desperation.
In the wake of 9/11, we started to buy into the stock market with our savings. It was terrifying, but each time the market fell another 200 points I bought more stock, only to watch it be worth less the next day. Chief No-Nag was in agony, and I was so scared I would have started shaking if I hadn't already had occasional tremors. "We've got to do it," I told him. "We've got to. It's time to invest in America. These are all good companies. The foreigners are going to pull their money out. The big banks and pension funds will have to protect themselves. It's up to people like us. This country is all we've got. It's the only reason we have anything. We've got to do what we can now - if we don't these people will win." Chief No-Nag agreed, although he looked pretty white for a person with brown skin, and he couldn't sleep. So I kept it up. And I kept it up. And I just kept buying until the money ran out, although I couldn't sleep either.
Well, things were pretty tough around my house for quite a while. I thought the stock market would be suppressed for a decade, perhaps longer. Every one who seemed to know anything said that there would be additional attacks. But you know what? Osama flopped. The stock market gained back most of its value. I've already made a good profit off of those investments for Chief No-Nag, which is a good thing because he's retired now. Investing in America always works if you're looking for a long-term investment. In this case it worked as a short-term investment too.
Other people, you see, thought like Chief No-Nag and I did. Other people refused to be intimidated. Congress passed a tax package which favored business investment in this country. People joined the Armed Forces. People ran to help instead of running away from the problems. If all of Washington blew up tomorrow, I'd do exactly the same thing I did then. I'd invest in America, with whatever I had. Most of us will.
That's American patriotism. It is not an unthinking thing, or an uncritical thing, or a matter of blind loyalty. It's the net result of our accumulated experiences, which tell us that this country and its principles are the best thing we have found. So we fight huge battles internally about social justice and what the correct agenda is, and we are very conflicted about projecting our power overseas. But we're prepared to fight the battles we absolutely must in the world to defend our country, and we're prepared to defend our principles, which are that other peoples want the same hope and opportunity for themselves that we want for ourselves.
We believe that if they're given the faintest glimmer of hope they will chase it as hard as we chase our goals. We overwhelmingly reject the proposition that other peoples in other countries are somehow basically inferior to us or different than us. We know this because we have immigrant groups of these people in our country, and they're just like us. We know what desperation feels like, because it's what led many of us here, to this country. We know what hope feels like, because it still sustains us. We know what gives us hope. We know what will give other peoples hope.
That's American hope (and yes, all our presidents talk about it). The terrorists don't understand this, because they think we're strong, fat, complacent and secure. They think we can't stand insecurity and pressure. Osama thought he could inflict real damage on this country by shaking up the stock market and our economy. They think we won't risk our lives to defend our country.
We know we've always been fighting for our lives, one way or another. We know we're fighting tough battles every day and we can't afford to get complacent. We know we're going to win, one way or another, not because we're so strong, but because so many of us in this country have had the experience of being weak and threatened. We know when to start worrying, and what to do about it, and the experience of starting over is deeply embedded within our national psyche. We've got the flexibility and determination to do what we must. That's American hope - not wishful thinking but a sort of subconscious knowledge that striving will get you somewhere, and even if it's not quite where you wanted to be, it will still be a better place than you were before you put in the effort.
Chief No-Nag and I wish you all the best, no matter what country you live in. Thank you for reading and trying to understand the reality behind all the words. Thank you, America, for our lives and for our hope. Our thanks to all soldiers who defend us and our future. Our thanks to all of the citizens who are also worrying about the right course for this country and went out to the polls to vote their best opinions and their best guesses. Thanks to all of our allies, past, present and future. God bless you all.
Comments:
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Kingfish - Glad to hear you're back! I've been checking your blog and wondering if you were okay, or out rousting out voters in a dedicated fashion.
Shannon - You're right, it was heartfelt. We'll have to pull behind whoever gets elected. Yes, I have my own opinions, but I could be wrong. I think some on both sides have lost sight of the larger issues here.
Thank you both for reading, and for your comments. I wondered if anyone would even read this because it's so long. Take care.
Shannon - You're right, it was heartfelt. We'll have to pull behind whoever gets elected. Yes, I have my own opinions, but I could be wrong. I think some on both sides have lost sight of the larger issues here.
Thank you both for reading, and for your comments. I wondered if anyone would even read this because it's so long. Take care.
Awesome post. It's true that to a large degree, Americans are a self-selecting people, and we take not just the brightest and the best, but the tired, poor, and wretched. We love our country, and we'll work together to make it better.
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In The Middle,
You're about GDP as country. I've gotten in the habit of thinking of the EU as a country since they adopted a common currency and now a constitution. If you consider the EU as a unit, they have the largest world economy measured by GDP. If you don't, the US does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union
I had fun looking that up! I must be getting wonky in my old age. There are other measures of economic activity than GDP, and I have seen some statistics somewhere that put both India and China ahead of us using a different economic measure. But I can't find them or remember what it was called. That was an older number, and I bet now if those calculations were done the EU would be on top there too. It's massive.
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You're about GDP as country. I've gotten in the habit of thinking of the EU as a country since they adopted a common currency and now a constitution. If you consider the EU as a unit, they have the largest world economy measured by GDP. If you don't, the US does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union
I had fun looking that up! I must be getting wonky in my old age. There are other measures of economic activity than GDP, and I have seen some statistics somewhere that put both India and China ahead of us using a different economic measure. But I can't find them or remember what it was called. That was an older number, and I bet now if those calculations were done the EU would be on top there too. It's massive.
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