“Proud to be an American”, “America the Beautiful”, “Born in the USA”; throughout American culture there is an intense feeling of national pride… of what, exactly? Of the freedoms that define us? Of our shared national history? Of lessons learned?
An undeniable fact is that a large portion, not a majority, but a large portion, of America wanted Trump to have a second term as President. Ironically, both sides of our political spectrum have frequently wondered how so many “good people” in our nation could be “tricked” by the other side. My question is whether Americans are, in point of fact, “good people”? There is no denying that “good people” have come from America, but the same could be claimed of Nazi Germany (such as Oskar Schindler), or from most any other country. I believe the true answer to this question lies not in what individual Americans have done, but in what the policies of America have wrought.
The United States of America has existed as a nation for 232 years since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. In the lifetime of nations, that’s very little time at all. Consider that most monarchies have withstood the trials brought by corruption and intrigue at least that long before bringing revolt upon themselves even a single time through government sanctioned humanitarian atrocities. Perhaps that is an unfair comparison, as a monarchy is a relatively simple method of government, and greater complication, as exists in both democracies and republics, gives rise to greater corruption. What about the Roman Republic, which worked for 693 years? Let us be fair, since much of early Roman history is lost, and call it 500 years, before becoming an autocracy. Whereas, the Greek city-state Athens had a successful democracy for over 800 years.
During our nation’s 232 years of existence in rough chronological order, we have, as a matter of implicit and explicit national policy: disenfranchised and encouraged a genocidal approach to indigenous populations; ignored the welfare of our own people, including women, children, the elderly and the disabled, in the name of greed; engaged in the active persecution, execution, imprisonment, extortion, and vigilantism against a non-trivial portion of our own citizens based solely upon appearance; actively imprisoned members of our own citizens for the crime of being descended from a nation with which we were at war; actively hunted, persecuted, black-listed, imprisoned, and flagrantly violated the constitutional and inalienable rights of citizens based solely upon the rumor of contrary political ideals, while actively and intentionally encouraging perjury with the intent of creating additional rumors of the same in order to expand and enhance said persecution; actively disregarded and ridiculed members of our own military for the crime of defending national interests as ordered by the commander in chief; followed the principles of mass incarceration over rehabilitation while reinforcing a correctional system that has significant financial incentive to encourage recidivism as a means to enhance the fortunes of private corporations and individuals; encouraged the religious persecution and outright intolerance of fellow citizens based on the actions of foreign extremists; intentionally and permanently separated families seeking asylum; and actively ignored and contradicted recognized experts by encouraging the population to take lackadaisical approaches to what was clearly a global pandemic in the making. None of those things include military actions, Geneva convention violations, acts outside the US borders, any number of domestic assassinations, conspiracies, acts of domestic terrorists or organized criminal actions and groups. Less than 250 years, and our country has behaved, in many respects, similarly to past governments of the world that are responsible for some of humanity’s greatest atrocities, not once, not twice, but more than ten times. That is an average once every 23 years, or roughly, one anti-humanitarian policy enacted every quarter century. Even more concerning, all but one of these inhumane events were within the last 120 years. In effect, that makes the rate nearly once per decade.
American pride is the euphemism employed to not only permit obviously repugnant actions against disenfranchised and outlier portions of our own citizens, but also as a shield to reject any criticism from the international community over the same actions, while claiming a dubious membership in the principal and leading nations of globalized civilization. Yet, who is more civilized, the nation who executes and persecutes their citizens openly, or the one who commits the same acts while claiming a moral superiority and “natural right” to said behaviors? By what qualifications shall we claim “first world” citizenship; technology alone? Let us recall that Lady Liberty’s plaque does not read “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free so long as they speak English, are white and hold no contrary political or religious views.” Still proud to be an American?