On Understanding America and Americans

The following are the words of historian Ray Raphael. They deserve a wide audience....

Americans, from the beginning, were both bullies and democrats. Despite the hesitancy of elites, most patriots at the time of our nation's birth believed that ordinary people were entitled to rule themselves and fully capable of doing so. They also believed they had the right, and even the obligation, to impose their will on people whom they deemed inferior. These two core beliefs are key to understanding American history and the American character, and we do an injustice to ourselves and our nation when we pretend otherwise.

-- Founding Myths, pp. 244-45

Whatever Happened to "We the People"?

One of the most dismaying aspects of the year-long battle over health care reform, at least for me, has been the growing realization that more and more Americans are opposed -- noisily, angrily, violently opposed -- to having any of their tax dollars spent to benefit anyone but themselves.

Health care? Why should I pay someone else's doctor and hospital bills? Education? Why should I pay for someone else's kids to go to school? Housing? Why should I pay for someone else's grandparents to have a place to live?

Bottom line? If you can't afford it, you have no right to it. If you're broke, get a job. If you're poor, you deserve it.

More and more frequently, and more and more openly, I hear people saying such things. And this dismays me, not only because the ideas behind these words are ethically abominable, but also because they are un-American.

The republic created by the Constitution in 1789 was far from perfect, and we should never forget that it was created by an elite ruling class who were strongly opposed to democracy. And yet ... And yet, the preamble to that Constitution was written in the third person plural: "We the people of the United States ..." And although by "people" they may have meant free, white, property-owning males over the age of 21 ... still, they said "We."

All through the 221 years of our history since then, we have (mostly) expanded the notion of who is included in the "people" of the United States. But lately, it seems, the "we" has dropped out. Now it's "I" and "me" and especially "my" -- "my" tax-dollars, "my" freedom to do as I please, "my" right not to be offended by anyone or anything. Whatever happened to "we"?

Four of our fifty states use the word "commonwealth" in their official public documents. It's an old-fashioned word, and it describes an even more old-fashioned idea: the notion that there is even such a thing as the "common weal" -- the common welfare, the public good, the benefit of all.

But there was such a thing, or at least the idea of such a thing. It never existed, of course, and never will exist. But it has been, from time to time at least, a goal -- something we aspired to, an idea and an ideal we valued. Whatever happened to "we"?

Remembering Armistice Day

Before there was Veterans Day, there was Armistice Day.

That's what they used to call it when I was growing up, remembering the armistice that went into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 -- the armistice that marked the end of the horrific four-year slaughter known as the Great War.

Now we call it Veterans Day, and it's a time for remembering and honoring not only all those who once served in our armed forces, but all those who are doing so now. The trouble with honoring our warriors, though, is that we end up honoring our wars as well.

I remember a scene from a 1964 film called The Americanization of Emily, written by Paddy Chayevsky: Charlie Madison, an American naval officer stationed in England during World War II, is having tea with his English girlfriend, Emily Barham, and her mother. Mrs. Barham seems to be in denial about her husband's death in the war, believing that he is still alive and nobly fighting on for God and country....

CHARLIE: I don't trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. It's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parade.

EMILY: That was unkind, Charlie, and very rude.

CHARLIE: We shall never end war, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals, war-mongering imperialists, or all the other banal bogeys. It's the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow's weeds like nuns, Mrs. Barham, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices. My brother died at Anzio.

EMILY: I didn't know that, Charlie.

CHARLIE: Yes, an everyday soldier's death, no special heroism involved. We buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud.

MRS. BARHAM: You're very hard on your mother. It seems a harmless enough pretense to me.

CHARLIE: No, Mrs. Barham. No, you see, now my other brother can't wait to reach enlistment age. That'll be in September.

MRS. BARHAM: Oh, Lord.

CHARLIE: It may be ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, Mrs. Barham, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution. What has my mother got for pretending bravery was admirable? She's under constant sedation, terrified she may wake up one morning, and find her last son has run off to be brave. I don't think I was rude, or unkind before, do you Mrs. Barham?

I think it's important that we not "perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices." I think it's worth remembering that Veterans Day started out as the commemoration of the end of a war. If only it could be so again.

Thomas Jefferson's Prophecy

Thomas Jefferson, who affirmed our "unalienable" rights on July 4, 1776, knew that those rights were not guaranteed. In 1781, while the war for independence was still being fought, he noted that although the present times were marked by an enthusiasm for the rights of the people, this would not be so forever. With an uncannily accurate look into the future, he wrote:

Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless.... From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.

Many people will quote from the Declaration of Independence today. Most of them will stop after the phrase "... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But it's what comes next that makes the Declaration one of the most radical political documents ever written:

... that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it....

Today, 233 years later, our rulers have become corrupt, our people careless, save in the sole faculty of making money. Will our rights revive, or expire in a convulsion?