Good stuff.
Let me describe what I think America is, in a nutshell, what makes it different, and why I believe there are people in America who, maybe unknowingly, are weakening it while claiming to strength it.
<WARNING: Thar be long windedness afore, matey>
Most of the founding fathers were brilliant men. Through their years of experience, they came upon two great truths. The first is that man is corruptable. The second is that they could not see into the future. These two truths must have guided them in the construction of the Constitution, arguably one of the, if not the, greatest document of all time.
The Constitution was founded on the belief that all men have certain God-given rights, and it was extremely presumptuous of tyrants like King George to attempt to take away that which God had given. They believed that the governing body should be an instrument of men, not a overseer. They believed in a limited role for government, which in essence meant that government should be given a certain sized leash.
They also knew that, because men are corruptable, such a government must not only have limited powers, but must have checks and balances that ultimately allow it to be overseen by the citizens. By dividing powers, they created a mechanism that was not only self regulating, but self healing.
Their second great truth, that they could not see into the future, caused them to create not a set of laws, but a framework for a government. In Computer Science, we call this a 'data driven machine', where instead of hard coded behavior, an engine (framework) is fed data that alters its behavior but produces predictable results. The government framework, or engine, was created specifically because the founding fathers could not anticipate where society would be in the decades and centuries to come.
America is unique because it is based on a data driven machine, and not dependent on a fixed set of laws, lineage of royalty, or goodwill of great men to survive. As times and circumstances change, it adapts yet stays constant. Our current laws are vastly different from colonial times, yet the framework of how we elect and oversee our officials is largely intact. We've tolerated bad Presidents, corrupt administrations, wars, disasters, and foreign threats, yet we continue to grow in strength and stability. A result of a brilliant piece of Political Science Engineering.
All despite the fact that colonial society, and its view of morality, are quite different from today's society and its morality. This has occurred because the American Constitution Engine is amazingly fault tolerant, allows a vast domain of input while still producing a predictable range of output, and is remarkably self improving. But, the fact is that the input data IS important (remember, garbagein, garbage out). That input data is the morality of the American society.
America has been described as the Great Melting Pot. Some believe that means that peoples from other societies come here, and must assimilate to the 'American way', which is code for discarding their culture and ideas of morality. What they miss is that the American way IS the melting pot, and that our society thrives on integrating disparate peoples and cultures. By accepting and tolerating a vast diversity of peoples, we continually reaffirm our roots - not as a Christian nation, not our European roots, but as a society built by many peoples. In that process, the definition of 'morality' of the American society changes and adapts as the contributions of these immigrants are amalgamated into American society.
Americans often have had to reevaluate their current sense of morality as a result of the 'assimilation process'. Our views on tolerance and individual rights have changed from that of a Euro/male-centric view to a multicultural/gender blind view. Our views on religion and its role in government have evolved from ultra-religious founding fathers such as Patrick Henry (notably an anti-federalist) to today's important wall between church and state. These changes have been a direct result of the process of assimilating peoples of different culture, religion, and customs into our society. It is the American Way.
There have always been those in America who "just don't get it". Alarmingly, today seems to be one of those times where fear and prejudice have caused a large number of Americans to forget the American Way and ignore the beauty of the American Constitution Engine. These people believe that security is more important than freedom; that tolerance has too high a price; that the majority should dictate morality. Given the previously described view of the American Way, these people can only be described as opposite of that direction: anti American.
I incorrectly identified Republicans as this group. It is, in fact, a relatively small subgroup, which I will label the 'religious nuts and neocons'. These people want to forgo the American Way in order to promote their individual view of right and wrong; that is, their morality. Rather than using existing mechanisms for dealing with the perceived problems, they attempt to 'go around' the machine, to manipulate it, to throw a wrench into it with the idea of jamming it. Instead of using the prescribed method of altering it, they attempt to use fear and circumstance to force a remolding that may set a dangerous precedent for the future.
A couple of examples. Ashcroft's original Patriot Act was a horrifying attempt to destroy hundreds of years of civil rights in the name of security. Ashcroft's original proposal to suspend the writ of habeas corpus was, in my mind, the biggest act of insurrection since the Civil War. As most Americans lay stunned by the savagery of 9/11, we were under a very different sort of attack by one of our own. Ironically, it was neither Bush nor Democrats who rescued us; it was a small bloc of moderate Republicans who forced Ashcroft to change even before the original act saw the light of day.
Another example is the attempt to demonize homosexuals as the bane of marriage and morality. By imposing a theocratic view of society in direct contradiction to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the religious nuts are demonstrating that they believe it is their God-given duty to usurp the Constitution in the name of God. Where that ends is anyone's guess; maybe all non-Christians will be required to wear a 666 patch to aid the righteous...
A different, more dispassionate way of looking at the issue is that these people are short term thinkers. They believe that the ends justify the damage to the machine. They believe that because the brakes are squishing, throwing the car into reverse is the right answer. What they don't realize is that, by defaming and damaging the American Constitution Engine, they prove what our enemies claim: that American democracy is an illusion, a propaganda, a marketing ploy. It's time for Republicans who believe in America to stand up and be counted, to stop the saboteurs, and show the rest of the world how great the American Way really is.
Ps I may have wandered a bit; I apologize. I believe that those who argue that morality is fixed are in fact blind to the reality of the societal changes to morality. Good and bad are overloaded terms; good and evil may be narrower. It is good to kill your enemies in war, but most do not feel good about it. Circumstances and realities have a way of interferring with our ideals; the negotiation through that minefield is a, if not the, major challenge of life. |
