Are We Sure?

 ARE WE SURE?

Are we sure this is what we want?  The American myth, the American belief, our reason for being is and has always been, a land where people from elsewhere can have a new beginning, can achieve what they could not achieve from where they came.  The Statute of Liberty symbolizes that belief.  

The question is, do we want to lose this belief -  that America exists for the reason that it is a place of new beginnings.  The world has seen us as such - - a place that one can make a new life and prosper.  Throughout our episodes of decimating the Native Americans and the history of slavery and Jim Crow, the world has continued to see us as a place of refuge and hope.  It was, and may, continue to be.

Our current efforts of deportation and exclusion is contrary to the very belief and mythology of America.  Our very reason for being was to offer a place for others to come and prosper.  If one were to look around, that has been a continuous belief in ourselves and our place in the world since the first boat arrived.  And it continues to fulfill that dream.

The current question is this.  If we lose this belief in ourselves and our country; this belief that America continues to be a place of refuge and opportunity, what do we have?  What is to replace our reason for existence as a people and a country?  It doesn't appear we have a replacement near at hand.

We are not cut out to be an empire even though we have the power to be one and some think we are.  Some give voice to the idea that our reason d'etre, now, is to bring America to the rest of the world.  I suppose that would solve the perceived problem of people coming to America for freedom and opportunity.   But this is something we are not very good at - - Iraq and Afghanistan are examples.

The issue as I see it is this:  If we lose our mythology, our national idea as a place of refuge and opportunity, we have nothing to replace it?  Am I missing something, or is there another belief system, another mythology, another reason out there ready to replace the one we have and have had since the beginning.  I don't see it.

Our current administration, the current leadership of this country offers no alternative.  The accumulation of wealth seems to be our only goal.  Some of us have succeeded in the effort to accumulate money and things and houses - - some of us, a minority of us.  Some of us are insatiable; never enough - - the continuous effort to accumulate.  Is this what we are all about?

So to repeat the question, if we lose the idea that we are the land of opportunity and freedom, what do we replace it with?  Our current momentum is to reject this view of ourselves.  No people, no group of people, have ever existed without some idea of themselves and their reason for being.  If we decide to discard our mythology and our reason for being America, we will need to find something to replace it.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo