Who Can Claim to “Love America”?

It is repugnant to most of us to accuse our political opponents of “not loving America.” It is awful to think of damning them for “hating America.” I used to speak of people hating America, at times—as a question, an expression of being baffled. I recall that my colleagues would say: No! They just want to change America—because they love her.

Of course, that can be true. I have had no more persistent commitment for decades than to change America. And no one had better accuse me of not loving America.

Somewhere back in the 1970s, I grasped the issue. The perfect analogy is your spouse. If I want to change my wife to be more consistently the individual with whom I fell in love, more completely that person I love—more herself—this is consistent with love. When I want her to change her fundamental character traits, become a different person that is my ideal—then I love not her but the ideal.

Archibald MacLeish writes: “They love not us at all, but love/It is not we, but a dream, must cover them.”

There always have been Americans who hated America.

Today, I know there always have been Americans who hated America. And now they are a growing movement. They demand, propagandize, demonstrate, and even initiate insurrection to change what essentially defines America, the fundamental principles that express what we mean by “America.”

No, they never would proclaim hatred of America. Theirs is “the hate that dare not speak its name.” They love America; they only want it to live up to their ideals of identity politics (collectivism), a socialist economy, egalitarianism, reversal of the Industrial Revolution, a creed of sacrificing the productive to the needy, altruism as heroism, jettisoning the heritage of Western civilization …

None of these beliefs can be condemned as false or pernicious without argument. None is a “forbidden” idea. That is not my point, at all. My point is that they characterize a society, a nation, that is not America. Not remotely America. If those are the ideals you cherish, then you do not love America.

What are the characteristics that define America as created by (1) its British heritage from Western civilization, (2) the U.S. Constitution, (3) its history, (4) its evolution of social and political culture, and (5) the American “character,” “spirit,” and “sense of life”?

What are the defining American ideals?

What are the defining American ideals? Here are some that are historically indisputable:

Philosophically individualist, a heritage of Protestant insistence on the individual soul’s direct and unmediated relationship with God, the philosophy of the Enlightenment exemplified by John Locke’s identification of reason as the defining trait of the individual, and the concept of the individual articulated by Thomas Jefferson.

Philosophically free under the law, with constitutionally limited powers of government leaving every sphere but law enforcement, the judiciary, and national defense to individual initiative and private enterprise. The most significant Civil War in human history was fought in the United States to eradicate the gross contradiction of slavery—and so redeem and validate the principles of human rights, freedom, and equality under law.

Capitalist, founded on the individual right to property, open thereby to enterprise, innovation, economic growth, and increasing wealth—all enacted through the Industrial Revolution.

Diverse as individuals themselves, all men being equal before the law, a country open to all prepared to take full individual responsibility, obey the law, and adopt the foundational principles of the nation.

Devoted to the endless frontier of land, innovation, space exploration—the view that because of reason, man’s dominion in the universe is unlimited and a summons to explore.

Wedded to benevolence, which is the byproduct of freedom, wealth creation, and protection of property and wealth, possible because other men are not collectors of sacrifices, but potential partners in trade, enterprise, friendship, and love.

In love with heroes, the vision implied by protection of individual judgment, individual moral values, and freedom of action—an ethos of individual self-responsibility for success, the frontier challenge, and the ideal of “the pursuit of happiness.”

No one need swear or pledge to anything in America. There is a checklist of ideas that constitute a test of being an American.

America is not only a geographical area or a name for its inhabitants. America is a nation founded upon principles.

But there is a reality in which each entity is defined by certain characteristics. America is not only a geographical area or a name for its inhabitants. America is a nation founded upon principles; defined in its founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution; shaped by a history emphatically including the Civil War, unprecedented capitalist wealth creation, centuries of stable constitutional government, settlement of a mighty wilderness, a spirit of enterprise and innovation; and championing throughout the world of a free society.

Ask those who today march through the streets demanding the “reform” of America, and who countenance arson, looting, attacks on police, murder of police officers, what is their real America? What are the half-a-dozen essential characteristics of their America?
 
I think that these answers would emerge:

Not philosophically individualist but rooted in an imagined struggle between the “oppressors” (whites, males, and the wealthy) and the “oppressed” (other races, women, ethnic groups, LGBTQ, transgender individuals, immigrants, and disabled people).

