America Must Not Become a Land of Hate

There are terrible injustices in our country.  There are people in jail who don’t belong there and people on the street who belong in jail.  But there is no country on earth where one is likely to get a fairer trial or where one will have a better chance of having a wrong righted or an injustice undone.

There are glaring inequalities in our society.  There are very rich and very poor, and there are people who need help who don’t get it.  But there is no society on earth where anyone – no matter his race, religion, or ethnic background – has a better chance of raising himself up and improving his lot.

There is too much corruption in our government, in business, and even in our churches.  Bad, weak, and foolish people rise to high places and destroy confidence in institutions.  But there is no nation on earth where corruption is more likely to be exposed in all its ugliness to the light of day, thence to be, if not eliminated entirely, at least ameliorated.

There is a lot that is cheap, licentious, and obscene in our culture.  But no culture on earth is more open to such a variety of expression as ours; none is more creative; and no one in this land is forced to engage in any cultural activity he finds offensive.

When our military personnel are sent overseas to fight wars, they sometimes kill innocent people, and their morals have not always been exemplary.  But no military establishment on the planet works harder at avoiding civilian casualties, and none expends more energy and resources on humanitarian aid – by miles.

Compared to Heaven or Utopia or Shangri-La, ours is a dreadful, wicked, misbegotten country.  Compared to any other nation on earth that ever existed or currently exists, it is the best human beings have managed to produce.  

Criticism, if it is constructive, can be helpful, but one often gets the impression that America’s critics, at home and abroad, seriously believe that the world would be a better place if the United States ceased to exist as a nation. Or that, if tomorrow, there were no United States of America, the next day or week or month, a year or so at the outside, Heaven would descend upon earth.

This is to ignore all of history, to be blind to the present state of the world, to be blissfully ignorant of human nature, and to imagine that civilization can be torn down and rebuilt overnight.  

Torn down, maybe.  How easy it is to destroy. But rebuilt?  When it comes to civilizations, that takes centuries and great good fortune, perhaps even the grace of God.

The naïve belief in quick and easy “fundamental change” may be understandable and forgivable in the young, by which I mean children and teenagers.  Among those of voting age, it spells disaster for our future.  

How we’ve arrived at a state of affairs in which large numbers of our populace – many in their twenties and thirties, some elected officials in our local, state, and federal governments – can speak and act with utter disdain for our nation while looking approvingly at other nations in which they would be silenced, or worse, for espousing some of their opinions or living openly their alternate lifestyles is beyond comprehension.  

It gives credence to the suggestion that a kind of “mind-virus” has afflicted our citizenry, rendering many of them incapable of rational thought or contact with reality.

None of this is to say that the United States is the New Jerusalem prophesied in the Bible.  It is not.  But it is still the country to which more people from more nations come, or want to come, than to any other nation on earth.  

Why is that?  And why do so few critics of America, including those who are forever threatening to leave the country whenever an election doesn’t go their way, actually leave?  Because such talk is cheap, childish, and churlish. 

If people want something better than the USA as it currently exists, there are plenty of ways to work towards that goal, but trash talking isn’t one of them.  Neither is electing those who support ideas – like Communism – that have been tried and have failed, every time, throughout history. 

For 250 years, America has survived as a great and unique experiment in freedom and representative government.  On more than one occasion her existence has seemed to hang by a thread.  This may be another of those occasions, for what is taken for granted may very well be taken from us.  

What we ceaselessly criticize and tear down may, like a depressed person with a miserable self-image, give up the ghost.  And to be replaced by what?  

A society of bitter, hateful, envious souls who, living in a land of unprecedented prosperity and opportunity, eschew gratitude for blessings, admiration of achievement, and the humility to grant to the imperfect of the past the compassion and understanding which they, the critics, expect for themselves, as their right?  

God spare us such a fate.  God bless the USA on her 250^th Anniversary.