Our republic is at risk
In the wake of riots that have spread across America, leaving shattered businesses and wounded communities in their wake, it feels as though our nation is collapsing around us.
That’s bizarre, considering that virtually all Americans agree with the following two propositions: first, that it is evil for a police officer to place his knee on the neck of a prone suspect struggling to breathe for eight long minutes; second, that looting, beating business owners and attacking police officers is wrong. That seeming unanimity should mean unity in the face of police brutality and of rioting and looting. It doesn’t.
It doesn’t, because members of our political class have decided that instead of rallying against obvious evil, Americans must be categorized as enlightened or benighted based on their answer to one question: Was America and is America rooted in racism and bigotry? If you answer in the negative, you are complicit in racism and bigotry. If you answer in the affirmative, you may be categorized among the woke, the aware, the sensitive and the decent.
This is a nonsensical and dangerous game. But it’s a game pressed forward by the most powerful messaging institutions in our society.
America’s history is replete with racism and oppression, but that’s because America didn’t hold true to her founding ideals; America’s philosophy is good and true, and her flaws are thanks to her failures to follow that philosophy. It is a lie to attack Americans’ fundamental rights as outgrowths of persecution.
Declaring America’s most fundamental structures corrupt and cancer -ridden is deeply dangerous. Once a structure has been condemned, its foundations declared unstable, it can only be destroyed. There is no way to argue that fealty to a particular political program inside that supposedly corrupt structure can fix the problem.
So Americans are left with a choice. We can either think of one another with charity and accuracy, acknowledging the sins of America’s past while recognizing that America remains a beacon of freedom and decency. Or we can continue to follow the path of those who would tear us apart. To follow the latter course isn’t sensitive or moral. It places the very existence of our common republic at risk.