“As the American participates in all that is done in his
country, he thinks himself obliged to defend whatever may be censured in it,
for it is not only his country that is then attacked, it is himself. The
consequence is that his national pride resorts to a thousand artifices [tricks]
and descends to all the petty tricks of personal vanity.
Nothing is more embarrassing in ordinary social discourse that the irritable patriotism of the Americans. A stranger may be well inclined to praise many of their institutions, but he begs the indulgence to blame some, an indulgence that is inexorably refused. America is therefore a free country in which, lest anybody be hurt by your remarks, you are not allowed to speak freely of private individuals or of the state, of the citizens, the authorities, public individuals, private undertakings—in short, of anything at all except, perhaps, the climate and the soil, and even then Americans will be ready to defend both as if they had cooperated in producing them.”
à He misses the point somewhat. The point is not that Americans aren’t critical of their government. It is that we don’t like outsiders (as in other nations) being critical of our government because we believe it to be the best. And we can fix our mistakes – as with slavery, women’s rights, etc. As Tocqueville said,
The great privilege of the Americans does not simply consist in their being more enlightened than any other nations, but in their being able to repair the faults they may commit.
Tocqueville doesn’t say that U.S. constitution is the best, and he thinks that democracies can take other forms.
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Oriana
Fallaci, the celebrated Italian writer who has become a New Yorker, was struck
by the response at Ground Zero to the president:
All of them,
young people, little kids, the old, and the middle aged. White, black, yellow,
brown, purple...Did you see them or not? While Bush thanked them they waved the
American flags, raised their clenched fists, and roared, “USA! USA! USA!” In a
totalitarian country I would have thought, “but look at how well the powerful
have organized them!” In America, no. In America you don’t organize these
things. Especially in a cynical metropolis like New York. New York workers are
tough guys, and freer than the wind. These guys even disobey their trade
unions. But if you touch the flag, if you touch the country. . . . The fact is
that America is a special country…A country to envy, of which to be
jealous...and it is that way because it is born of a spiritual necessity . . .
and of the most sublime human idea: the idea of liberty, or better, of liberty
married to the idea of equality. . . .
Two great speeches by President George W. Bush
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Why has America prospered?
à efficient causes – the “down here” reasons why America has prospered:
à ultimate cause – the “up here” reasons why America has prospered:
1. Even “poor” are better off than anywhere else in the world; m/c much better
2. Economic mobility
3. Work and trade are respectable
4. Social equality
5. People live longer, fuller lives
6. You decide what your life will be
7. Equal rights
8. Solved problem of religious and ethnic strife
a. Separation of religion and government
b. Rights given to individuals and not groups
9. The kindest, gentlest foreign power of any great power in world history
a. Twice in 20th century U.S. saves the world
i. Nazism
ii. Communism/Cold War
b. U.S. never stays to rule another country
c. Avoids civilian targets in war
10. Most virtuous nation on earth
a. Freedom can be used for good or ill
b. Like freedom God gives us
c. In either case, is it preferable for the freedom to be taken away from us?
[From Dinesh D’Souza, “Ten great reasons to celebrate” Washington Times (4 July 2002).]
>>>
Americans are the most generous nation on the face of the
earth
à See John Perazzo, “America’s Remarkable Goodness: What the Critics Fail to Acknowledge,” FrontPageMazine.com (5 October 2001)
- WWII – we go to war to protect against Hitler and Hirohito
- In March 1947 our president, outlining what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine, told a joint session of Congress: "I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure." – Marshall Plan - $13 billion
- By the 1970s, the American government
had spent more than $150 billion on foreign aid, two thirds of it
outside of Western Europe spawning pockets of prosperity widely over the
globe. As historian Paul Johnson observes, "This effort, in absolute or
relative terms, was wholly without precedent in human history, and is likely to
remain the biggest single act of generosity on record."
- In 1998,
U.S. foreign grants and credits to Western Europe totaled $258 million; to
Eastern Europe $1.8 billion; to the Near East and South Asia $5 billion; to Africa
$1.3 billion; to the Far East $735 million, to Canada and Central and South
America $987 million.
- When famine and disease decimate foreign populations, America is almost always the first and sometimes the only nation in the world to lend assistance.
- When civil war and famine
killed at least 300,000 people in Somalia a decade ago, America once
again sent large quantities of food and medicine. When it was learned that the
war’s combatants were heartlessly stealing most of the relief packages even
while the country had become filled with wretched, walking skeletons it was
only with U.S. leadership in 1992’s Operation Restore Hope that the situation
began to improve. American soldiers, joined by troops from several other
countries, were sent to Somalia to ensure the proper distribution of
life-saving resources.
- In 1994,
when Rwanda erupted into ethnic violence that killed at least 800,000
people in twelve weeks, the United States led the world in shipping food,
medicine, doctors, technicians, and medical equipment to try to save the dying
masses huddled in Rwanda’s filthy refugee camps.
- By contrast, Americans
have made truly monumental strides in the realm of human rights, working
tirelessly to eradicate the legacies of slavery and discrimination. The
black Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson puts it well: "America, while
still flawed in its race relations . . . is now the least racist white-majority
society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities
than any other society, white or black; [and] offers more opportunities to a
greater number of black persons than any other society, including all of
Africa." Notwithstanding this reality, our country’s critics brazenly
call America a racist land, but say nothing to disparage those Muslim regions
that explicitly forbid the very presence of Westerners. Indeed during last
week’s Washington, D.C. "peace rally," many protesters denounced
America’s military preparations for a "racist war" against Muslims.
- In light of recent historical events, it is remarkable that anyone would venture to call American attitudes toward Muslim nations "racist." As Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, "America conducted three wars in the 1990s. The Gulf War saved the Kuwaiti people from Saddam. American intervention in the Balkans saved Bosnia. And then we saved Kosovo from Serbia. What did these three military campaigns have in common? In every one we saved a Muslim people." Moreover, prior to September 11 our country had provided more food and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan’s poverty-stricken population than had any other country on earth. Even now, as thousands of refugees flee their homes in anticipation of a U.S. military strike, the Bush administration has already appropriated several hundred million dollars in relief aid to help save those people’s lives. But such details are irrelevant to the "Blame America First" crowd.
àBased upon Stephen Moore and Julian L. Simon, “The Greatest Century that Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years” CATO Institute Policy Analysis No. 364 (15 December 1999).
Thesis: “…there has been more improvement in human condition for people living in the United States in this century than for all people in all previous centuries of human history combined”
“Trying to stop this country now would be like spitting on a
railroad track. No politician, no party, not Congress or the Senate, can really
hurt this country now. And we’re not where we are on account of any one man.
We’re here on account of the common sense of the big normal majority. This
country is bigger than any man or any party. They couldn’t ruin it even if they
tried.” -- Will Rogers
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