On a Clear Day, You Can Seethe Forever

The dark forces of silliness are truly at work in America these days, but, then again, it is difficult to identify a time in our nation’s history when that wasn’t to some extent the case. Silliness, it appears, is often a by-product of freedom, and freedom is what it is all about, baby. I most often get frustrated by silliness not so much because people don’t agree with my opinions, but because often I can’t even find common ground on what the facts are. I am not a subscriber to factual relativism, and while questions like “what does God want us to do?” can only be answered speculatively, a question such as “how many quarters do you presently hold in your right hand?” has a specific answer and, if you have three but you say you have four, then you are simply wrong; you don’t have a “different perspective” or an “alternate view”; either you can’t count, have poor vision or you’re a liar. This is an important point, especially when you are trying to reconcile the disconnect between what a group of people say they stand for and the principles their actions imply.

So, anyway, Glenn Beck has this circus of some sort in Washington, D.C. which is attended by either 1,200 or 2,000,000 people, depending on whether you watch MSNBC or Fox, and he goes on and on about something of which I have no idea since I didn’t participate, but which looks like praying with indigestion. Christopher Hitchens, the terminally ill, atheist, Libertarian curmudgeon whom I love and hate and admire and despise, called it the “Waterworld of white self-pity”; apparently not having thought much of Kevin Reynolds’ meandering 1995 cinematic magnum opus about what happens to the world when all the ice melts. Mr. Hitchens very insightfully puts his finger on exactly what is going on in America right now which I had as yet not been able to piece together.

Undereducated and generally conservative white America, opines Mr. Hitchens, is essentially in mourning over the impending doom of the Eurocentric foundation of American culture and the resulting loss of racial and cultural arrogance which has fueled our smug sense of superiority as God’s chosen nation for so long (my words, not his). Despite years of Internet and decades of television, large, mostly white, segments of America’s population, are genuinely ignorant about, and afraid of, most of the rest of the world. Because the churches have fanned the flames of orthodoxy forever to keep their meal tickets from wandering off and the Government has demonized half the world in order to justify wars of economic convenience and the expansion of the military/industrial complex, many Americans really feel we are about to be overrun by the Visigoths. Christianity is in peril, cornbread is endangered and the missionary position will be a thing of the past. This sense of desperation is resulting in things like the armed civilian border patrols and all the cock-a-doodle-do over the “Ground Zero Mosque”. The coalescing event for these disparate concerns was the election of Barrack Obama as President. Here’s a guy with a foreign sounding name who is not like the guys who were over last Sunday watching NASCAR, a man who had a Muslim father and who actually lived for a time in a foreign country (if he wasn’t born there!). Then he wants to quit killing Arabs and mend fences with the Islamic world. What’s a working class white person to think?

It really had somehow not occurred to me that there was anything going on with the silent soon-to-be minority other than the usual Lee Atwater/Karl Rove manipulation of the ignorant masses combined with the trauma of the worst economy in most everybody’s adult lifetime; but after reading Mr. Hitchens’ missive, it finally dawned on me why I am so uncomfortable with the current state of affairs in our wonderful nation. There are large numbers of my fellow citizens who really believe that something important, irretrievable and wrong is happening in America right now. What I am talking about is not simple racism or the commonplace apocalyptical nonsense of the religiously deranged, but a real fear that a valuable, even paramount, element of human culture is being lost. As wacky as it sounds to some of us, the avalanche of brown skin, open homosexuality, indecipherable religions, unintelligible languages, unfathomable technologies and funny looking people who are clearly just as smart as white folks has evoked a palpable fear that this nation will soon not be under the control of the descendants of the founders, with God-only-knows what consequences for the patriotic and the faithful.

As a 50 year-old white guy from Macon, Georgia, I can actually understand the roots of these sentiments, even if I am prone to laugh when I see them expressed. These irrational feelings are the reason “Constitutionalists” forget that the Constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” and that the 14th Amendment prevents States from depriving citizens of rights that the U.S. Constitution guarantees. These illogical fears are the reason Christians forget that they are commanded to love their neighbors as they love themselves. This nuttiness is the reason Glenn Beck has a TV show, not visa versa.

During the course of my interesting but largely wasted life, I have learned that human beings are way more alike in every way than they are different in any way. I have learned that wisdom and fear seldom occupy the same space; and I have learned that ignorance and hate are twins separated at birth and both raised by really bad parents. I know that what my fellow citizens fear is a figment and that the power of the idea of freedom and commitment to the principle of fairness will be irresistible to all who come after us, no matter their cultural roots or genetic heritage. I know that despite the enduring presence of ignorance, fear and intolerance in America that there will always be a place for minority views, even stupid ones, because of the insight, courage and tolerance of the majority of Americans, of every race and creed.

God bless you Mr. Hitchens, even if he doesn’t exist. Mr. Beck, prayer and hard work are empirically demonstrated to work better than prayer alone. Angry looking old white lady, chill; the die is cast and the nation and the world will be better for it. Peter, put away thy sword. E.T, phone home. Thomas Jefferson, you old scoundrel, the father of freedom and race-mixing, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.