On American Exceptionalism

-Two-hundred-thirty-five years ago, during a sickeningly humid summer in Philadelphia, then the largest city in the swath of the British-controlled central North American continent, a group of men from all along that coastal stretch adopted a resolution. These men came from many backgrounds-one was a lawyer from eastern Massachusetts, one a publisher and prolific inventor who called Philadelphia home-the closest thing to a celebrity in that day-one a plantation owner and legislator from Virginia. Their chairman was a wealthy smuggler from Boston. Their resolution was aimed at the most powerful head of state in the world-George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and listed the offenses and grievances the King-through the appointed officials ruling in his name-had committed against his peoples in this territory. The resolution also stated that, because of this, the people were revoking their consent to be governed by the King, and would be creating a government of their own to rule the land. The name of the new nation, to which these men pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their Sacred Honor, was to be known as the United States of America.

-History has assured us that we are quite well aware of the end result of all this. Those thirteen ragtag colonies-cum-states were joined by thirty-seven more at the top of the promontory of the world.The United States became, and very much still is, the Shining City on the Hill. And as July 4th comes around every year, it is important to be reminded of this-especially this year, as many who have truly been blessed to live here seem to be losing sight of both their birthright and their obligation.

-A recent poll announced that a majority of wealthy Americans have a pessimistic outlook regarding their future in this country. It is very disconcerting when the people in this country who are, in effect, the engines of the nation's livelihood, feel their children will not have a better standard of living than they themselves currently have. Since the first settlers arrived at Virginia's shores more than four hundred years ago, this has been the American Dream: Work hard, get rich, leave this world knowing your children will have a better life than you did. For so long, this is what motivated people to come to our country. In some ways, it's what motivated more than a few of us to go elsewhere around this world and share our gift, whether the recipients wanted it or not.

-I feel there is a sense of fear of our decline, and that it will come from the outside. Nervous eyes dart to the People's Republic of China in particular. The worry is that the Chinese, with many of their younger generation going throughout the world seeking higher education, their currency manipulation, their accelerated military development, and their buying up U.S. debt-along with real-estate and corporate investments-has some panicked that the Chinese will overwhelm the United States. This is nonsense. Need I remind you that we have experienced this "Yellow Peril" some twenty-five years before with Japan? And what happened? Nothing. The Japanese spending habits went too far, and the Japanese payed for it economically in the nineties-in fact, they continued to pay for it ten years after the fact due to demographics. The same thing will happen with the Chinese: they will become overconfident in their economic strength and their supports will collapse under their own weight. Add to it: the PRC is a communist, militaristic nation that is spending astronomical sums of money to develop a military that is, at the minimum, technologically on par with our own and has been actively practicing censorship, suppression, and subversion. If and when Beijing suffers their own economic slowdown, it is the Politburo who should be worried: there will be an educated young populace that is trying harder and harder-and succeeding-in listening to things the Chinese government doesn't want them to hear waiting to throw Mao's Little Red Book back at them...

-No, if our trouble is anywhere, it comes from within. To put this as briefly as I can: the reason for America's "downturn" is due to complacency and attempts to inculcate We the People with what can be mildly described as a defeatist attitude. Our attitude towards the wealthy is very indicative of the former. It is human nature to be envious towards those who are more successful than us. It has existed since Cain slew Abel in a fit of envious rage. But part of the idea of the American Dream is that we take this impulse and we turn it towards a positive end-we work hard to achieve what we want. Bear in mind, of course, when the United States came into being, there was no other way. You could hate the rich six ways to Sunday, as the saying goes, but all that got you was cold and starving. You had to work just to survive-so why not work harder to make the best out of your situation? Try and make life easier for your children, because you love them and don't want them to suffer the same hardships you did. More than two hundred years later-isn't it obvious that even if you're poor in America, life is still good by any universal standard? To make a mocking joke-where else in the world are the poor people overweight?

-Our refusal as a people to work for ourselves to improve any deficiencies we perceive in our condition is to blame. Not some isolated, odious individual who incurred our ire. Everybody got furious at Bernard Madoff after his Ponzi scheme came crashing down around him. They had a right to, Mr. Madoff played on the trust of many people and stole their money. But I worry that we secretly relish times like this-when some wealthy man comes down in a fraud scandal during an economic slowdown. It becomes frightfully easy to shift responsibility to him (or her). Which is half the problem with our beloved land: we refuse to assume responsibility for our livelihood. Too many people would rather take riches from people who still work for them and expend it all on their quest for immediate gratification. Whether we think we're doing it or not, we already are doing this through our out-of-control entitlements system. We'd rather cruise and collect on Social Security than actually save money while we have (or had) the chance so we could be self-sufficient in our retirement. And we seem to be collectively ignoring that the consequence of this is that the next generation-my generation-will pay dearly for the loafing of the Baby Boomers on the government dole. We won't have  a retirement fund because we will never be able to stop working (note how this pessimistic language manages to seep down into my own treatise-this is supposed to be patriotic and uplifting. So much for that).

