On Being an "Anti-American"

The US presidential elections are of great importance, not only to Americans concerned with short-term home policy issues, but also to the world's peoples who are affected by the long-term effects of US foreign policy. I am convinced that, besides dashing the dreams and lives of countless fellow citizens of the world, current US foreign policy will inevitably have a boomerang effect on the US economy, security and even long-term viability, as we are beginning to see evidences of already.

In other blogs I have explained my conviction regarding the urgent need for a world-wide federation of nations, so that the foreign policies of each country might follow the democratic will of the world's peoples, and not just the economic interests of a handful of people in the most powerful countries, at the expense of others. Whether or not US readers agree with this approach, I would suggest that while cheering on your favorite candidate, you would do well to promote a profound revision of US attitudes towards the rest of the world.

The US as a country has repeatedly demonstrated its determination and ability to achieve whatever it sets its heart on, albeit 'over the dead body' of the rest of the earth's inhabitants. If the US put its mind to it, the country could achieve the establishment of a world-wide legal system to apply the principles of federalism and democracy to international relations. The fact that it has so far continually, systematically chosen otherwise is what irks me and makes me wonder whether all the talk of America defending liberty and democracy throughout the world is anything more than that -- empty talk.

This kind of thinking has earned me the epithet of "blatantly anti-American". Some even go so far as to say that those who are not American citizens or who have chosen not to live in the USA have no right to question it. The flip side of the slogan "Love it or leave it" is those who have left the USA have probably done so because they do not love it. Has it not occured to those holding this position that possibly those of us who have left the USA are the only ones who are really living out the USA's professed concern for the well-being of other peoples than its own?

Additionally, perhaps the fact of not being American citizens or having chosen not to live in the USA (my case is the latter for those who wonder) puts us in the enviable position of being able to see US foreign policy more objectively, from the outside, and that this is why we tend to have more to say about it. Change managers are continually looking for outsiders to help them "see beyond the little box" and discover new paradigms of thought and action. Maybe the US should likewise welcome such people as opportunities to overcome a natural sort of "house blindness", instead of choosing to see them as "personna non grata".

If to question one's own country is to be against it, then some of the 'founding fathers' were among the greatest 'anti-Americans'. Much effort has been put into discrediting the quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism", an idea popularized by New York Mayor John Lindsay in 1969 when, in a speech at Columbia University, he stated, "We cannot rest content with the charge from Washington that this peaceful protest is unpatriotic... The fact is that this dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

Thomas Jefferson may as well said it first, however, since several other of his verified quotes show that this was the general drift of his thought: "All that tyranny needs to gain a foothold, is for people of good conscience to remain silent." "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." "When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality." "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

Anyway, I think I have finally figured out what today's mass philosophy deem as anti-American. As long as one only speaks out against 'the administration', he can still be pro-American. However, the minute one starts suggesting that maybe the attitudes and actions (or lack thereof) of the American people might have something to do with what is wrong, then he is "blatantly anti-American." You see, one cannot just go around suggesting that the people themselves are ultimately responsible for their government's policies, whether on home turf or abroad. That would sound too much like an actual democracy!