Andrew Cuomo recently got into a kerfuffle with the president over Mr. Cuomo's speech noting that America was never all that great in that women were treated and have been treated as second class to males throughout our history. Of course, cadet bone spurs got into a lather over the perceived stupidity of any statement that America can be anything but great at all times and in all things.
I am not a fan of Andrew Cuomo's especially considering his treatment of teachers in New York, which led me to vote for somebody else in the last gubernatorial election there. I know he is considering running for president, and while I am not sure I would vote for him based upon his treatment of teachers, such as my wife and many other friends and family, I would certainly vote for him if he was running against the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Then again, I would probably vote for just about anyone or anything against that guy, including Zippy the Chimp, whom I remain proud to say I once actually represented in court during my illustrious legal career. In the mean time, Mr. Cuomo has given fodder to the far right for the upcoming election cycle, should he actually run. I can already see the attack ads touting Cuomo as saying America was never really all that great, and leaving out the context of the statement.
Which brought me to thinking...
Is this country great, and has it ever really been all that great?
As with many things, the answer is complicated.
Certainly, there have been many instances in the course of our still relatively brief history when this country was not all that great. While there are still a few pockets here and there around the country that may disagree, I think we can generally agree upon the fact that slavery was not all that great. Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two was not all that great, as was the turning away of the MS St. Louis with hundreds of Jews seeking refuge from the Nazis, only to be sent back to Germany where many of them were killed in the Holocaust. We continue this lack of greatness today in turning a blind eye to refugees fleeing oppressive regimes in Syria and Iran, as well as gang violence in Central America, primarily it seems because they don't look or talk like us. Finally, our treatment of the LBGTQ community is shameful and certainly detracts from any thoughts that this is a perfectly great nation.
But this is a great nation.
I would daresay that just about everyone reading this agrees that America is a great nation, and may very well be the greatest nation on earth.
We just aren't great all the time. Why? I think the answer to that may is something that is simple, but difficult.
To be great, you cannot just beat your chest, say you are great and leave it at that.
Greatness takes work. Lots of work. Lots of diligence. You cannot take greatness for granted. You must constantly look inward to see how you can improve things to maintain greatness.
And that means greatness for everybody, not just those at the top.
For a country to be great, there must be a way to ensure that all citizens are properly educated. Not everyone has to go to college and beyond. I am not sure a plumber or a carpenter needs a college degree; however, they certainly are just as vital to the fabric of this country as a doctor, lawyer or engineer. This country needs to ensure that everyone is properly prepared for what they are going to contribute to society, so that they can go forth and contribute -- without going so far into debt in the process that they can never fully recover. It is not a sign of greatness when young couples decide they cannot buy a home and raise a family because they have a lifetime of student debt.
For a country to be great, there must be a system for taking care of the sick. No country can be great if it allows their citizens to go bankrupt because they became ill or had an accident that required extensive medical treatment. My family avoided bankruptcy several years ago when one of us suffered a life threatening condition that ended up costing around a half a million dollars in medical bills. We avoided the problem because we have sufficient medical insurance. Many of us do not. That they have to go bankrupt because they are ill, or that many die because they cannot afford medical care is not only not greatness, but is outright obscene.
For a country to be great, it must keep up with its infrastructure. You cannot let every bridge, tunnel and roadway deteriorate and crumble simply so you can say you kept taxes down. Everything costs something. A country in which bridges collapse from lack of care or that fails to maintain proper public transportation is not living up to greatness. Money must be spent and the effort constantly maintained to maintain infrastructure. You cannot simply say you will introduce a plan that everyone is going to love, and then sit back and soak up the adulation of your admirers without actually proposing, let alone implementing anything.
For a country to be great, it must be a custodian of the future for its children and those who are yet to come. This means that we must be stewards of the environment. It is not job killing to force polluters to clean themselves up at their own expense. It is not job killing to ensure that our open spaces and national parks remain clean, open to the public, and closed to those who simply want to exploit it for their own profit. It is not job killing to maintain standards that ensure we can breathe clean air or drink clean water or eat breakfast cereal that does not contain carcinogens. On the other hand, if we do not maintain standards or even acknowledge climate change, in the long run, we will not have to worry about jobs. We may have to worry about survival of our species. Ignoring all of that is not great. Properly addressing it takes work.
For a country to be great, it must keep its citizens safe at home. Safety does not mean we have police patrolling all over the place, overseeing everything we do. The police have a difficult enough time as it is. Safety means there is a respect for all citizens of all colors, shapes, sizes and beliefs. And that respect must be reciprocated. It must be reciprocated among ourselves and among ourselves and law enforcement. A law abiding black person should not fear for his life by some random racist or a bad cop simply because he happens to be in a mostly white neighborhood. Once there is a proper level of respect, the community and the police can work together and raise the level of safety in all our communities, urban, suburban and rural.
For a country to be great, it must recognize that in order to keep its citizens safe at home, it must adapt to the times. In the eighteenth century, a well organized militia was indeed necessary to protect the citizenry from tyrannical forces of government,both at home and abroad. It seems to me we now have a fairly well organized militia, at least that's what our leaders keep saying, when they refer to our armed forces regularly as the greatest on earth. This being the case, we need to stand up to the gun lobby and those who really only want to profit from the sale of guns and weapons that have no legitimate purpose in civilian hands, and keep weapons out of the hands of those who should not have them. It is not greatness to perpetuate ownership of massive amounts of weaponry in the hands of violent felons, terrorists, sociopaths, abusers and just plain crazy people in the name of a document written over two hundred years ago when times were completely different. I may be greedy, but I believe my right to live is greater than your second amendment right to own a weapon you cannot carry around in public or reasonably use to hunt or protect yourself, your family or your home. Placing the rights of the gun lobby over the rights of citizens is not greatness.
For a country to be great, it must keep its citizens safe abroad. It must also respect the safety of citizens of other countries, especially within their own countries. This means respecting the laws and culture of other countries, not beating your chest and threatening everybody who is different from you. The size of your army does not determine the extent of your greatness. Armies are, of course, necessary; however, they are a last resort to those who threaten us. Disagreeing with your personal beliefs or your system of governance or ethics is not necessarily a threat to us.
For a country to be great, it must respect the rights of non-citizens both here and abroad. We cannot turn away refugees who look to us as their last best chance to escape oppression and violence simply because they do not speak our language or they do not look like us, whatever that means. Humanity calls for moments of grace. Grace in turn calls out for compassion. You cannot turn away a mother from Guatemala fleeing gang violence simply because she is Hispanic and has not gone through "proper channels". You cannot separate that mother from her child and have no real way of reuniting them once you have sent her back to Guatemala -- and then compound the problem by telling the child he/she can never become a citizen because they did not come here "the right way". It is the very antithesis of greatness to separate families and then try to rationalize that they somehow deserved it.
So yes, this country is great. This is my country, where I was born and raised, and where I live. I do not want to live anywhere else.
And I love this country.
This is not to say, however, that everything about this country is great at all times. Sometimes love for country manifests itself in recognizing what we do wrong as well as what we do right, and then setting about correcting those problems, and getting others to help correct those problems. And when enough of us recognize what is wrong and collectively go about resolving what is wrong, it is then that we truly do become the greatest country on earth.
