I believe in America.
Whether because of tall-poppy syndrome or how fashionable it's become in some quarters to cast their own country as inherently rotten, that is not a particularly popular sentiment right now. But I hold to it all the same. Perhaps a better way to describe it would be to say that I believe in what America was meant to be, and those aspects of its aspiration which remain.
The Declaration of Independence famously states that "we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..." It's a statement equally famous for the stark contrast in which it cast the new nation for failing to live up to its own ideals until 89 years later, after the close of the Civil War. But the aspiration was there, and it would be drawn on to confront the inconsistency of the horrors of slavery within a society otherwise founded on freedom.
Such an acknowledgement cannot and should not be ignored. But in our current discourse, it tends to predominate to the exclusion of all else, and there are other aspects of what the United States was meant to be that are worth noting.
The Founding generation understood that both governments and the public alike were composed of humans, those forever flawed, corrupt and self-interested beings. To best guard against abuse by any involved party, they created a system of checks and balances that pits the self interest of everyone against each other, to minimize the chance of any one faction being able to completely dominate the governmental apparatus.
There's also the matter of the rights listed in the Constitution, particularly in the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. However, it was widely understood at the time that these rights were not granted from on high, but that all individuals had them by default, and the government must respect those rights and not intrude upon them. The rights to freely speak, worship, and associate; to keep and bear arms; to freedom from arbitrary search and seizure; to a fair trial, and many more. I myself am somewhat uncertain if I agree that those rights really were naturally occurring, but I do think they are desirable and that having them written down is important. Indeed, the debate about whether or not to add these amendments so shortly after the Constitution was ratified weren't about whether the rights themselves were worthwhile, that was a given. For opponents of the amendments, the question was whether the government would see a list of rights they could not infringe and act as though everything not on that list was therefore rightfully within their jurisdiction... which is a pretty fair description of what's happened since. Yet I am of the opinion that without having them written down, as lines that cannot be crossed, they would have been violated to a much greater extent.
A country is only as strong as the will to enforce what it writes down, however, and cultural norms hold far more sway over politics than politics over culture. Convincing people of the continued necessity of the these rights is something that has to be fought for, and can't simply be taken for granted. This is where my greatest fear for my country stems from, reading that large swathes of people no longer seem to believe these rights are worth holding on to. I wonder how long such competing, fundamentally opposed visions for the future can coexist.
This year's 4th of July was personally hard for a number of reasons I won't get into. Some of the reasons will likely make things hard for some time yet. I'm reminded of the Apostle Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians and the verses about how "If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone. But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep " So I look forward to the next life, the eternal one, where rights won't even matter in a kingdom reigned by Christ, and there is comfort. But for now, like my country, my only option is to move forward. The answers are all there in the future, one way or another, and they won't wait around forever.|