Estadounidense, Redux

So, I promised the positive side of my struggle with my identity as a U.S. citizen who is extremely conscious of his country´s extremely shoddy record in international relations, and of the perceptions (several of which are probably very right-on) that much of the rest of the world has concerning the U.S., and not even 24 hours after part one, I feel ready to bring my thoughts on this matter to some degree of completion.

The upswing is that, for the first time in my life, I don´t feel apathetic about my identity and citizenship. That little blue passport, and the country it represents, isn´t just a tool to get me in and out of all the countries of the world; it´s an integral part of who I am. I might criticize, I might be outraged, I might be angry, I might be desperate for a change, but by God, I am a passionate United States citizen who cares about his country and wants it to make just, right-minded decisions about its actions in the world. When I hear about liberty and justice for all, it´s not just the end of a pledge; it´s the beginning of a journey. If this is what we are going to stand for as a nation, and it is a glorious ideal to pursue, then we need to be committed to understanding what that means and how then we are to live in the world as a nation. I don´t think that imperial-minded relations with the rest of the world promote liberty or justice; in fact, I tend to seem imperialism as the opposite of those things. It undercuts those very things, at home and abroad, in the name of more wealth, more power, and more prestige.

So, where´s the good news in this? The good news is that we always have a choice - a choice as people, a choice as communities, a choice as a nation. We can genuinely try to understand what peace and justice mean in a global context, or we can ignore the question and then try to shut up our collective conscience with more meaningless consumerism. We can protect ourselves and our citizens from harm, or we can behave recklessly, using our force to pre-emptively terminate threats that probably don´t exist, all the while considering the other possible benefits of this use of force. We can promote fair global economic policies that encourage, rather than exploit, developing nations, or we can pretend that those people over there are only starving because of their own corrupt governments. We can be a republic that defends the civil liberties of its people and balanced economic development of its states and that only uses its military power in times of absolute global crisis when not using force would be suicide or irresponsible, or we can be an empire that puts right-of-government above right-of-citizen, puts reckless global corporate capitalism above fair, equitable economics, and that flexes its military muscle whenever it so desires. That choice is in our hands - in my hands, in your hands. I know which one I want, which one leads to genuine national security, prosperity, and liberty.

If you´ve had the patience to wade through all of this, I salute you, and I´ll reward you next week with HUMOR...you know, that thing I like but haven´t really employed this week? Yeah, ít´ll be back next time - promise!