I’ve seen several journals on the subject of July 4th that I’ve found very disturbing. They all said something on the order of, "Yeah, I went to watch fireworks, but I don’t get the whole Independence Day patriotism thing. This country sucks. Our president is an idiot and the founding fathers basically just came in and stomped on all the people already here." I’m thinking some time in another country or some serious study of history is indicated.
Maybe this brands me as hopelessly uncynical, and doomed to never quite get it, but I love my country. Yes, I do. Let me be completely clear; I said "love", not "worship". I don’t pretend the US is perfect, and some days it isn’t even good. We do have blotches and scabs -- as Spider Robinson once wrote, "hell, huge running sores". Some of our laws are unfair. Some are very unfair (the ones against gay marriage spring to mind). We still have prejudice, poverty, violence and corruption in high, medium, and low places.
Nonetheless, there is a reason that people in many other countries risk their lives to get here. Just in the last few years, there have been tens of deaths among refugees taking huge risks to gain a future better than they could have hoped for back home. Few people here are starving. Most people can choose, at least to some degree, the work they do. All citizens have the right to vote. We can travel freely between states, and sometimes into new lives. And yes, I know there are problems with all these -- people with no education and skills only suitable for minimum wage jobs, people pulled over for the offense of DWB (Driving While Black), voting fraud.
But at least here we acknowledge those things are wrong. The United States was founded on an ideal, not a dynasty, by an extraordinary group of men whose private flaws (and they had many) did not prevent them from devising an imperfect system that is one of the fairest yet devised. And for all the crooked politicians there are, there are honest people who work hard, often for low pay or little attention, to move this country closer to its ideals.
There are other countries that have outdone us in one way or another (South Africa, for example, forbids discrimination on account of sexual preference in its constitution). But many of those would never have happened without the US’s example. There are countries that haven’t fought our more stupid wars, though many have their own stupid fights. There are other countries that would be great to live in (though I think whoever it was who spoke of moving to "Canada or Serbia" should probably reassess, or just stick to Canada). You’ll note, if you look carefully, that in most of those countries where medical care is universal, marriage laws are more reasonable, and vacations are 5 weeks per year, that taxes are 60% or more. Some (not all) of those also seem to have developed a culture in which people are even less independent and self-reliant than Americans. I’d prefer to keep more of my money and make more of my own decisions, though I realize that’s just the American in me speaking and that others’ preferences will differ. I’d love to live in other countries for a few years, for the experience and the chance to learn more.
So yes, we do have a long way to go, and yes, we should emulate those countries that are ahead of us in one way or another. But there is a very special idealism still here, that needs to be preserved amidst the chaos of money and clout, movies and pop music, TV and noise and materialism. The old quote isn’t wrong, it’s just usually quoted without its more important second half: "My country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be made right."
I can’t argue the bit about our president being an idiot, though.
Posted by dichroic at July 6, 2001 02:31 PM