-Self-reliance and self-sufficiency defined the American character. It is what made this country so appealing to the world in times past and, even today, makes it the envy of the world. We have got the best this life can offer and everybody knows it. Except ourselves. We seem to be wedded to this idea that we should try to make as many nations of the world like us. The political elite currently running the country certainly seems to think so-note the deferential talk to our allies in Europe, our empty posturing to Africa, and our kowtowing to belligerent states the world over. This is not the America we should strive to be. In the grand scheme of things, is it important that the French public approve of our foreign policy? Would Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahdmenijiad, Kim Jong-il, and Mummar Ghadaffi do what we want them to do if we try the back-away-from-the-bully approach? Does the world gain anything from the United States lowering herself to it's level?

-NO. It does not.

-Lowering oneself a level implies an inherent downgrade. And seeking to reduce America's status so that the world can feel more comfortable putting her as an equal is a bad thing. This means a weaker America. The world at large likes a weak America because this enables the world to meddle with America. It must give the government of Iran sick glee to know that America has the economic, military, and philosophical might to rain down and brutally crush them, as they did with the Nazis, yet cannot use it because she hamstrings herself.

-Some of this nonsense no doubt comes from the anti-imperialist mindset that permeates through America's universities and political elite. Today's history student is taught that American and European colonization of lands far and away in Africa, Asia, and Oceania, is to be regarded with disdain because it was all done in the name of genocide and oppression by men living in a country founded on a lie. What is the lie? All men are created equal. That seminal line from the Declaration of Independence has been subject to what can only be described as a campaign of defamation by historical revisionists-chief among them, I'm sorry to say, feminists and black enthnocentrists. They claim that because there is no reference to women and that slavery continued to exist after the nation came into being, that the claim that all men are created equal is fallacious. Ignorance of history is a mighty ally. The truth behind that lie is that Thomas Jefferson, the original author, wanted to abolish the practice right then and there. We know that he had philosophical allies in his two fellow editors, John Adams, who had a Puritan Northerner's disdain for the practice (He once received a slave as a wedding gift and immediately freed the woman), and Benjamin Franklin, the kindhearted and notable Pennsylvanian. But the line that would have condemned slavery was ultimately excised so as not to offend Southern delegates who considered slavery too important to their financial situation. It is also important to remember that the Constitution, authored and ratified eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, included language to abolish the slave trade by 1808 (which did happen). Slavery may well have died a natural death if not for the economic and political rivalry between North and South. For all the claims that we continue to be a racist nation, it is important to remember that we rid ourselves of the damned institution earlier than most other nations. Also, the only nation in the world where black and white intermingle (much of the western world) that elected a black man or woman to it's highest office before we did (at least among those that come to mind, I'm aware I may be ignoring the island nations of the Caribbean and the Pacific) was the Republic of South Africa (it should be noted that Nelson Mandela benefitted from his status as a political prisoner of the apartheid era in a majority-black nation).

-To get back to the main point, we are taught to frown on the imperialist movement. We seem to base this almost solely on the fact that bad and painful things happened to the native population of the lands colonized. Tragic? Yes. Murder is murder. But ask yourself these questions: Were these lands really better off without western influence? And would they have persisted if they had only made passive contact with the outside world? I say the answer is no on both counts. Take India for example. Historically, a mighty nation. But the India of the sixteenth century would have been eaten alive if it existed in the modern world-provided, of course, the modern world had the stomach to endure the brutality it would encounter. Critics are right to condemn the British efforts to ignore self-determination. But India is better off for having had the British in charge for so long in the first place. The world's largest democracy is more tolerant of different peoples because of it, and has also been blessed with numerous native English speakers and a developing capitalist economy (after decades-long experimentation with socialism failed) that has now turned the country into a world power. Even Dr. Manmohan Singh, India's Prime Minister, has stated that his countrymen (and the world) should give their old imperialist overlords a little more credit.

