You were once a proud country of people united around simple but durable truths: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You honored yourselves by championing freedom for all people, by advocating for diversity, civil rights, and human rights.
You grew into a nation the world envied, admired, and wanted to live in. People across all lands and regions, from remote communities and desert places, came here in search of a better life for them and their families.
Over the years millions have come here to flee tyranny, to escape the violent evil oppression of soulless dictators. They came to America to be safe, to raise their children without the threat of seeing them slaughtered in the streets by brutal military forces or carried off into vicious exploitation by drug lords and pimps. They came to participate in an economy that welcomed demanding work, ingenuity, and a chance to build something of their own for them and their families.
And in the process, this nation grew and thrived. There have always been setbacks. Not everyone contributed to the good that was here. But on the whole, America was a nation of solid values and high standards for its companies, for its politicians, and for all of its citizens.
People worked together. They created amazing things. They constructed massive buildings, beautiful and functional and enduring. They turned transportation into a miraculous form of travel and convenience. They advanced medicine into lifesaving procedures that years earlier left people hopelessly and fatally ill. They brought us from one generation to the next filled with fantastic new inventions that made life easier and more enjoyable.
This nation once knew how to love each other. It came together in wars and stood in unity for democracy, for freedom, for human rights. It elevated people above politics and religion and class. It practiced the Golden Rule and learned to be a neighbor to others.
Now, America is different. The divisions have crippled us so profoundly we no longer care about our once noble values. Today, we don’t talk about loving people, sharing, helping, reaching out with compassion and generosity. Instead, we talk about our rights, our money; about my politics, my beliefs, and what is owed me.
Today, we are angry, hostile, aggressive, mean-spirited, impatient. We don’t just disagree with others. Today, we are implored to hate them, mock them, and if necessary fight them. There has always been that element among us, but those people were shunned. They were seen as troublemakers, low life, lazy and interested only in themselves. But today, those people are us. We are given permission by our president and other leaders to lash out, get ugly, be a man, kick the shit out of anyone that crosses us.
The shine is gone from us. The light in Liberty’s flame dims. Our spirits are broken.
No one is coming to save us. That is our task and no one else’s. As Americans, we have to decide if we are going to do better than we are now doing. And we aren’t doing very well. Our deep, personal divisions weaken and limit our ability to progress.
There is a character in George Orwell’s devastating novel, “1984,” who is urging a friend not to give up. Tyranny rules and people have slumped into a nightmare existence. The man says to his friend, “If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile, even when it can’t have any result whatever, you’ve beaten them.”
I’m holding on to that.
© 2018 Timothy Moody
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