America. What Would the World Be Like Without Her?

That is the question asked in D'Nesh D'Souza's latest film of that title. Lynda and I saw that in the theater a couple of weeks ago. He chose five items that are often criticisms for how the USA developed and carried itself in the world, and sought to answer those criticisms. The were such things as stealing the land from the native peoples, allowing slavery, having a capitalist system that steals wealth from people.

Recently, on Mike Huckabee's weekend program on the Fox News Channel, D'Souza was on opposite Richard Dreyfus to argue the merits of the film. It was an interesting segment. Dreyfus, who was on through a remote feed, had his arms crossed, showing body language that said he didn't want to be there. His two main points against the film were: 1) Americans aren't taught history and civics any more, and so there's no way to properly evaluation the merits of the film; and 2) D'Souza never answered the question about what the world would be like without America.

D'Souza, who was in-studio with Huckabee, had a generally more upbeat and open body language than Dreyfus. At first he ignored Dreyfus' charge that the movie didn't answer his own question. The second time Dreyfus said that, D'Souza said, "I'll answer it right now." He said that before the USA came into existence, nations advanced through what he calls the conquest epoch. They took territory by war, subjugated peoples, stole their land, enslaved them, and stole their wealth. America, however, established wealth building as the means for nations to advance. Slowly the nations of the world are coming around to this.

While enjoying the film, and being in general sympathy with it, I must agree with Dreyfus that the film didn't answer that quest, at least not directly and with a firm statement. It talked about the conquest epoch, and how the USA was the first nation to truly move away from it. The film did not, however, go on to state that this example was being copied by the world, or that if America had never formed the world would still be dominated by the conquest epoch.

I sort of sensed that was where D'Souza was going as I watched the movie. His concept of the conquest epoch had been on my mind lately. I thought of all the wars that were fought—are still being fought—in the world, for the gain of some nation at the loss of others. I thought back to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and the devastating consequences that has perpetrated on the world. I look at the break up of the Soviet Union, beginning about the same time, and how fighting continues in places such as the Ukraine and Chechnya. Now you have the fighting going on between Gaza and Israel, right next to where they Syrians are in a civil war, right next to Lebanon, which was war-torn for decades. It's the conquest epoch. People want to be free of something or someone, someone else doesn't want that to happen, and war results. I'm tired of war.

Given how much war there is in the world right now, at a supposedly civilized time, I wonder how well the USA is doing in being an example for the world.

Different Perspectives

I think I mentioned this in a blog post once before, probably on this blog. But being a rather lazy fellow tonight, rather than look it up I'll re-post it. Not that this entire post is a re-post; just the opening illustration—maybe not even that.

It was 1985 or 86. We were living in Asheboro, NC. A couple of hundred miles from the coast. If a hurricane reached us it was pretty well just a rain event with a little wind. In late August we went to the Nags Head area for mixed business and vacation, and while we were there Hurricane Charlie hit. It was a Category 1 storm that did relatively little damage. We rode it out, even though our hotel was on the ocean side, and it was an adventure.

A month later a big storm headed for the same area. It was either Gloria or Hugo. I could look it up and know for sure, but did I mention I was felling kind of lazy? It was bearing down on Cape Hatteras and Nags Head. The evening the storm was to hit, I couldn't sleep. I thought of my several clients there on the coast, braving a strong storm, while in Asheboro the weather was dead calm. We slept with the windows open that night, and the silence and calmness mocked me.

I was amazed at how much difference a couple of hundred miles could make. I knew that intuitively already, but that was the moment in time when I thought it through logically. The United States is a big place. The weather and circumstances vary. Not all that many of us will share the same experiences.

Yesterday the Blizzard of 2013, a.k.a. Storm Nemo, pounded my old stomping grounds, southern New England. Relatives in central Massachusetts had over 30 inches of snow. Friends in RI received over 20. In eastern Massachusetts my nephew's house had at least two feet of snow and lost power, though no one was there. He's at sea, his wife was at work in the hospital, and the children were with relatives.

Where I was? In a place where the temperature reached 74 degrees on Friday, began Saturday at 44. Later it dropped to 32 and we had snow showers and a little sleet. Just enough to be enjoyable, not to cause worry. It didn't slow me down a bit. Such a contrast to what my friends and relatives were going through.

But such is America: a land of great physical diversity. I am all the more amazed at my homeland.

My Basis for Voting

It's election day in the United States of America. Here in Arkansas we have the presidential election, a congressional election, a number of local offices (though some in my district are uncontested), and four ballot initiatives. These initiatives range from state and local tax issues to making medical marijuana legal to validating a zoning ordinance of our City Council. It's a big election.

I have come to embrace the James Otis Test as a means of evaluating candidates for office. I described that test in my book Documenting America. Here it is again.

