An Appeal for Sanity
November 13, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 48) - In our nation's founding document, we asserted this country's most basic values: "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 pursuit of happiness." Eleven years later, those same Founders created a governing architecture that more than 237 years later remains the nation's guiding principals. They wrote the Constitution of the United States, a remarkable document that national around the world emulate, "to form a more perfect union, establish justices, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and to ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." From its very beginnings, the United States has been an aspirational nation, one always striving to improve itself morally and materially. From these founding documents, a number of core American cultural values have emerged, including individualism, equalitarianism, optimism, and a society that embraces free enterprise, directness/honesty an an orientation toward taking action an engaging in hard work. At least these are some of the values we profess when we speak of American Exceptionalism, that America is a unique, even morally superior country. But are we? Is today's American Mythology true to those same founding values upon which we stake our claim?
There is a gap between the American values we tell the world we embrace and those we actually practice. After all, even the Founders acknowledged this disparity in admitting that our union was not perfect. They spoke of what we, as Americans, should aspire to be. However, by the recent vote of the people, we now appear to be ready to steer a course that abandons the very constructs we claim as essential to our national identity. Is there truly equality in our tax laws, our criminal justice system, or the manner in which we govern women? How does our expressed belief in liberty square with the incoming administration's desire to detain and deport more than 10 million undocumented citizens? Does it make sense to appoint a man who has been under investigation of sex trafficking, illicit drug use and obstruction of justice as your new attorney general? Of course - the president-elect, himself, is a convicted felon. The incoming administration's cabinet picks clearly demonstrate that loyalty to the new president is more highly valued than competence. Have we become a nation that embraces a leadership that routinely lies to the people, demeans and dehumanizes those who oppose it, circumvents the very constitutional safeguards it has sworn to protect, and enriches itself at the expense of the very people who put it in power?
We are in need of a new American Revolution, not one born of violence but spiritual in nature. We need to acknowledge who we really are and work toward become the nation we say we want to be. Maybe aspiring to be Ronald Reagan's "Shinning City on the Hill" is unrealistic. After all, the very concept of American Exceptionalism is in conflict with our most basic founding principle that "all men are created equal." Who knows? Maybe we are special. But before we make that claim, we must act like it. We need to develop a tax code where everyone pays his or her fair share. We have to respect the rights of women to make their own financial and health care decisions. Rather than treat those who seek refuge on our shores as criminals, we should welcome them in helping us grow our economy and culture. And we need to lower the temperature in our political discourse. But that political and social sea change must come from those we choose to lead us. Simply put: Those who claim to lead the country need to do so in their deeds, not their words. If they are not willing to do so, we, the people, have the power. If this recent election has shown us anything, the American people have the power to effect change. Hopefully they do so wisely. Yes, I know my words will seem to some as being naive. Others, still pent up in partisan battle mode, will see these thoughts as dangerous. I see them as an appeal to sanity and as a challenge to become the people and nation we have always said we are.