[NOTE: I originally drafted this post on July 3, but the FP staff
was on holiday too so it didn't get posted in time for the Fourth. I've updated
it and reposted, with appropriate changes of verb tense]
Independence Day is when Americans celebrate their two hundred year-plus
experiment with self-government. After two centuries it's not really an
experiment anymore, though it certainly feels like we are still making it up as
we go along. On July 4th, my family read the Declaration of Independence
outloud (an annual ritual) and talked about what we thought it really meant. And
across the country, Americans grilled, drank, watched fireworks, and listened
to John Philip Sousa, and probably spent a lot of time being grateful that they
are not living somewhere else.
But what exactly are we celebrating these days? We are on a sour phase of
our history, where hardly anyone seems happy about our condition at home or our
position abroad. The economy remains dismal, where only the rich enjoy comfort
and security, and our politics gets nastier and more dysfunctional with each
passing day. Instead of working together to meet a growing array of challenges,
a toxic combination of pundits, poseurs, and provocateurs is choking the life
out of political system like so much kudzu. Our leaders continue to give
speeches about our global responsibilities, but how many people now believe
that America is leading the way to a safer, saner or more just world? We don't bring peace to war-torn lands, we are
not doing much to build more effective global institutions, and sometimes it
feels like armed drones and special forces have become our primary export.
In such times, it is tempting to descend into world-weary fatalism, and
merely chronicle the many ways that America's reality falls short of our
Founders' hopes. But I am not going to succumb to that temptation-at least not
today. For although the Founding Fathers were in many ways consummate
realists--acutely aware of human frailties, mindful of the dangers facing a
small, weak and new nation, and ruthless in pursuit of hemispheric
dominance--they were also idealists who dreamt big. On Independence Day, we can honor our past by
indulging in some dreams of our own.
On this 4th of July, I dreamt of an America at peace, no longer
squandering its wealth and power in unnecessary global crusades. I dreamt of an
America that knows there are risks in the world, but that does not allow fear
to dominate its foreign policy agenda or its domestic discourse. I dreamt of an
America that has regained the world's respect, and where others trust our
judgment and value our competence. I imagined an America where economic
inequality is declining, not growing, and where people are judged, as Martin
Luther King put it, by the content of their character and not by their race,
religion, or sexual orientation. I thought about an America that is not afraid
to talk to its adversaries, because it was confident that it wouldn't get
bamboozled and knew that talking is often the best way to persuade others to
change. I dreamt of an America that does not torture, and that has the
integrity to prosecute anyone who does. I dream of an America that does not
lead the world in the number of people in its prisons. Like Woodrow Wilson, I
yearned for an America with the "self-restraint of a truly great nation,
that knows its own strength and scorns to misuse it." I looked ahead to an
America whose first concern is the well-being of all its citizens here at home,
instead of trying to tell the rest of the world how to live. And I dreamt of an
America where political debate is unfettered but civil, and where those who
seek to win arguments by smearing their opponents or distorting their arguments
are regarded by their fellow citizens with appropriate contempt.
Do I expect to see this America emerge? Sadly, no (I am a realist, after all). But if
we are truly the political descendants of the brave men and women of 1776, then
we have to believe in the power of imagination and the ability of human beings
to chart a new course. And in that knowledge lies hope.
I hope you all had a pleasant and inspiring Independence Day, and that in
the next year we move a bit closer to the ideals we celebrated on Monday.
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