American Sunset? Part I

 

 There have been a number of crisis points in the history of the Republic that led people to wonder if our union would endure as we know it.  The Antebellum-Civil War period is one such example that comes to mind right away.  But also during the Great Depression there were those who questioned, not only if capitalism had failed but, if the entire American Experiment had run its course.  The only countries that seemed to have any economic, as well as political, stability were the fascist and communist dictatorships that were emerging in Nazi Germany, Italy, Japan and Soviet Russia.  Organizations sympathetic with the Nazi regime popped up during the '30's, as well as communist associations.  One such group, the Nazi sympathizing American Bund, even held a rally in 1939 at Madison Square Garden that drew twenty thousand participants.  There was a real fear that the U.S. government would be overthrown by a totalitarian movement that would establish an oppressive government here.

When I was in grade school in the late 1970's the question wasn't whether the nation would endure, but if its best days were behind it.  The nation had endured a decade and a half of war, social unrest, assassinations, political scandal and economic recession.  Some even questioned if the job of chief executive wasn't too big for one man; if it wasn't better to have two men share the presidency (I don't know how the proponents of a multi-headed executive branch wanted to divide up the duties though).  The low point in my memory was the failed attempt to free the American hostages held in Iran in April 1980.

I remember it was a pleasant spring day, one of the first of the season, when the news broke of the aborted rescue and the eight dead marines, their charred bodies left in the Iranian desert.  While the weather spoke of hope, the people around me reflected despair.  I was in 7th grade, but our school building housed the grades from ours up to twelfth.  As I walked through the main hallway to my locker there was a group of upperclassmen huddled together, one peering into a newspaper, leaning against a wall shaking his head.  "We lost in Vietnam, we can't even get some helicopters out of a desert.  This country is done for," was the basic gist of their conversation, along with comments about the president, which weren't very complementary.

The country wasn't "done for," of course.  There was an economic and global political rebound in the following decade.  I often hear the 1980's maligned, much like the 1950's were and still are in some circles.  The '50's, like the '80's, followed two decades of economic troubles, war, and speculation over the nation's future.  I often wonder if these critics really consider great depressions, world wars and political instability preferable to peace and prosperity, as imperfect as they may have been.

We are once again at a cross roads.  People are wondering not only if the United States' time of world supremacy is past, but if the nation itself will survive.  Admittedly those predicting an all out apocalypse are out of the mainstream, but not as far out as it may seem.  Zbigniew Brzeninski, a national security adviser under Jimmy Carter, wrote an article recently in Foreign Policy where he envisions a more dangerous world dominated by unstable, shifting alliances, in which no power, including the Chinese, are prepared to take the lead roll relinquished by a weakened United States.  This is a far cry from the late '70's where a U.S. retreat meant a prolonged stalemate with the world's other superpower, the Soviet Union, and one car in every drive way instead of two.  This is the end of the world as we know it.

 

What does this have to do with our life of faith?  First of all it is to remind ourselves that nothing in this world is forever, including the supremacy of the United States.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, in a letter we will be hearing at this Sunday's Mass, "the world in it's present form is passing away."  Christ Jesus is our rock, our surety our life and salvation.  It is to Him we owe our first allegiance.  Governments rise and fall, but Christ is eternal.

This does not mean we should not love our country or be indifferent to its fate.  For the Christian love of country, or patriotism, is an important virtue.  Nationalism, or the exalting of the government, is not.  That is a hard distinction for us to make sometimes because we have had one form of government for almost all our history, and we connect the two things naturally in our minds.  But being American is bigger than who our congressperson or president is, it's even bigger than the Constitution itself.  America isn't a doctrine, its a spirit embodied in a set of core beliefs; personal liberty, mutual respect for the rights of others, equality of opportunity, the value of hard work, an over arching optimism about the future and the belief that these values are worth sacrificing for.  I don't claim this is an authoritative list, but I believe it covers the essentials.

If America is heading into the sunset it is because we don't really believe in our core beliefs any more, spare one; personal liberty.  The growing sentiment seems to be "my rights are very important, but I can't speak for yours."  I do worry about this, and the anti-spirit that takes our rights for granted, that no sacrifices are needed to preserve them.  In the second part of this reflection I will explore our loss of a sacrificial spirit and a core value that is often ignored; our spirit of community.