“Today seems different somehow and I think I know why. When I look out across the country today, I see just as many divisions as there have ever been in American political life. We are fragmented into interest groups, divided by ideology and culture. But for me there isn’t one interest group in America today, be they blacks, Latinos, gays and lesbians, unions, or Tea Partiers that I distrust as much as I distrust my own government.”
Eleven years later not much has changed about this sentiment. Losing faith in the institutions of power in America has done nothing to dampen my love of country. That might sound like a contradiction, but I don’t think it is. America can’t be defined solely by our government. Are we the people at least partially responsible for that deterioration of faith? Yes. After all, we elected these people. Many of us couldn’t be bothered to vote in that local school board election, then wake up appalled that some Maoist crackpot is suddenly writing curriculum. The abdication of civic responsibility by far too many of us has brought us to this sorry state of governance. So, given all the failure running amok in America today, why do I still love her?
Largely because this place has afforded me, a kid who came into this world with nothing, to reach for anything I wanted in this life. It gave me opportunities to improve myself. It provided me a quality public school education, that I only took partial advantage of because of youthful indifference and laziness, but still, I graduated able to read and write, do mathematics, and as a result of the tireless efforts of my devoted teachers, I understood my place in the world. When I attended college, there were plenty of jobs available in a robust private sector which allowed me to work my way through even while taking out loans. There were obstacles in my path at every turn, but I had within me the power to overcome them in no small part because of the foundation laid in my brain by loving parents and tough-minded teachers with inflexibly high standards, teachers who simply would not except anything less from me than my best.
As a grown man I am able to live in a beautiful, peaceful neighborhood filled with families from all over the country and around the world. When there is a party, a summer celebration, a Fourth of July parade, or a Labor Day picnic…they all come. We gather in a culdesac together and catch up. Pam and I watch the little kids and dogs running wild and consider ourselves among the luckiest people in the world. Do we even understand how rare this is in human history? How many societies or civilizations have been built, let alone endured, based on a country made up of people from everywhere united as one people? All of us, all Americans came here from someplace else at some point. The fact that we have survived—this idea—has survived is miraculous.
It hasn’t been easy, and it seems to be getting harder with every passing year as we subdivide ourselves, as we wall ourselves apart from each other. Instead of one nation, we seem to be drifting into tribes, an anthropological category with a troubled and violent history. But if we are to preserve our country, we will have to find a way to overcome what divides us and replace it with a concept of the common good that has always united us. Equal justice before the law, opportunity for anyone and everyone willing to work for it, and the personal freedoms guaranteed by our Bill of Rights. These are the things that hold America together. Each generation has to work to see to it that we live up to the best of our ideals. When we do there is nothing that America cannot accomplish.
So, I still love this place, the great big mess of a place we call America. I want to be among those who are willing to work to insure that she survives.
What we lack politically at this point in history is “the Great Compromiser”, Henry Clay.
ReplyDeleteWell said
ReplyDeleteYou’re right. But today “compromise” has become an epitaph.
ReplyDelete