Washington Would Weep

As of late, there has been much debate on the old op-ed page (of the Ashe Mountain Times)about the Founding Fathers and what they may or may not have believed from a spiritual point of view.
While I am more inclined to sit in the “not a Christian nation” camp, I will say that many of the things we do as a nation and a government contradict the separation of church and state philosophy that Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Washington and others championed.
In fact, I think they would be quite angry to see that today in America, we have the Ten Commandments on the walls of most courthouses, that we have “In God We Trust” on our currency, that we have Bibles in our courtrooms, that most governmental meetings are opened with prayer only to the Christian God and that we have blind devotion to Israel simply because the Bible and the Torah say they are God’s chosen people.
But, then again, we as a nation have twisted and misinterpreted the Constitution (and other founding documents) so much that not separating church and state is the least of our problems.
We forget that the Founders were humans like the rest of us, prone to the same prejudices and imperfections that we are. We also forget that they faced the monumental task of creating not only a new form of government but making sure that it was done in such a way as to be an example to the rest of the world as to what free white men could accomplish.
Oh my, did I say white men? Yes, and I meant it. The Founders were not always the benevolent guys we all want to make them out to be.
They were intelligent, yes, they were passionate, yes, but they were also educated men from fairly wealthy families who owned land, businesses and slaves.
This is not true of all, but it is true of most.
In other words they were not the working-class heroes some want to make them out to be. They would have had a lot more in common with the Kennedys than with Joe the Plumber.
Our history is full of these types of men and women and we are as imperfect today as we have ever been in the history of our nation — difference now is that the stakes are so much higher.
During Revolutionary times, if we had lost it, we would have just been another subject insurrection put down. Today, when we stumble, the impact reverberates around the world. And we do stumble from time to time.
We stumbled when we fought each other over states rights that were clearly defined in the Constitution and the government used the institution of slavery as an excuse. We destroyed the lives of innocent fellow Americans and fought two physical wars (Korea and Vietnam) and one philosophical one (The Cold War) and used the threat of universal communism as an excuse — even though most of the world’s population still lives under communist governments.
Today, we are fighting a physical war for philosophical reasons because we dumped on Muslim countries so long that they decided to hit back.
But, as was the case in the later 20th century, our leaders lack the guts to really fight the wars the way wars should be fought — quickly and devastatingly.
We in this country have become a society of touchy-feely apologists. We are not now and never have been perfect, but at least we used to put our nation and our fellow countrymen before the rest of the world. Now, we are so afraid of losing some misperceived status in the world that we are constantly apologizing for taking a stand. It saddens me and it would disgust the Founders.
As we limp into another Fourth of July holiday where we are supposed to celebrate the founding of this nation, I suggest that we re-examine exactly who we are supposed to be as Americans.
And I do not care if you are man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, brown, red or blue. Nor do I care if you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Pagan or atheist.
It is well past time that we start acting like Americans, dedicated to keeping ourselves free and safe from foreign threats, such as terrorists or illegal aliens, or domestic threats such as gutless politicians or careless oil companies.
We owe the Founders better and we for sure owe the future generations better. Because if we don’t start acting like Americans again, there will not be a country to leave them.
I for one do not want to go to my grave knowing that I was part of ending the greatest and most risky experiment in nation building the world has ever known. Do you?