By Edwin Cooney
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Yes indeed, that’s our solemn pledge of loyalty to America
as the guardian of the sanctity of our families, our friends and our political
and spiritual faiths. Perhaps the pledge
is the most sacred classroom moment since the Supreme Court ruled
unconstitutional the required utterance of prayer in America’s public
schools. Even more, as we pray at
church, during the seventh innings of major league ball games, and during
intermissions of NFL and NBA games that “God Bless America,” we preach to
ourselves and to the whole world as to the superior beauty, culture and
spirituality of our nation. The question is, do we really believe what we sing,
preach and pray?
Even as some of us display the Confederate flag in public
buildings, on automobiles and on apparel in competition with the U.S. flag, we
insist that the United States of America was created by the Almighty as the
land of opportunity and liberty for all. We insist that it ranks above Ancient Egypt,
Greece, Rome, and the great British Empire of the 17th, 18th,
19th and half of the 20th centuries. It’s even greater than the nation of Israel
established by God and for God’s chosen people.
Ah, but what do we really think of America? What do we say about it in the privacy of our
homes, in our places of recreation, and even more in our hearts and minds? Will it forever be the land of the happy and
united, free, and the home of the united brave?
Not long ago I got a letter from a reader of these writings
who looked at the world, and ultimately at us, in a most disheartening
way. I wish I could dismiss what he
writes as the fulminations of a desperate radical, but I’m far from certain
that I can. Here’s what my friend, I’ll
call him “Mr. Jersey,” writes in response to some observations I recently made
about unity governments:
Regarding Iraq, the
only conclusion that can be drawn from your observation about unity governments
is that they are ephemeral and thus impossible to sustain. Thus, Iraq as a
nation is simply a loony, contrived European idea destined to fail. All the
countries in the Middle East are make-believe nations as was Yugoslavia after
WWI, and all their borders will be changed over the next decade or less.
Eventually, the
evolving bifurcation between the political Left and Right in the U.S. will
bring about the same effect at the next severe economic crisis. We will have the same massive blood-letting
we now see in the Middle East resulting in our own national sundering into 3 or
4 geographic regions with separate governments, just as was the case under the
Articles of Confederation. Why so extreme a view? Just as you yourself
asserted, as Americans we are beginning to view each other as irreconcilable
political and economic adversaries, not as fellow Americans with a differing
opinion. "We certainly show precious little love or regard for our fellow
Americans unless their religion, politics and personal lifestyles mirror our
own!"
For example, on a
personal level, I am not at all interested in compromise with the Republicans.
I want them arrested along with half of the Supreme Court as enemies of the
people with public hanging as the minimum sentence. I'm getting tired of the
Constitution too. Ideas and trends are either adopted or crushed. There is
never a real compromise.
Isn’t he a nice fuzzy cuddly liberal?
I’ll bet most of my conservative friends are shocked that
liberals are as aggressive as Mr. Jersey comes off here. After all, haven’t liberals since the days of
Vietnam been “peaceniks?” I’ll bet Mr.
Jersey believes of conservatives, as does Ann Coulter about liberals, that they
ought to be in an asylum for the feeble-minded.
I’d join my conservative cousins in condemning Mr. Jersey’s draconian
reactionism, except that conservatives react toward liberals the same way Mr.
Jersey reacts toward conservatives. Hence I’m alone wrapped in my wimpy and cuddly
security blanket of tolerance mewing like a kitten for peace abroad and
especially at home.
One of the most constant threads that runs through our history
from Jamestown and early Puritan Massachusetts through the 17th, 18th,
19th, 20th and 21st Centuries is the suspicion
we have of our neighbors, whether they be Catholic, Masons, Jewish, Irish,
Mormon, Central and Eastern European, Asian, Gay, Lesbian, disabled, able-bodied,
or black. We expect them to betray us,
cost us money, subvert our political and religious beliefs and commit a dozen
additional crimes that will violate our space, our values and wreck our future.
Okay, here’s the skinny!
As tragic as it has been from the very beginning to the very present,
the truth is that we Americans love America.
All we really hate are our fellow Americans!
In that historical web of prejudice, mistrust, and suspicion
toward those who even appear to be a little different from the norm, we’re
almost totally united!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Posted November 17, 2014
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