At 01:14 PM 5/24/01 -0700 Darryl Shannon wrote:
>Sure America is great, I personally like it a lot. But it
>is just a country.
Actually, we're the Shining City on a Hill.
Seriously.
Allow me to explain.
The United States of America isn't just a country in the sense that it is
"the country of the Americans", the way France is the country of "the
French." America is an ideal, that for over 200 years has attracted
freedom-loving people from around the world to share in "Life, Liberty, and
the Pursuit of Happiness." Whether immigrants from Britain 250 years ago,
immigrants from Italy 150 years ago, immigrants from China 100 years ago,
or immigrants from Mexico 10 years ago - we are all Americans. Our
national identity has no basis in race or ethnicity, but rather in an ideal.
As the first modern, federal, democracy, we have, for 200+ years, been the
bright burning torch of liberty for billions of people around the world.
Of course, today, we are more than happy to count scores of other countries
as mutual partners and equals in our endeavours. Nevertheless, we also
remain the leaders Our history and our heritage has left us uniquely
positioned to be the driving force in the advancement of human politics for
the past 60 years.
Following World War II, the United States became the first great power in
history to reject the creation of a self-serving empire. Instead, the
United States sought to promote independence, democracy, liberty, and peace
in the nations it had liberated. The US took the lead in founding the
United Nations, "to save succeeding generations from the scourage of war."
It was the United States that founded NATO, which saved millions of
Western Europeans and their democracies from being overwhelmed by the
totalitarian forces of the Soviet Union. Moreover, it was the United
States that first envisioned binding together the nations of Europe in an
"Economic Community", so that "ever deeper union" might make future wars
impossible. To ensure its success, the United States expended millions of
dollars on the Marshall Plan, to ensure that the victors and vanquished
alike could rebuild.
What, however, has made this unique brand of leadership possible? What
made the United States seek not domination, but persuasion - to convince
the rest of the world to embrace our own idealistic view of how the world
should be run? The answers lie in our history.
Four score and seven years after the founding of the United States, our
country was wrought by a brutal civil war. Our President, Abraham
Lincoln, openly mused whether a government conceived by the people and for
the people could long endure. The democratic experiment was in serious
jeopardy. America might well have learned the devolving into geographical
enclaves was the inevitable course of any modern State. The lesson of
America might well have been that no commitment to any set of ideals could
persuade men to voluntarily acquiesce to the perception of being ruled by a
geographic "other" from another land.
As fate would have it, however, the federalists triumphed over the
devolutionists. By virtue of victory, America had affirmed that there are
certain basic human rights which governments are obligated to uphold. No
principle of subsidiarity can justify denial of these rights. And if
governments reject being told what rights they must protect, then forcible
intervention is justified to protect those rights. By fighting a war to
affirm that rights trump sovereignty, America had pointed itself, and the
world towards the future.
Of course, fighting a war in the defense of one human right did not
perfection create. America was still a deeply flawed country. Women
could not vote. Racial equality would not be fully guaranteed under the
laws for another hundred years. Our treatment of Native Americans was
abysmal. Our own military had committed atrocities against our own people
in the South. Indeed, hundreds of years of mistakes, errors, and sins
remained ahead of us.
Lincoln recognized that a nation committed to ofty ideals, yet bearing such
ugly scars, could not participate in the old habits of extracting gloating
punishment from its defeated enemies, least of all when the defeated enemy
was her own people. In what I consider to perhaps be the greatest speech
ever delivered, Lincoln outlined made his own mark on the American ideal in
his Second Inaugural Address:
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right,
as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we
are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have
borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all
nations."
Nearly 100 years later, America's lessons from her Civil War would serve
her well in winning the peace that followed the Second World War. America
would show charity towards her enemies, Germany and Japan, which had
wrought so much terrible sorrow herself and her Allies. For the first time
in history, a victor would love her enemies, and a profound revolution in
the course of human democracy would be had. America would raise Germany
and Japan up, such that by the 1980's we would consider them not just
equals, but friendly competitiors as well.
Until America, the history of Europe had been a near continuous cycle of
war and retribution, going all the way back to the Pax Romana. Ever since
America asserted herself following the War, however, Europe has not known
serious conflict. Today, a war in the heart of Europe seems almost
unthinkable. Moreover, under American leadership since the War, the
flower of democracy has flourished, spreading from one end of the continent
to the other. Today, turning back from democracy, whether in France, or
in Germany, or in Hungary, seems as unthinkable as it would be in the
United States itself.
Admittedly, while correlation does not imply causation, the correlation
seems too compelling to ignore. Following the assertion of American
leadership after World War II, the European tides of continental war and
failing democracies was stemmed. Indeed, it seems very difficult to argue
that without American leadership following World War II, the Soviet Union
would almost certainly have threatened both peace and democracy in all of
Europe.
Even today, the rest of the World explicitly looks to America to solve our
greatest problems. When fighting breaks out between Israel and Palestine,
leaders in Jordan, Egypt, and across Europe look for the United States to
get involved. When a deadly disease like AIDS ravages an entire
continent, the world looks to the United States for treatments, and
someday, hopefully a cure. When maniacal dictators like Saddam Hussein
threaten the lives and freedom of those around him, the entire world counts
on the United States to unite all of us in a coalition to resist him.
None of this, however, is to say that the rest of the free world plays no
role in solving the world's problems. Indeed, our Allies play a vital and
crucial role in the promotion of liberty and democracy, peace and freedom,
worldwide. Nevertheless, it is the United States that is counted upon to
lead the way.
I think it is almost self-evident that the United States holds a unique
position as the leader of the free world. For the billions of people who
still live in the oppressed world, the United States is the face of
freedom, and the voice of democracy.
When the Chinese aspired for the same freedoms we enjoy, they did not look
to Iceland or England or Greece or Switzerland for inspiration - despite
the role that all these played in forming the underpinning for the modern
democracy. No, for inspiration, the Chinese looked to the United State -
and they build themselves, as the physiocal embodiement of their
aspirations, a replica of the Statue of Liberty - a gift from the people of
France to the people of the United States in recognition for the role that
we played in bringing liberty to the world.
That journey remains unfinished. At home, we remain imperfect. True
equality of opportunity for all people remains a distant dream. Racism has
not yet been entirely eradicated. We too often prefer to focus on our
minor woes, at the expense of tragedies befalling others overseas.
Abroad, there are many dark corners of the world that the light of liberty
has not yet reached. Still, our unique experiences will continue to serve
as well. Another small step towards a world government that will someday
protect human rights everywhere, was laid three years ago by the United
States on the plains of Kosovo. The United States stepped forward for a
people they never knew, in an area of only minor strategic value to
themselves, all in the name of basic human rights.
In other words, the truth of the matter, is that once again, the United
States provided leadership that quite simply has never been found anywhere
else on Earth. Once and always, the Shining City on the Hill.
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
"The point of living in a Republic after all, is that we do not live by
majority rule. We live by laws and a variety of institutions designed
to check each other." -Andrew Sullivan 01/29/01
