National Identity

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I did a “dinner and a show” evening in the Times Square area of NY City. I had acquired tickets for a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at a church on 46th Street just east of the “Crossroads of the World,” and booked a dinner at one of the places on “Restaurant Row,” which is a stretch of 46th Street just west of that hub of humanity. I parked (yes, I routinely drive into Manhattan without fear or trepidation) in a lot by the restaurant, and we hoofed to and from the music venue.

That night happened to be one of the first nights of the World Cup, and Times Square - along with a couple bars on 46th Street - was teeming with people in Brazilian shirts and jerseys. Cheering, laughing, singing songs in unison - it was a wonderful spectacle of people celebrating their heritage.

That happy vista came back to me as I pondered the seemingly unique demands from a certain segment of our culture that Americans decry and despise their nation. Not their government, but the nation itself. Hating America is de rigueur among the Best-and-Brightest. These selfsame arbiters of all things also believe that other nations’ cultures should be respected and even celebrated in the name of diversity, even when those cultures embrace terribly illiberal customs that are fundamentally at odds with values rooted in liberty and individual rights.

Among the things that we are supposed to reject here is the sort of national pride that the Brazilians in Times Square loudly displayed.

The same sort of pride that the Scots exhibited when they drank Boston dry.

That the Norwegians showed with their Viking Row.

It’s the attitude that turned “Make America Great Again” into an epithet rather than an aspirational slogan. It’s the attitude that rejects the core values that made America the greatest nation on the planet and in human history. It’s the attitude that the domestic socialists embrace in their effort to rebrand and resurrect a murderous ideology.

One question that naturally comes to mind is, why is it cool for other countries to celebrate their identities, but not for America?

Why is national pride OK for everyone but us?

I have often discussed my view that America needs robust and on-going immigration, for a wide variety of reasons, but that view includes the requirement that our borders be controlled. A nation without borders is not a nation.

Likewise, a nation without an identity is... what, exactly?

Konstantin Kisin is one of many who have noted that a multiethnic nation can thrive, but a multicultural one cannot. America is proof of the former. Waves of immigrants of a variety of ethnicities have contributed to the melting pot that is American culture, but that melting pot has always been at its foundation about liberty and the opportunity for self-determination. These are why those waves came to our shores and across our borders, and it has been the path to success for countless millions.

Yet that spirit of the individual, a spirit that is at the heart of America’s success, is rejected in favor of a collectivist mindset that is at the heart of the economic malaise and stagnation we see in so many countries around the world.

I spend a lot of time writing about the rise of socialism in America. While there is so much else to write about - politics today is a target-rich environment - I continue to feel that we are in an existential war with a movement that would erase everything good about this nation, and replace it with what we know will only destroy.

How do we counter this? What’s the remedy? Just as they do, we have to hammer the points about liberty and America’s greatness relentlessly. Remind people that nation and government are not the same thing, that we can have national pride and that we can cherish our values while criticizing the things our government does that don’t align with those values. Indeed, a core point of our system is distrust of government, which makes the widespread vocalization of trust in government over market forces so worrying.

Libertarians love to denounce each other, and there’s a fair bit of that in conservative circles as well. Liberals are starting to denounce the leftists among them, and we should do our best to encourage them. The socialists are well-organized, well-funded, and have covert and sinister actions by foreign governments abetting them. Don’t underestimate these fanatics, cynics, and opportunists. This really is a war for the soul of the nation.

Our side in this war should reject the “yes, but...” waffling when it comes to national pride. National pride is not pride in government, it is pride in the nation’s foundational values. We may not always live up to them, but their promise is what keeps us on the right track.

One hundred seventy-four years ago, before the nation nearly destroyed itself in a war to end slavery, the great Frederick Douglass gave an Independence Day speech that endorsed the aspirational values of America. He was correct then, and embracing that aspiration remains correct today.

Love your country. Distrust your government. No matter who is in charge.

In closing, I ask: Can a nation that hates itself survive?