-Likewise, we look to America's own somewhat-inadvertent forays into this field:Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq has her democracy, baptized in blood and fire. Mistrust and confusion between the disparate groups still exists on a large scale, but there is hope yet. The nation's youth and Iraq's own history as a hub on trade routes suggest that the fire of freedom will burn bright between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

-Afghanistan is different. The land has little historical development as an independent entity, and the peoples populating it have a longstanding isolation and distrust of each other, not to mention anyone else. It has been difficult because the American forces in the area are part of a minimal commitment and, quite simply, are trying to do too much. The people of Afghanistan need to try and figure out how to make this western civilization thing work.

-As challenging and troubling as that sounds, remember that there can be no going back. One cannot go lower than the bottom-and yet, there the Taliban resides. I have made it no secret that I regard with disdain my fellow Americans who feel that we should not look at our culture or way of life as superior to that of anyone else (such a philosophy seems familiar as of late in Washington). I point to the Taliban as the ultimate evidence that such arguments are not only wrongheaded and ignorant, but dangerous: when one refers to the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan during the nineties, one uses 'government' as a term of convenience rather than fact: what government? There was none. All the Taliban seemed capable of doing was killing people who didn't ascribe to their backwards, pseudoreligious cult worldview and harboring like-minded individuals. We know how that turned out. Which at the very minimum is why we cannot allow Afghanistan to regress.

-Changing a culture takes time. When a people are particularly isolated and surrounded on all sides by belligerents who are adept at playing on their fears, the process is naturally difficult. But we cannot afford to give up "bringing civilization." because it is difficult. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the world. And we need to recognize this.

-Rudyard Kipling, the English short story author and poet, is particularly reviled amongst the anti-imperialists for his poetry. Take, for instance, The White Man's Burden. The title alone seems offensive to some. But this was no celebration of wanton destruction of indigenous tribes in lands distant. Rather, it was intended as an admonishment of President William McKinley's imperialization efforts in the Philippines. Kipling, an Englishman born in India and a longtime resident of Vermont, knew better than anyone else the effects, causes, and consequences of imperialism. And we are right to see him as it's advocate. Kipling was an imperialist. But he was one because he saw it as an obligation. To quote P.J. O' Rourke, Kipling saw civilization-the western way of life we sought to bring to the world at the turn of the twentieth century-as God's will. A civilized world was a free world, and a free world is a better world.

-Which brings me back to my point. We as Americans have Freedom and Our Dream. These are our birthright-ours to claim, having been won by our ancestors in battle and exploration over the years. They are also our obligation. When America posted herself as that Shining City on the Hill, the world rose with her. Through our quest to forever improve ourselves through our embrace of liberty, justice, and hard work, we became an example. France, one of the biggest sponsors of the American war effort, was heavily motivated by the American Revolution when they, too, turned on their King. Many early Americans were also supportive of the French Revolution (though it should be noted that both these things essentially evaporated once the French Revolution devolved into Jacobin experimentation with Rousseauism and the guillotine). An America that intends to become one more like the world is an America that has given up. One that refuses not just her dominant role in the world, but also her unique position. The ultimate consequence is surrendering the notion that the free way-the American Way-is not special, and not good. The price paid for that is a comfortable psychological slavery for us-slaves to the winds of world opinion. For oppressed peoples the world over, the consequences might be a little more painful and a little more visceral.

-Can I prevent this singlehandedly? No. Will I permit it? Absolutely not. I will choose to honor my birthright and fulfill my obligations as an American by remembering that this land of ours, and the creed that weds us to it, is not just something Exceptional-it truly is a gift from God. And we do it no justice by disavowing it simply so some tinpot dictator or some pretentious social democrat from Europe will stop giving us the evil eye at the next meeting of the United Nations Secretariat. Let them. If they were in our position-and they wish it, every last one of them-they would do the same things we do. But they are not in our position, and they never will be. Because only America can embody American Ideals. Others can only emulate.

-I am a soldier. I serve my country every day. I'm about as committed to the cause as you can get. But you don't need to go to such extremes to do the Right Thing. Simply be proud-and thankful-to be an American. Know that you are special. Understand why. Don't get arrogant about it-realize that the power we have should be tendered out of obligation, not ambition. Study your history and study it thoroughly. Do not pass up an opportunity to call a revisionist or a disparager on their nonsense. Remember that we are supposed to be an example to the World, not merely a part of it. And above all, be that example.

-God Bless America, God Bless You, and Happy Independence Day.

Originally published on 4 July 2011