How Humility Can Save Our Nation

     Americans are known for saying their nation is number one.  Number one in what, having the best schools, or perhaps the most civil rights, longest life span, or best healthcare?  No we don't qualify for number one in any of those categories.  We do however imprison more people than any other people on the planet.  

     But somehow when everyone was cheering "we're number one!" I don't think our incarceration rate is what they are talking about.  

     While the pride of these people is in many ways justified we've stopped moving forward.  We may have been the first kid to the swimming hole, but we have been just sticking our big toe in the water and deciding after doing this for about half an hour the water is too cold while all the other kids have cannon-balled in.

     America can be number one once again.  By being humble.  In order to be number one we must first acknowledge that we no longer are.  This will remove the blinders upon which we have placed on ourselves as a society.  If we acknowledge the fact that we are not the best and in some cases not even close, the veil of complacency which has draped itself upon us will be lifted.  

     America had a manifest destiny once to expand from sea to shining sea.  Now we must make a second promise to the American people.  That we will make our nation the best of the best.  Not through the use of arms, enforcing a Pax Americana but through a new high culture that we can build.  

     The saying goes that "Rome was not built in a day" but then again the flip side of the phrase is "Rome did not fall in a day either"  Rome when a republic had a greatness although flawed by prejudice was still ahead of its' time, and thus "Rome did not fall in a day either".  Rome fell because it stagnated and the pride of the roman citizen stood alone when the deeds that made Rome great were no longer done.  Architectural wonders were built for the glory of a single person, and were wonders of prestige and social status.  Decadence replaced hard work and unless we as a nation wake up we will go the way of Rome.

Revisionist History And It's Attack On Virtue

     One of the things that I love about history is how it can be debated, how open to interpretation it remains, as if it was a poem to be dissected mercilessness with all the subtly that a high school English class process's.  But one thing that disturbs me is revisionist history, making up facts and presenting them as historical facts.  It is slightly disturbing, and it continues to happen without much of a public response.

     The founding fathers of our nation are given near Olympian status, we forget that they were but men with many faults, who never claimed to be gods and were more then ready to declare their own human frailty and did realize that to err is to be human.  They could not create a perfect system but they endeavored to create one that would produce the greatest possible results, and the methods to check it should it ever overstep it's bounds.

     If we acknowledge this simple fact then we can be better citizens, and better people, enrich our society in the way that truly matters.  We can live in a land ruled by virtue should we so chose, without a terror, for the informed citizen is the citizen who process's virtue.  It is in this aspect in which I do b believe Robespierre to be incorrect.   Virtue without terror is not powerless, for the enlightened citizen is the citizen who will safeguard the republic.