Last year I wrote a post on my thoughts on the American spirit. My views on this are much more optimistic than what you'll see in the popular press on both the right and the left. This column was one of the most commented upon I've ever put up on this blog. As such I'm going to reprint an abridged version of it on this most American of Days. Happy 245th Birthday to the United States of America. God Bless her and protect us from harm.
Through this very trying period in our national history, people of good faith have looked through the darkness and attempted to picture a better tomorrow. Many have tried, just as Abraham Lincoln did when he was sworn in at his first inauguration, to appeal to "the better angels of our nature.” Many things stand out for me from what we've seen in the recent past, but one of the lasting images comes from watching a video of an event where a mob had moved in to beat a policeman and a group of protestors formed a chain of protection around him. The protestors were men and women, white and black. Amongst many things, they were out there protesting police brutality, yet they stopped to protect this fallen officer. That's an example of the “better angels of our nature" on display. Lincoln wanted and was determined to keep the American Union together. I have often wondered if he would have been so persistent in that goal if he'd been told as he was being sworn in what the cost would be. But persist he did through a long and catastrophic Civil War and here we are today.
Back in December of 2019, I wrote a letter called "The Press is Bunk! Thoughts on Political Discord." The basic argument of that piece was that there is more that unites us as a nation than the press and popular culture would have you believe. I have been asked by more than a few if I still believe that (I do) while some have challenged my beliefs. Here's my response.
There were parts of that original article that I cut for a variety of reasons, length being a principal concern. Below I'll insert what I left out back then.
“If America has any gift to the world, it is in these words found in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Today we argue about many things too exhaustive to mention, but nearly every level of internal debate and conflict we’ve seen in the past two hundred plus years have been from Americans demanding we uphold these words. Sadly, we often have not fully lived up to those ideals, for humans are flawed beings. As such, we are unlikely to ever achieve that perfected shining city on a hill of which John Winthrop first spoke of and Ronald Reagan made famous. But the genius of America is that history has shown we try. For every force that would try to negate the Declaration, there will always be those that point to it and demand we put paid to what those words mean. That means in fits and starts we advance. Perhaps that advance isn’t as fast or complete as some would like, but advance we have. Good men and women have died protecting our rights to have what these words say is ours, while many have suffered over the years clamoring that we live up to the ideals these words enshrine. That is as true today as it was in the past."
It is perhaps my small-town Midwestern roots that cause me to be a long-term optimist and bull on our American experiment. While these times have been trying, I find comfort in that we have seen far worse than this and made it through. I believe we will do so again and will emerge a better people for it. That is not only good for society but it’s good for markets as well.
Somebody else who thought similarly was Robert Kennedy who, while running for President in 1968, had to look out onto a crowd in Indianapolis on April 4th of that year and announce that Martin Luther King had been killed. Most that came to see him speak that night were African American. Kennedy himself would be dead in just over two months’ time, but on that night in Indianapolis, he delivered a speech that holds as true today as when he delivered it in 1968. That address is even more remarkable because it was largely improvised. I am attaching a link of that speech with this letter and you can read it if you’d like.
As I’ve said many times, I don't do politics on this blog. I do comment on the American spirit from time to time. While things have been tough, I'll repeat my long-term optimism.
Again Happy 4th of July.
Chris
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