A New Vision Of America's Place Upsets Liberals

Most countries have some sort of self image; a conceptual identity of who they are, and where they're going.  It's an image of themselves that connects them to the world outside and how they fit into this world.  I dare say that America's self image has been changing, and not all Americans are comfortable with the change.  Indeed, it's at the heart of a great deal of political controversy we see evident in our politics.

Let's quickly review past self images.  In 1776, we started out as the new kid on the block.  To the Europeans, we were upstarts.  Indeed, we had a great deal to work out, i.e. states' rights, the need for a central bank, etc.  We were largely (80% of GDP) an agricultural nation, which made us somewhat different from Europe.  But we did have a society where the people wanted to do better, to get ahead.  And, where it didn't much matter who your parents were.  Okay, it's a pretty, broad brush description of who we were.  Like other plantation nations, e.g.  Brazil and Caribbean nations, we had slavery.  Also, the Protestants, didn't care much for Jews, and women couldn't vote.  But what we did have was a pretty good constitution and a background in law that was taken from Great Britain.

In this brief review, let us turn to "America's destiny."  It was an expansionist vision.  We were to become an American nation from sea to sea.  We then added Alaska through a purchase from the Russians.  Parts of the south were taken from Mexico.  Our borders with Canada became finalized.  Industrialization followed pretty much as it had in Europe.  Our advantage lay in our wealth of natural resources.  Oh, did I skip slavery?  Yep, we had a Civil War.  We weren't quite home yet.  Slavery ended, but was followed by Jim Crow.  We haven't yet solved all our racial problems, but we've gone a great distance and we've done a pretty good job of it.  It is, however, something we've got to keep working at.

Two world wars established the U.S. as a major force on the globe.  The Second World War, pretty much made our country the go-to country.  Our main competitor was the Soviet Union.  It was to be a contest between two economic models, communism and capitalism and capitalism won out.  With the Soviet Union's collapse the U.S. became the defender of all nations threatened by communism.  The results are clear.  Capitalism may be far from perfect, but communism is clearly a failure.  (Consider Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia.)  Things don't resolve themselves perfectly.  Russia is still one of our major opponents.  But, it's strength does not lie in its economy, but rather in it's possession of huge stores of oil and it's belligerent military posture.

China is a country we have yet to figure out.  It wants to enjoy the fruits of capitalism, but want to do this with a single-party political system.  Is this even possible?  No one really knows.

The U.S. finds itself in a number of quandaries.  Our earlier visions no longer seem to fit.  We find that in confronting Russia it becomes a matter of playing military chicken.  It may end quite badly.  In China, we have a country that has claimed an entire stretch of sea through which major shipping lanes travel.  How can such claims be accepted?

The U.S. must also fashion a policy to contain North Korea, a country whose only economic initiative seems to rely on developing intercontinental missiles.

Another challenge we face today is a religious one.  We pride ourself in extending to all religions freedom of expression.  But, Islam is something quite new; and something different from our previous experiences with religious beliefs.  Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Mormonism and even Scientology are belief systems with which we, as a country, have been able to co-exist.  We've  have had to accept some new ways of looking at these religions.  Catholics were once suspect because it was felt that their loyalty was divided between this country and the Vatican.  This matter was resolved with the election of JFK.  Then too, with new pope, the Vatican appeared ready to modify some of its beliefs.  Mormons were once hounded by fellow Americans.  That's changed and Mormons ended their practice of polygamy.

With Islam however we face something quite different.  One one hand, we find that 95, or maybe 98 percent, of Muslims fit right into the American way.  But, as with most religions, we find that the Muslims also have their orthodox followers, otherwise known as Salafists.  But with Muslims, this difference between fundamentalist views and more secular views has never been properly bridged.  Most Catholics accept the religious views expressed by the Vatican.  But generally they disregard those teachings with which they disagree.  Birth control and abortion are two issues that come to mind.  In Europe different branches of Protestantism once found themselves in fierce conflict with one another.   In America, however, each branch of Protestantism simply went its own way.  We see the same thing with the Jews and their Orthodox, and Conservative and Reform movements.

With Muslims we see something different.  In countries where Muslims are strongest, their national laws and practices generally favor their Muslim population over their other citizens.  That's quite different from nonIslamic nations.  Italy, for example, is generally seen as a Catholic nation.  And yet in Italy we find one of the strongest communist movements to be seen anywhere in Europe.

In Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, we find strong antipathy to people, who, in the case of Iran, are Sunni and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, are not Sunnis.  In Pakistan, we find the national attitude toward those citizens who are not Sunni to be extremely hostile.  In Indonesia we find an Islamic nation where citizens can still be charged with blasphemy for speaking against the Quran.

In Europe, where there has been a large influx of Muslims, we see neighborhood acceding to Muslim demands for "modesty patrols."  And also find other major differences when viewing Muslims.  The fundamentalists have no hesitation to use muscle against their coreligionists, should they fail to accede to fundamentalist demands.  Forceful persuasion can not be easily applied where Muslims are relatively few in number.  But it can be carried out in communities where Muslims are concentrated.  This behavior is now challenging the American dream.  We have yet to respond.