America, Describe Yourself

Published Oct 11th, 2009

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–American history tells me that the United States was founded at a crucial moment, when great thinkers put pen to paper and composed a mission statement that would come to embody the spirit of a great new nation. Centuries of evolving philosophy culminated in a declaration by the first General Congress of the “united States of America” which recognized the role of government to be an organization of powers–derived “from the consent of the people”–which, “as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” This newly-envisioned government was to lay upon a foundation of principles, comprised of self-evident truths: “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So, there we have it–a succinct description of what America stands for–a land, organized in such a way that its powers to govern are determined by the consent of the people, to ensure that their rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are henceforth preserved.  Perhaps no nation in history has outlined in such a clear, compressed manner exactly what it stands for.

Such was the skill of articulation by great thinkers in the late 18th century.

Today, in the 21st century, it is nearly impossible to identify a clear consensus of exactly what America stands for.   More often than not, the United States is described by what it is NOT:  The United States is NOT a “socialist country.”  The United States is not a “Communist state.”  The United States is not “imperialistic.”   In the minds of many Americans, the United States, rather than being described in political terminology, is described in economic terminology:  The United States is a “capitalist country.”  The United States is a “country with a free market.”  The United States “believes that EVERYONE has the opportunity to go from rags to riches.”  Other people describe America in terms of presence:  “America is the greatest nation on Earth.”  America is about “respecting personal privacy.”  America is a land that cherishes “self-sufficiency.”

The United States seems to be so many things to so many people today, but what about those original notions penned by the nation’s forefathers, as they designed this “great experiment” of democracy in a world of monarchies, colonies, aristocracies, lands ruled by tyrants, chieftains, czars and emperors?

What is America supposed to be?   What do we represent to ourselves and to the outside world?  What values to we espouse?  What tenets do we hold dear?  Upon what foundation do we stand?

One hundred years after the Declaration of Independence was penned, under the rushed threat of an imperial crackdown, Emma Lazarus redefined what America stood for in her poem, The New Colossus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

In 1883, America was a nurturing mother, a safe harbor to the world’s downtrodden.  The United States was a beacon of hope in murky times–a shelter, a place to start again, a place of reprieve and redemption, a refuge for those desiring to be free of whatever oppressed them in the faraway lands from which they fled in desperation.

One hundred years after Emma Lazarus, the earnestness of America’s egalitarian doctrine, its insistence in being a place of personal renewal and its open-armed embrace of outsiders seems to have dimmed the “imprisoned lightening” of Lazarus’ glowing beacon.   Today, masses of Americans, live “tired” and “poor” under the “storied pomp” of elite financial institutions and an “aristocracy of wealth.”  Redemption and renewal are hampered by credit reports that lock people out of homes, jobs and new beginnings–the “tempest tossed” victims of an economic storm wrought by the “brazen giants” of the corporate and financial realm that has committed “..a long train of abuses and usurpations.”

To look around America today, does it seem self-evident that this land still lays upon a foundation of inalienable rights–”Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?”  Is every American “free” to obtain things so essential to life and liberty as a house or apartment or job when credit bureaus exist to block their pursuits?  Does “liberty” exist in a nation full of economic bondage, the terrorism of inner city gangs, businesses “too big to fail,” and cameras monitoring every square foot of the country?  Are Americans even afforded “life” with 39.8 million Americans living in poverty or with 20% of Americans below the age of 65 without health coverage? And what about HAPPINESS?  Can an individual worker or small-business owner realistically achieve rags to riches today, even when “riches” are defined as merely “having more than you need to live?”

Perhaps Americans would know what they want in their politicians if they were able to define what America IS.  If we could reach a consensus of what America is supposed to be, then perhaps charged labels like “socialist” and “communist” and “capitalist” could be shelved in the public discourse.  Does it matter if aspects of each are reformulated into this “great experiment” in order to create the society that fulfills our incipient dream as a nation?  Do Americans want to be known only as the nation that “ferrets out terrorists” or “cracks down on immigration” or bails out its richest aristocrats?  Is it a solemn principle of our nation now to only suspend our “free market” philosophy when insatiable financial institutions teeter on failing under the heft of their own greed and hubris?  Is this not the “storied pomp” we were to have left in ancient lands?  Do we, as the People, now subjugate ourselves to a government which contemptuously refuses to derive its power from our consent, but that also rushes to the aid of corporate despots, who would sooner wreck America than reform themselves?  Are we a nation that too cynically views “government by the people for the people” as a quaint anachronism?

Perhaps if America knew what it was, it would know better which candidates could lead us there.  Perhaps if Christian groups, that espouse looking after the tired and poor, aligned themselves with the American ideals spoken in The New Colossus they would not derail presidents and Congresses who are trying to help the tired and the poor because of peripheral issues like abortion and gay marriage.  Perhaps if Americans truly understood what “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” meant, they would not elevate corporate desires over the needs of their fellow citizens.  Maybe, capitalism does not accord entirely with the principles upon which this country’s government is intended to lay.

In this era of economic failure, widespread foreclosure and homelessness, the epidemic vulnerability of the uninsured, KGB-style credit reports, impoverished full-time workers, violence-ravaged neighborhoods, newly-emergent social castes, crushing indebtedness, fiefdom-inspired tax redistribution and a government who derives its power from the tithes of the rich, we FIRST need to redefine what America IS, for this era.   Only then can we begin the work of restoring these “united States of America,” which seem so tattered and disillusioned now.   Only in clearly defining what America stands for, can we set our sights on a course of action that will lead us through the divisive distraction of phony rhetoric, to a society that lives in harmony with its ideals.