The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. These...sentiments in private life make the good citizen; in public life the patriot and the hero.

That's easier said than followed. How can we tell if a candidate for any office—president, representative, city council—is willing to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and life to the sacred calls of his country? That's not an easy determination. However, I think I can tell which candidate considers serving in the office to be a sacred call. If that's all I can fathom, that will have to suffice as a basis for decision making.

The other principal that guides me is to put aside the politics of personal gain. I don't want to consider what's best for me, but what's best for my city, county, state, and nation. Maybe I'd be better off with the cost of my health care shared among three hundred million people, and have someone from the government watch after every aspect of my life. But I cannot believe that's better for America.

So I will be voting for initiatives that will lead us toward a more sober view of the world around us, that will keep us on the march toward economic freedom, which is what most set America apart from all other nations. I will vote for those who I believe will rein in uncontrolled spending, who will steer our people away from a sense of entitlement rather than toward it and thus toward a sense of personal responsibility, who will make reversing our plunge into unpayable debt a priority, and who will take a hundred year vision to their office, not just to the next election, and won't ask that future generations pay so that no one in this generation will be in want.

The Flattery Continues

Well, that short piece (real short piece, had to be under 50 words) I wrote back in 2004 for American Profile magazine continues to have legs. I wrote about this before. Yesterday, on a whim I decided to check for it again, so I searched for the phrases "ethics before law" and "law before gain".

On the former I got over 4,500 Google hits. However, these reduced to just three pages upon clicking through them. The latter had 567 hits, which reduced to seven unique ones upon clicking through. A good number of these were to my quote, or rather to my quote unattributed.

One of those is a discussion on a Yahoo message board (second reply, discussed more several posts down, and the bad language is not my fault). Interesting that this was quoted in a discussion on Islam and whether Moslems can be good citizens.

So the flattery continues, sort of. I seem to have crafted a good phrase. I thought it was good at the time of writing; the legs prove it is.

Now, to be a successful, published writer, I just have to duplicate the quality of this a few tens of thousands of times. Piece of cake.

Musing on America

Seventeen years ago I was on my last overseas trip (the ones to Mexico in 1996 and Canada in 1997 not counting as overseas). I spent about 30 hours in the Bahrain airport, writing for my visa into post-war Kuwait to come through. It finally did, and I arrived in Kuwait July 4, 1991, where I joined my wife. She had been there about six weeks as a Red Cross nurse, and was about to leave for home. We overlapped three days, I think.

At that time I had spent five of the previous nine years living out of the country: from 1981-83 in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and then from 1988 to 1990 in Kuwait. I remember my first flight back into America, in September 1981, when I came to fetch the family and bring them to Saudi for our life there. Charles was 2 years 8 months old, and Sara a mere 5 months. I flew on Pan Am, which to me was a symbol of America. Upon touch down at JFK airport, many on the plane broke out in cheers and clapping. Home again, to the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Several times since then Lynda and I have commented on how reckless and foolish we were, as young parents, to take our children to the Persian Gulf region while the Iran-Iraq war was on. We saw few effects of it while in Saudi, but it was still on when we began expatriate life in Kuwait years later. Several times we saw smoking ships being brought to land somewhere to the south, close enough to see what it was but far enough away to not know what type of ship, or if they were putting into a Kuwaiti or Saudi port. I suspect the Saudi ports were over the horizon, and that they must have been foreign vessels--probably Iraqi--putting into Kuwait ports for repairs. My first month in Kuwait four terrorist bombs were set off, though always in a place that seemed to be to damage a business, not kill people.

In those five years, I had six homecomings to America, plus the one in the trip after the war, so seven overall. I've been to Canada twice, and Mexico once, so in all I have returned to America ten times in my life. Each time was an exhilarating feeling. Home again, to a nation where peace prevails and sanity rules. Home again, to where economic opportunity is bounded only by the effort you put in and the amount the government takes out. Home again, to safety and security. Usually to cheers, always to relief.

The world has changed in those years since the long trips for oversees residency, not for business or tourism. I had the opportunity to be in about twenty-five or thirty other countries. I love this country most of all. Yet, as I've said in an editorial, I see the United States as a fragile experiment, a mere 232 years after declaring independence, 217 after finding a workable form of government. We have outlasted some nations, but many others through history lasted longer. The experiment is still fragile. Forces foreign and domestic want to change us from being the nation we were formed to be. I won't list the changes, and not all readers would agree with the specifics.

Has America passed its zenith? Are we now on the decline? This would take many posts to write about, which I won't do at this time--too much writing to do otherwise. If we have passed our zenith, I hope it is momentary, and that another score of years will find us on the ascendancy again. As I said in the closing line of a tribute poem to Ronald Reagan, "Long live your shining city on a hill."