O Beautiful.

[Apologies if any of this seems more fragmented than normal. I’m in the middle of a multi-day caffeine detox, and the inside of my skull ain’t pretty.]

This morning, on my Facebook and Instagram accounts, as well as at LousyBookCovers.com and CheapCaffeine.net, I posted this image and caption:

Happy birthday to the greatest nation in history.

The United States were — and so far, are — the only nation based not just on contiguous geography, not just on shared cultural evolution, not just on how much territory a ruler could reliably keep under his thumb… It was a nation of ideas, and ideals.

You may have noticed, here in balmy 2020, that many voices are not just criticizing America for not reaching or living up to its ideals, they are actively savaging the nation’s right to exist as an entity based on those ideals, precisely because those ideals haven’t been met.

There’s a technical term for people like that. It’s “idiots.”

The whole point of an ideal is that it’s an aspirational goal, something to be achieved at long last, if ever. It’s not something that’s put on the to-do list on Monday to be checked off by Thursday.  It’s something to be striven for for a lifetime, for several lifetimes.  Perfection in America’s ideals won’t be achieved until perfection in Americans is achieved, i.e., never.  That’s one of the reasons that I consider “America the Beautiful” to be the de facto second national anthem, because it acknowledges the aspirational nature of America’s potential:

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears

We aren’t there yet, we know. But someday, maybe someday…

There are those who focus entirely on where America falls short and behave as if that invalidates its phenomenal success.  It’s like a motivated student who, through hard work, works from a failing grade all the way until his most recent exam is graded at 98%… and he’s surrounded by mobs shouting, “What about that two percent?! YOU’RE A FAILURE! THAT! TWO!! PERCENT!!!”

Worse, some of those mobs imply — or outright state — that because America hasn’t entirely fulfilled its ideals, not only is the nation a failure, but the ideals themselves are illegitimate and should be discarded in favor of… well, that sometimes ends up a little vague. Sometimes it’s just calls to tear down “the system.” Other times, it’s insisting on a system of coercive polity which has never worked in any other instance in which it’s been tried, which brings incredible misery in its failures, and which can only succeed if human nature stops being human nature.  While a part of me admires the overwhelming optimism required to promote those systems, most of me wonders why ideals with a 98% success rate don’t qualify for that optimism — it’s a lot smaller a leap of faith.

What are the American ideals? What has succeeded so incredibly well? Here are some of them:

• The rule of law, with a built-in self-correcting mechanism responsive to those who have delegated governing authority to government.
• Limited government, intruding no more than it has to in order to fulfill enumerated responsibilities.
• Diffused and balanced governmental powers, to keep them from being dominated by an autocratic dictator or a mob following a sudden trend.
• The assumption of personal responsibility by all functioning members of society, including the acceptance of consequences both natural (i.e., economic and social results of actions) and civil (i.e., penalties of law enacted by responsive government).

Implicit in this, though, are capability and responsibilities of those responsible citizens who consent to be so governed.  That is what John Adams was referring to when he wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

I don’t think that necessarily means that a Bible-believing Christian population is the only possible population for America (although I would definitely not have a problem with that).  But it does mean that, for American Constitutional law to be adequate, the populace must first be devoted to principles which underlie American government.

They must believe in a higher power, and a higher purpose — not necessarily in a Supreme Being, but in the idea that morality inheres in the objective world, that there is a standard of good and evil beyond moral relativity. They must believe in the equal worth of souls before that higher power, at least among their neighbors (because if the limitations of hominid psychology, it’s damnably hard to extend that believe to abstractly distant populations of those like ourselves, but we can begin by believe that the person next to me has just as much inherent value as I do).  America is a nation of self-government in two senses — the formal government derives its powers from the consent of the governed, yes, but it’s also a country where the inherent self-restraint and ethical standards of the citizenry is essential to its function.  I think that’s what John Adams meant: For people who are self-governed by moral principles, the American model is sufficient. For people who lack those necessary moral principles, NO model of government is sufficient.

And what are some of the unique blessings of this unique nation?

• Never before has a nation of such size and diversity held together for so long. (For contrast, go look up “Yugoslavia” on Wikipedia.)
• Never before has a multi-ethnic country had so little racism.  Seriously. The only places with less racism are nations composed of a single ethnicity with limited immigration.
• There has never been a nation with the potential for so much economic mobility, where the circumstances of one’s birth have mattered less. A poor kid from the projects can become the world’s top entertainer (and then he has the freedom to ruin it all himself). A high-school drop-out can build a multi-national burger chain. A President can be born in a log cabin.

I don’t have a good conclusion to put here. (Again, caffeine withdrawals.) None except…

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!