Not philosophically free under law but with urgent need for more government legislation, more regulation, more spending, more welfare programs—and for constant and extensive change of the Constitution as in the Obama-era 2012 ruling (NFIB v. Sebelius) that allowed Congress to force people to buy health insurance from private companies on the grounds that the regulation was a “tax”—and thus Congress could do virtually anything with the taxing power that no other power in the Constitution would allow.

Not capitalist but socialist either on the Marxist socialist model of Bernie Sanders or economic fascism (nominal private ownership with de facto control by means of government regulation and dictate) favored by the Democratic Party since at least 1930.

Not diverse based on individualism, not the integration of all individuals based upon the common commitment to individual rights and liberty—but collectivist “diversity” based upon “identity politics” and racial quotas.

Not the ideal of individual self-responsibility, but the ideal of sacrifice, the daily obsession with the “needy,” “economic inequality,” and “social justice”—not only in America, but worldwide—as the first claim on the productive.

Not wedded to benevolence, but to altruism, the moral dogma that views self-sacrifice as the ideal of human morality and the role of government as enforcing sacrifice in the form of a “welfare [whose?] state” unrestrained by national bankruptcy or interment of generations-to-come beneath a mountainous landfill of debt.

Not love of heroes of productivity, achievement, and wealth creation as implied by the requirements of human survival and happiness. Instead, love of idols of counterculture such as Che Guevara, Colin Kaepernick, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“They love not America at all; it is an ideological dream that must cover them.” That is acceptable in America. Freedom of speech—in fact, freedom of thought—does not lay down guidelines. To wish to create the People’s Republic of America (à la China) is to embrace slavery. But to think and express and publish that ideal is a right fundamental to what America is. And to tolerate and protect that right is the litmus test of our confidence that unrestrained debate of ideas, consistently protected and encouraged, is freedom’s surest ally.

Even though those who demand that America become the “People’s Socialist State of America” are visceral antagonists of freedom of thought and expression. They do not think so, but, then, they know little or no history. And what they do know is colored by the postmodernist ideology of history as “advocacy.” Wherever they are found, today, in colleges and universities, or on the streets of American cities, they are demanding that only “their truth” be spoken or written. The enemies of “truth” must be silenced.

Do not remain silent while the neo-Marxists, the New Left, the postmodernists march under the banner (or, for that matter, turn out their daily homilies in the New York Times and on CNN) of love for America. The reforms that they advocate are not a call to America to live up to her ideals. They advocate an “America” engulfed in the age-old swamp of tribalistic collectivism (identity politics), a single vision as beyond question (righteousness), a rejection of man’s means of survival (radical environmentalism), and visceral emotional revulsion at capitalism (the affliction of those who envy success).

We should make the point that these are not “reformers,” not “progressives,” and not warriors fighting for our highest ideals. We should make the point that their crusade is against America.

We should make the point that these are not “reformers,” not “progressives,” and not warriors fighting for our highest ideals. We should make the point that their crusade is against America.

This does not prove they are wrong. That proof requires argument.

But they cannot claim to be loving America.

The very first test of their honesty should be to admit that “America” is their problem. It must go. It is everything they denounce daily in their columns and commentaries.

And, as the second test of honesty, they should make the case that what we know as America must be swept away and replaced.

If they can admit this, listen to them with all attention. Their challenge is to offer a set of principles superior to “the last best hope of earth.”

Related Posts:

1. Transcript: Ayn Rand, Immanuel Kant, and Real-World Ethics
2. Transcript: The Culture of Liberty and the Power of Fiction
3. Chris Sciabarra’s Trilogy on the Dialectics of Liberty

   

About the Author: Walter Donway

Walter Donway has written and edited for Savvy Street since its inception in 2014. His essays and interpretative commentaries on breakthrough books have dealt with philosophy, politics, literature, science, history, psychology, and personalities. His new novel, "Retaking College Hill,” became Amazon’s #1 bestseller in political fiction. This year, the Atlas Society published his Pocket Guide to The Fountainhead and Romanticism Reborn--essays on the Romantic movement in literature and its 20th Century revival in Ayn Rand's novels. His collections of essays and short stories and his "Collected Poems" are available on Amazon. He lives in East Hampton with his wife, Robin.