A Nation in Distress: Reflections on the 4th of July, 2013

I appreciate the 4^th of July and all it historically stands for – liberty, and the willingness of men and women to risk their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to have it. Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence for which the day is famous actually lost those things for their ideal of liberty. Freedom isn’t free.

Freedom – liberty – is important to me. I once put my own life on the line and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States – that wonderful-though-imperfect document that our ancestors established to describe a process and parameters for maintaining our hard-won liberty. I willingly, proudly, joined the Army in wartime.

I like fireworks, and bands and celebrations, and I have always enjoyed observing the festivities of “The 4^th.” An American flag waves in front of my house as I write. Long may it wave.

But I fear for that flag, and I fear for this nation that it represents.

I have difficulty this year getting excited about the 4^th of July.

What really are we celebrating?

We are remembering what used to be –what used to exist in our ideals, in our founding principles. We are celebrating things to which we once at least aspired.

We never completely reached those ideals, but, at least, we wanted to.

We intended to.

We tried.

Now, I fear, we have, as a nation, completely given up on those aspirations. We have sold our national soul to expedience. We have surrendered our highest intentions to our lowest inclinations.

We still wave our flags, and we still trot out the patriotic blather of speeches. We hold church services and public gatherings to cheer for our troops in their unnecessary wars, and we keep sending those brave young people off to “fight for their country.”

But, in the name of “freedom,” aren’t we really mainly sending them to extend the American Empire? Aren’t we really using up these precious lives just so we can be the biggest bully in the sandpile? Aren’t we really committing internationally some of the very same evils for which we condemned the British in our classic Declaration of Independence? (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html)

For my generation, there was Vietnam. We drank the poisonous patriotic Kool-Aid while politicians talked of dominoes falling, and we marched proudly away. Most of us had no idea then how our own government was lying to us. We thought that our greatest danger was from some peacenik burning a flag. We didn’t realize that our true hazard might be masked by a pseudo-patriotism.

At least in those days, we had the integrity to be outraged when we finally learned that our President was breaking the law.

And now? Our once-great nation has completely forgotten the heights to which it once attempted to ascend.

There is a vast difference between greatness and mere power.

We are a powerful nation. Can we honestly still claim greatness?

I think not.

Neither major political party can claim any moral high ground. The politicians of both parties continue to put personal power before principle and party one-up-manship before national good. And they sell their souls, and their votes, to the highest bidder, whether such be a Soros or a Koch.

As a nation, we are divided like a husband and wife locked in a long-moribund marriage and for whom the other party cannot possibly do anything right. Every word and action is interpreted through a haze of suspicion of motives, and every fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We are divided “left” and “right,” but there is no balance.

We are divided “have” and “have-not,” but both are alike in their greed.

We are divided “liberal” and “conservative,” but the liberals are only liberal with other people’s money and with those who agree with them, while the conservatives have forgotten whatever it was they intended to conserve – except the money and power they have or wish they had. (Giving away other people’s money is not “liberal,” and selfishness is not really “conservative.”)

Oh yes … there are also the non-aligned, the would-be “third party” folks, but most of them seem to be wrapped in the self-indulgence of either the childish arrogance of some green/reform/justice “socialism” or just wanting to be able to do “their own thing.” 

We are divided “religious” and “secular,” with both claiming the blessings and support of our national heritage. The main difference, really, seems to be that the secular folks know they do not worship the God of the Bible, while the religious folks still think they do.

Both God and Lincoln have warned us that a house divided against itself cannot long stand.

But we keep talking of patriotism, while we and most of our elected officials have forgotten what real patriotism is.

We call wiki-leakers “traitors,” but we ignore a President and Cabinet officials who flout the law and their oaths. We certainly say nothing about the treason of a Congress that trades our freedom for false security and whose primary work is to keep itself in office.

Meanwhile, the Church – liberal, moderate, conservative,  or by whatever name, and with few exceptions – works hard to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, even after she has struck the iceberg, thinking that some fresh combination of behavior-modification and political influence will hold back the frigid flood that is so surely sinking our ship of state – keep it out at least long enough for “us” to fly away. And we wonder why the watching world rejects or ignores us.

I love this country. Particularly because I have lived much of my life overseas, I love the United States and her history, her varied and mixed cultures, her interwoven strands of heritage. I love the liberty of personhood and opportunity for which the United States used to stand. As much as I enjoyed living in other countries, I was always proud and pleased that I was an American, and I was glad I could look forward to returning to these United States. Because I love the United States, my sadness for her is the greater.

I do not believe that any other country is doing “better” than we are. In fact, most are far worse, which is why so many of their people still want to come here.

Nevertheless, we are not what we could be.

We are not even what we were.

We certainly are not what we want to think we are.

If, as Lincoln said, we are “the last best hope of earth,” then the world is in deep trouble.

(To be continued….)