I tend to look for the good in things. So, with all the warts staring back at me, I’ll mark the 250th anniversary of this country’s founding and our American Experiment with more than a little pride. I’ve done a bit of travelling, and there are some great places and interesting people out there, but I’ll count myself as fortunate to have been born in the U.S.
I’ve always like to take pen to paper, to write my opinions about things. Been doing it since middle school. And I’ve known since that time that in this country, expressing my thoughts about our political system won’t get me killed. Be a smart ass and disagree with a history teacher in school, it might land you in detention or perhaps suspended. Do the same in China and suddenly government agents come to your house and want to know where those ideas are coming from. There are not many places in the world where free speech is as protected as it is here. That singular freedom has shaped my life.
In fact, some of the most celebrated writing in the English language came from our forefathers and their political writings. Over on our book page (Page 31), Anne Bevilcacqua writes about the wording in the Declaration of Independence, which is really what we celebrate on this holiday. Marvelous stuff.
I’ve always been enamored of the writer Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet “Common Sense” came out six months before the Declaration and really set the stage for it. In a country of 2.5 million people, that little treatise sold more than 100,000 copies and was a kind of literary powder keg. Among my favorite lines, one that I’m sure resounded all the way back to London: “Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.” He was a philosopher with a gift for common language.
Of sins, warts and flaws, sure, this country has plenty. Those famous lines “all men are created equal” from the Declaration was a call to arms for the white men of the time. Of course, we now like to count the number of signers of that document who owned slaves (41 of 56) and how women were the property of their husbands at the time and weren’t guaranteed the right to vote until 1919. And, of course, there’s the genocide of Native Americans. No one really knows how many were here prior to European “discovery,” but it’s safe to say millions died from diseases and warfare after we came to North, Central and South America.
At this moment in our history, it’s safe to say we are at a crossroads. Of course, other generations likely felt the same. I would argue that from past upheavals, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, we fought through the travails ended up on the right side of history. Our system helped us do the right thing despite some bad people and some horrible decisions.
These are fraught times. A government unable to solve the big or small problems, politicians completely dependent on big money donors, a population confronted with so much information that truth has become more slippery than ever. And a president who stokes division at every turn. As they say, the fish rots from the head down. So now the kind of divisive rhetoric that just a decade ago was unheard of is now the currency of the realm even at all levels of government.
I would dare say all three of my children — ages 33, 30, 27 — would have opinions vastly different from mine on this subject, the celebration of this country’s 250th and what it means to be an American. It seems that pride in the best of what this country offers is being overtaken by frustration and anger at its current state of affairs and what that will mean to their lives.
Being the glass-half-full person, the optimist, I’ll point to history. We’ve fixed many of the founding flaws, have beaten back tyranny, have come to this point in history after violent upheavals and enlightened ideals. As the experiment continues, I’ll pray that the best and most enlightened ideas will eventually win the day.
(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnnews.com.)