The Grand Illusions of America's Liberals
By Edward Bernard Glick
America's liberals are consumed with guilt. If not soon purged from our society, their guilt will kill us all.
Bent on rewriting history, or else entirely ignorant of it, they deny that the United States has brought more freedom and well-being to more people most of the time than any other nation in history. They also accuse our country of racism and imperialism.
Indeed, we Americans are so racist that only five percent of the blacks forced out of Africa were shipped to British North America, and later to the United States. Less than a century after their independence, our ancestors fought a bloody civil war to end slavery.
We Americans are so racist that ours is the only white-majority nation that has tried to make amends for slavery and its aftermath by means of Constitutional amendments, congressional legislation, and executive actions. Affirmative action is an example.
We Americans are so racist that in 2008, we elected the first black president of the United States. We hailed two of President Barack Obama's predecessors when they appointed the first black to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first black to be national security advisor, and the first black to be Secretary of State.
We Americans are so racist that there is one African-American on the Supreme Court and there are 42 African-Americans in Congress. Two Jews serve on the Supreme Court, and 45 Jews serve in Congress.
We Americans are so racist that we force foreigners to flock to our embassies and consulates and make them beg for visas. We Americans are so racist that we have allowed millions of non-whites and non-Europeans -- people from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East -- to immigrate here and become part of the American Dream.
As for our so-called imperialism, our liberals are deluded about that, as well.
The truth is that there are imperial aspects to America's past. The United States did take land from North America's native peoples. But so did the French, the British, and the Canadians. So, too, did the Spaniards and the Portuguese in Latin America and elsewhere. So, too, did the Australians and New Zealanders in the South Seas. So, too, did the Chinese, Japanese, and Russians in Asia and Europe.
Great Britain never asked the Scots, the Welsh, and the Catholics of Northern Island if they wanted to become part of the kingdom. Nor did China ask the Tibetans if they wanted be absorbed into Communist Paradise.
It is true that America, influenced by the sea-power teachings of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, conquered the Philippine Islands and Puerto Rico in the 1898 Spanish-American War. But we granted the Filipinos independence in 1946, and we have promised statehood or independence to the Puerto Ricans whenever they decide to abandon their present commonwealth status within the American union.
It is true that President Theodore Roosevelt took advantage of a local revolt against Colombia and acquired the Panama Canal Zone in 1903. It is also true that America completed the Panama Canal in 1914. But President Jimmy Carter returned both the zone and the canal to Panama in 1977.
In 1945, President Harry Truman created the Age of the Nuclear Weapon when he ordered the Army Air Force to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus ending Japan's participation in the Second World War. For a few years, we possessed the only nuclear weapons on the planet. Yet Mr. Truman blackmailed no one. Nor did he take any land from our erstwhile enemies. All America got in the post-war period were the graves of its soldiers who died in Europe. By contrast, the Soviet Union incorporated huge swaths of Poland and Germany.
America's liberals have never learned to look at life through the prisms of contrast, comparison, and context. If they would honestly compare our country to ancient Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, or to Ottoman Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Russia, Britain, and France, then they would have to conclude that America was and is the least imperialistic power in recorded history.
Despite President Obama's rhetoric and body language, the United States has little to be ashamed of. It has even less to apologize for. In the words of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated the slaves from what he called unfreedom, America is still "the last best hope of earth."
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