Because I feel like it.....
The Constitution being read in Congress? Why is this such an issue? The Pledge of Allegiance in our schools? The Ten Commandments on a courthouse step?
America has come a long way down a road that should frustrate and anger the average American. I'm pissed. This nation has had three grand missions since 1776. Part of each mission was by design and partly just by sheer inevitability because of the direction. Our first mission was to crush empires. Whether out of self preservation, association, or by direct intent, the U.S. has seen 11 empires across the world fall. It began with the French in the Plains of Abraham where we proved that modern empire could fall. Then we conquered the question of the political and economic rights of man against the British in our War of Independence. We then cut the Mexican empire in half. The Spanish-American War was the first venture abroad against an empire and we not only removed them from their horribly abused colonies, but destroyed them as an empire. World War was a Europan civil affair of which we eventually took part. The fall of Germany's Second Reich, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire was made possible because we stopped the Germans at Belleau Wood just north of Paris. (Don't let Europeans today fool you, it was the Americans that allowed the Entente to get their second wind and guaranteed Central Power destruction.) The U.S. saved the world from absolute tyranny with the Second World War (another European civil affair). While Russia burdened most of the casualties, it was America that bank rolled most of the allied cost. We (alnog with other English speaking nations) decided the outcome with our eventual military participation in the west at Normandy. We destroyed the Japanese empire largely alone and was a central focus for the destruction of Nazi Germany and it's Italian puppy. With Russia remaining to be the last hold out, representing human subjugation and oppression, the U.S. once again faced off to withstand and emerge victorious to the applause of the entire free world. In 1989 we emerged as the lone super power to a world exhausted from defeated colonialism, fascism, and socialism and full of uncertainty. The price of which is that we have fallen into the British trap of believing, along with the world, that we have to be involved with every crisis and event. We do not. Most people like to think that the world's governments protested taking out Saddam Hussein because they are dictator lovers or anti-American. The truth is that history has proven that absolute power in government has scarred the world time and again. They are petrified of an American power that can do whatever it wants without their consent. But their fears are based on ignorance and their own weaknesses. I will explain after the next paragraph when I present our third historical mission.
Our second mission has been to create the world's first and only universal nation. We are a nation of immigrants. We are made up of all colors, races, and cultures, and we live and work together in almost absolute harmony. It is true that we have spent centuries looking down upon immigrants, especially when the Italian, Chinese, the Irish, etc. came over in waves. But ethnic cleansing between the tribes have never been tolerated and a plethora of programs have evolved and evolved to accomodate. A quick reminder (sometimes painful) that so called "true" Americans were also the products of immigrants was always enough to back the bigotry down and allow Americans to do what they do best - assimilate to each other. An often over looked absolute when it comes time for people to boast on American prosperity and forward movement is immigration. We can see quite clearly the populations around the world that have monopolies on such things like religion, culture, and so on. These civilizations stagnate to worse or less degrees from each other. However, immigration introduces new and fresh ideas into a civilization. It frees the society from conventional and traditional concrete bases, which allows it to grow. And given the journey one must make to bring a family across the ocean to the "new land," we generally receive the most intelligent, educated, hard working, and open minded. This is imperative to growth.
Our third mission has been to globalize the world. Since the end of World War 2, the entire world has been leaning towards the American ideal. Has anybody heard any body in the world speak of their quest to achieve the Russian or Chinese dream? Hollywood became the window to American life for the outside world. Andthis wasn't forced upon them. They wanted American products, culture, and prescriptions. They invited us. It was only after they began to realize that they were losing their own sense of local traditions that they became to accuse the "imperial" America of dastardly doings (and this always began with the rhetoric of the snobbish local elite.) This all began with the American Dream. Before the "American Dream" there was the "English Way of Life" copied throughout the world. We entered an English speaking world thanks to the British and the dollar became the envy of all economies. America was the most powerful nation in the world when it proposed the creation of the League of Nations (our mistake was not leading it and expecting Europeans to rise to the occasion). And after World War II, when America's power was unmatched in history, we created the United Nations. We launched the world's key international organizations. We created the Bretton Woods system of international economic cooperation. It was our Marhall Plan. Countries throughout the world have become more open, market friendly, and democratic because of our path. We have proven time and again that we alone can be responsible with our power (international fears of an unchecked America nuking the globe and invading them need to be placed into perspective.) Maybe this is a source of some of their resentments? After all, we have never used our power to start world wars, engineer ethnic cleansing or genocide, or dominate our neighbors. But they have and would again.
For most of the 20th century, America embraced international cooperation not out of fear and vulnerability but out of confidence and strength. Our military is far from being our ownly deep and broad power. We continue to retain considerable ability to set the agenda and thereby retain legitimacy with regard to what constitutes a problem in the world. American ideals still dominate global affairs. But this is largely due to our society and history. We don't have radicalized elements because we have welcomed immigration and not created an environment of hostility where they band together to defend and defy. We do not have religious wars, because we have no "holy land" and no established government religion to create unhealthy competition for souls.
But who represents us today? A Democratic Party entirely focused on achieving their impractical dreams of utoipia at all costs? A Republican Party entirely focused on concreting every past mistake as a recipe for our future? A so called Tea Party that doesn't even understand it's own rhetoric and absurd sense of superiority? And who cares what an independent has to say because he'll just get black balled by the other parties anyway so that only their brand of corruption and stagnation can persevere. Our current representation in Washington is not worthy of leading our agenda. We are a nation that began to hunker down after 9/11. We have developed a national fear of the outside and internal world. And this isn't because of one President. Politicians on both sides have stood in front of microphones and announced Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Queda, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. as if it is a single organization staring straight at the average American (similar mistakes were made during the Cold War). Ignorant commentators on CNN and FOX have been quite loud on their opinions of the sinister forces that are overwhleming us from the outside and within our government. They (along with their European masters) would have you believe that we are on the decline because China is on the rise. (But the truth is that they are simply in the game now and we have to accept that we are no longer the lone player.) Illegal immigration has become a national obsession as if immigration is something new and some how it's going to bring our nation down (racists love legitimizing their hatreds to unreasonable fears). GITMO became the political tool of Washington to agree with the world that we are the new Nazi Germany despite only 4 individuals on record for being waterboarded. Whether the subject is trade, terrorism, immigration, or internationalism of any kind, our political representation's answer is to cocoon or to run in circles with their heads cut off.....but NEVER just sitting back and reflecting on the fact that their great nation has already developed all the answers.
Our universal nation is beginning to forget its past and allowing outside opinions and fears to dictate our own. If we are to continue to maintain and grow in our power, we must remember our past and what it took to become what we are. We are an open society that welcomes immigrants and creates international brotherhoods (whether they deserve it or not). We have been the most powerful nation in history with great ability to communicate with the world. We have used immigration to fuel our ingenuity and creativity from generation to generation. It's our sense of democracy, liberty, and individual opportunity to prosper that has won over the world since 1776. It's our ideals that have persevered beyond 11 empires and offerred us legitimacy. It's our sense of fairness and equality (if not always expressed externally) that has kept us above the rest and as the preferred leader of not just the free world, but of the Middle East and Asia as well (and soon enough Africa thanks to Chinese immorality). Like I stated, no one has ever expressed their great desires to achieve the Soviet or Chinese dream.
Or are we done growing? No need for any new blood to enter our society to offer fresh ideas? No need to make strong friendly ties with a rising China, India, and Brazil? According to Washington it seems we are finished growing. And if so, move over Europe, we need some room on the bench.
