A More Perfect Union
Imagine the United States… when she’s twice as old.
The year is 2256. Look around… see how much has changed. Take in the incredible technology that now exists. Picture what life will be like for this future generation.
But what hasn’t changed? What stays the same as generations come and go? In fact, what has already remained over the past 240 years? What has made and will continue to make America truly “American”?
We certainly dress differently; even clothes from just one hundred years ago are essentially foreign. Entertainment has changed; television is still from the most recent century. Our language has also evolved: we still speak English, but our hashtags and selfies would mean little to our founders. What we call “English” is far from static; could conversations in 2256 sound as strange in our ears as Chaucer (“an ook comth of a litel spir”)?
What about our system of government, though? While much has changed since its founding, we still have three branches, still have checks and balances, and the Constitution has only been amended 17 times since 1791. Certain aspects, such as the First Amendment, still stand out as unique even among Western democracies. They reflect principles within the American experiment that play as much a role in shaping our society today as they did when the US first began.
In 1950, Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith listed a few basic principles of Americanism: “The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought.” You don’t have to look far when comparing other countries to realize these values are not universal. But their place has been tested on our shores as well: many of the colonies that would become states did not allow freedom of religion.
Even after the Bill of Rights, though, people questioned whether such diversity threatened the purity of the American Dream. Amid rising immigration from Ireland and Germany in the early 1800s, some argued that Catholic immigrants might infiltrate the US system and overthrow our laws, since they ultimately pledged allegiance to a foreign leader whose office had been associated with tyranny before. Similar fears of Communism a century later led to the investigations of “un-American activities” that Sen. Smith protested. We keep encountering the risk that our freedoms are perhaps too freely applied. But the heart of the American vision is not found in appearances, language, or even the trappings of tradition and popular culture. Our ideals, however imperfectly applied throughout our history, are ultimately what define us.
And we must keep fighting for those ideals to sustain any hope of preserving them. We dare not fall prey to the myth of inherent superiority that has led so many nations down dark paths of oppression. The US has certainly committed her share of injustices and abuses; we ignore such memories at our own peril. But even in spite of these failures, we have consistently witnessed the success of allowing our freedoms to flourish. Nothing guarantees American exceptionalism apart from the hard work of continuing to preserve those freedoms in the face of fear.
In this generation, fear threatens us on new fronts, such as globalization and radical Islamic terrorism. In response, the President has again called attention to our national identity, establishing American greatness as a central theme of his administration. His inaugural address affirmed the importance of a strong democracy and committed to “restore [America’s] promise for all of our people.” At last year’s Republican National Convention, he also endorsed welcoming immigrants who “support our values and love our people.” But he has also advocated for policies that can leave me wondering who he considers “our people” or what he thinks “our values” truly represent.
For example, our values uphold diversity, even within unity (“E Pluribus Unum”). Patriotism does not exclude protests, and we need a range of viewpoints in both politics and the press. Moreover, “our people” comprises not only rural Americans working in mines or factories, but citizens such as George Takei: a gay Japanese-American who eloquently shared in 2014 why he loved his country despite growing up in one of her World War II interment camps. It also includes Asma Khalid, who grew up among the corn fields of Indiana and enjoys wearing Prada sunglasses with her Muslim headscarves. Last month, she shared some of the questions and suspicions she received from other Americans while working as an NPR political correspondent.
Regardless of whether I agree with their politics, I’m glad my homeland is also home to Khalid and Takei. In fact, I’m not worried about whether the people in that 23rd-century United States share my political party, skin color, or even language. Personally, I would prefer we keep speaking English, playing baseball, and baking apple pies. Yet ultimately, what makes America great comes not from how we look or sound, but how we handle discourse and dissent. We should oppose any policies that jeopardize our essential freedoms, whether they’re proposed by Republicans or Democrats, atheists or Christians.
In fact, whether you find them inspiring or annoying, the protests and marches planned for this weekend are signs of a healthy democracy. I am grateful to live in a country where both my friends and my seeming enemies have equal rights of expression under the law. We cannot let cynicism or simplistic stories prevent us from truly hearing and understanding other perspectives, or valuing the “melting pot” of backgrounds and experiences which defines, not dilutes, our national identity. The American Dream only survives when it welcomes people of every party, color, and creed. If we will overcome today’s challenges and conflicts while still charting our course by the “shining city upon a hill” of forward-looking patriot dream, one pattern to our path shines clear: we must move forward together.
