It is a curious thing that for a country which prides itself on a sense of individualism, personal liberties, and constitutionally guaranteed rights, so many people seem intent on telling those who do not share their beliefs, political views, practices, or sensibilities how they should live their lives. I’m not only talking about politicians whose entire profession is predicated on telling everyone what to do and how to do it—but everyday men and women who feel entitled to mind everyone’s business.
I’m not suggesting this is a recent phenomenon but has been with us for as long as we have been a country—for that matter, for as long as we humans have been around. And it’s not just limited to our own country—we export a belligerent form of self-righteous policing any and everywhere in the world whether invited to or not. We typically dress up our intervention as a moral responsibility so as to appear less self-interested but in only a few instances in the course of our history has our engagement truly represented a selfless sacrifice.
Our foreign adventures, save perhaps the world wars have largely been the result of a decision to step into conflicts that were a product of foreign colonialism and domestic corporate adventurism. Politicians sold a storyline about preserving democracy, winning hearts and minds and peace with honor; none of which bore out and in many if not most cases only exacerbated an already aggrieved situation for the worse.
It was none of our business then, it is not our business now. We have through the use of force and militarization attempted to convey to the world a better way to live and govern, and failed miserably to do either in our own land. We must live and govern justly, ensure a quality of life for our citizens, and preserve at every cost those freedoms and rights we take so for granted, not just for those who can afford them but for the least of our citizens. If we wish to win over the hearts and minds of others in the world, we will do so a hundredfold more by setting an example of the blessings we enjoy as a consequence of caring and by practicing our ideals not giving them lip service.
Today, in no small measure as a result of the previous administration’s encouragement of division and hatred we are a nation that is divided against itself, and a wretched example to the world of narcissistic jingoism gone amok. We are and have always been a nation of immigrants—largely as a result of an arguably undeserved reputation we once held as a place of freedom, social justice and economic promise. We can longer make such claims with a straight face. Hope, and a desire to share in our dream inspired generations to make this country their home--but that dream is increasingly a nightmare for many.
There are some who say that our decline is the result of religious recidivism, lax morality, and a loss of our much-vaunted individualism. Those are the people who believe it is their business to tell others how to live—the self-appointed arbiters of the right—who define right by the color of one’s skin, the denomination of one’s church, the place where one lives. It is none of their business.
What then is our business? To reject those who would tell us how to live, who to be—and to stand for the very real principles which our founders embraced in the Bill of Rights and our Constitution. With that freedom comes responsibility—a responsibility to preserve and protect. To look after the welfare of all our citizens, even if we must do so by insistence. That responsibility does not rest on the shoulders of our government and our leaders alone, but on each of us. That is our business—the business of ensuring we live up to our founding ideals, that we are nation which places respect and regard for one another above any distinctions that divide us.
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