FreeDumb: The United States Is NOT Number One
Just a few thoughts from a former American idealist.
I just returned from a July 4th family party. It wasn’t my idea, but I showed up for the kids and grandkids, and we enjoyed a few hours of party foods, star-shaped balloons, and fireworks purchased by an eager fan of bright flashes and loud noises.
Yet surrounded by the balloons, necklaces, streamers, banners, t-shirts, and mortar blasts colored red, white, and blue, I felt mostly numb resignation. Every year on Independence Day, the United States intensifies its crazy belief that nobody else on the planet knows how to properly “freedom.”
When I was an evangelical right-winger, I pounded the drum of American exceptionalism, oblivious to so many other world nations with democratic governments, free speech, a free press, etc. If someone had mentioned Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, etc., I’d have blinked patriotically and held up my Yankee index finger. I would never betray the home team. We’re Number One.
In my 2020 book, “Confessions of a Former Fox News Christian,” I laid out the embarrassing truth that the United States falls far short of other developed countries in almost every social category: cost of living, quality of healthcare, employment percentages, crime stats (including rape and murder), homelessness, military conflicts, inflation, life expectancy, and general happiness. We did top the charts in military spending and national pride, which means America is #1 at yelling “We’re Number One"!”
Today, I’m struck by the misty-eyed myopia of my youth. I was a proud ‘Murican, but proud of what? An accident of birth? Had I examined the metrics and measurements for greatness? Was I a patriot or mere tribalist?
There are millions who’ll spend this holiday getting misty-eyed whenever Lee Greenwoods “Proud to Be an American” pours out of the bluetooth speakers. The lyrics are typical heartland fare…sweet but shallow:
And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I'd gladly stand up next to you
And defend Her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.
Sentiments like this clumsily insulate themselves from scrutiny by invoking the victims of 20th Century world wars, so many of them genuine heroes who battled tyranny with their lives and limbs. Dare to challenge American supremacy, dangerous jingoism, or the whole idea of a global class system, and you’ve pissed on veterans’ graves. It’s ironic how easy it is to speak treason in the land free expression.
Beyond the terrifying assault on our actual liberties, I remain disheartened by the cheaply-bought supremacy that has long infected the American attitude. Millions remain completely dismissive of the rest of the world. They preach and protest for high walls and phallic weapons. They laughably decorate themselves like patriotic peacocks, basking in the barbecue smoke, wearing star-spangled speedos, and firing 170-decibel mortars which scare the holy hell out of wildlife and house pets.
In a country that’s anything but united, our Independence Day is mostly another excuse to do what Americans seem to do best. We make noise. We litter the yard (and occasionally set it on fire). We irritate passers-by who simply want peace. We drink and dance under the falling ashes. And we further feed our tragic belief that we’re not just freer. We’re better.
I left that Fourth of July party early. I blamed it on needing to check on the dogs, but I suspect my reasons ran deeper. My country is increasingly a cult of ignorance as bliss. Its citizens are distracted by shiny objects and prey to almost any bigotry it sees on Fox News. In this cultural moment, MAGA culture pounds the tympani of freedom while voting for a king. The Supreme Court is a joke. Conservatives cheer for barbed wire and book bans. Female bodies are now government property. White supremacists parade at Disney World. Christian Nationalists are demanding that public schools teach mythology as history. And for all of this and more, free Americans are shooting gunpowder into the sky.
The “patriots” might call me a traitor, but I wonder if I might spend next year’s Independence Day someplace more quiet, humble, and sane. Maybe…Canada?
Stay here Seth and fight the good fight. That’s what I plan on doing and they’ll just have to go written house on me. I don’t care. I do plan on leaving a published obituary. In case it does happen that I’ve been given a very late 56 year term abortion by a magat and I was part of the plan to ‘take back’ the country. I’m just sure average lady close to retirement hard-working mom and grandma. I would hope they keep my bloody clothes and my family would fly it from a flagpost every day. I would make sure that people would be forced to see what has been done if the worst should happen. I am at peace with this and not afraid I have had enough to be quiet for so long and I suspect a lot of other people have as well. Too many of us keep it quiet because we don’t want to disturb our relatives, friends and coworkers but what we are doing, is accepting and giving comfort to their delusions and blood libel. Every day it gets increasingly further, and something has to be said. I feel I’ve been guilty for appeasement for too long. I’m ready to counter every ‘but what about Biden’ whataboutism. I’m a patron for your podcast Seth and sometimes I wish I could share them without the intro because I know they will not listen and immediately shut down anything that you have to say I wish they would listen though, and you have a pastors speaking cadence and I can recognize that of a sermon.. it’s in your blood. It’s an all of us they have sat in the church… but yours is not exclusionary and it’s for all people and very heartfelt unfortunately, most people , see atheism, and the immediately they shut down and reject anything that is said and will not even acknowledge. I guess it’s up to people to offer a little bites every day to counter the prejudices and offer another point of view. I just have to speak louder to cut through the chorus of chaos
I posted some of this on the friendly atheist but:
I used to have a list of things that I could do in NZ that you can't do in the US. Most of them were reasonably trivial like – being able to cross the road wherever I feel like it, or pick up a feather off the ground. But now they are getting more and more serious like – being able to get an abortion.