Archive for the ‘American Living’ Category

England is full of Englishmen.  France is full of Frenchmen.  Italy is full of Italians and Russia is full of Russians.  So what is America populated by?  This little mental exercise points out one of the amazing things about the way America was envisioned by the forefathers.  When you think about it, America stands out as most unique of all the nations of the world because we are not the homeland of an ethnic people.  Now, we do have our ethnic population in the form of the American Indian native population which we value and prize as much as any population that lives here.  But “America” as a nation is remarkable not for the dominance of one ethnic group but for the lack of one ethnic group that defines what it is to be American.

This is why we are called “The Great American Melting Pot”.  It’s a good illustration because when you imagine a big pot bubbling over a stove or campfire, all of the ingredients all mix together to make one delicious meal.  That is truly what America is.  Our many ethnic subcultures mix and blend and add spice to each other until that resulting personality, that thing we call “an American”, is truly a wonderful blend of all of the ethnic groups that make up this great country.

In fact, the way Americans view ethnic diversity is unique in the entire world.  We do honor the ethnic background of all peoples.  In almost any big town or city in the country on any given weekend you might come across a festival celebrating the ethnic heritage of a people in that community be they Irish, Greek, German, Scottish, Native American, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Mexican, or any of the other many ethnic groups who call America home.

Over the centuries we have had waves of immigration from particular areas of the world that have added their particular flavor to the big melting pot of America.  Sometimes in larger towns you can drive from neighborhood to neighborhood and each one will have the unique atmosphere of the home country of the ethnic group who calls that neighborhood home.  But that spirit of celebrating the authenticity of every American is not used in this country to drive people apart.  It is to honor the uniqueness of all Americans and actually bring us together.  So as citizens of Chinese origin dance the Chicken Dance at a German Oktoberfest or as Americans of African heritage happily try on quilts at the Scottish Festival to be Scottish for a day, we enjoy the ethnic background of each other’s heritage.  In doing so, we become one people from many.

In fact, American society continues to strive more and more to make ethnic background a source of pride but not division between our own people.  So when it comes to where we work, who we keep as friends and who we socialize with out and about, to an extent, Americans actually do not care what another persons ethnic background is.  This kind of attitude is virtually unthinkable in the majority of the world’s populations where each country is populated by a single “tribe” as we mentioned earlier.  The American outlook of being ‘color blind” about such things is a bold experiment in how to run a society.  But the American experiment in social order is one that is so successful that it is mimicked by dozens of nations all around the world.

There is something very unique about the heart of what it is to be an American that results in Americans being the most charitable people in the world.  That is not just a generous exaggeration.  Documented studies have shown conclusively that Americans give far more to charity and to help out their fellow man in times of trouble than any other private citizenry in the world.  Just consider these statistics.

*    When the tragic tsunami hit Asia and devastated so many countries, American private citizens gave 1.78 billion dollars in relief above and beyond what the U.S. Government gave to help bring relief to the suffering.  This size of donation just on the private sector side dwarfed even the best of what other developed nations could contribute.

*    Only a few months later when a terrible earthquake devastated Pakistan, American rallied again giving 78 million dollars to aid the suffering there.

*    When hurricane Katrina and Rita devastated the US coast states, Americans from all over the nation responded with 3.12 billion dollars and relief efforts are still underway to reach out to those displaced by that terrible storm.

These are just a few of the hundreds of examples of charity that Americans give willingly every year whenever the need is great.  Americans donate an estimated one quarter of a trillion dollars to charities such as the American Red Cross, The Salvation Army and The American Cancer Society.  And the amount that Americans give through their places of worship exceeds the gross national product of all but the most prosperous of nations.

These figures stand in direct contrast to the idea that Americans are selfish and spoiled as some would like to maintain.  But the reasons for how deeply the belief in giving to others in need is engrained in the American psyche are diverse and an important part of the American dream and how this country came to be.

Part of the reason lies in the immigrant heritage that is what virtually everybody who makes up this great country can call their linage.  That is because when we all go back to our roots, we all started out with a dream and this great country to grow that dream in.  And all along the way, we helped each other.  So we have a generational debt to pay back to all who pitched in and helped our ancestors establish this great country.

But it’s more than that.  Our zeal to help others doesn’t stop at our shores.  Americans give more than any other nation to help out others in need around the world.   Our instinct to give is stronger than even our national politics as we will give generously even if an enemy of America is hurt by storm or disease.  When it comes to helping out our fellow man, we put aside national animosities and reach out.  That is a people who have that kind of deep empathy for others.  That is what it means to be “an American”.

That empathy for people of all races and colors, nationalities and countries of origin is very natural for Americans to feel.  We are a people made up of the immigrants from all lands.  And so when we reach out and aid others who are suffering, we all feel like we are touching our own family that way.  That is the heart of what makes American charity so amazing and so generous.

And even if the countries we reach out to don’t always appreciate what we do, Americans will always be a people who will not sit by and let others suffer.  We have that deeply held national conviction that we are all going to get through this life together.  And that is just another in the many reasons why America is the greatest country in the world.

There is a tremendous reverence and respect for the founding fathers of America in our country.  These brave and brilliant men forged a constitution and made a reality a new nation that was more than just another new country.  It was and is a country the likes of which has never been seen on earth before.

But what is not commonly known is that those very same founding fathers viewed this new society and the government they put in place to protect it as a great experiment.  And it was an experiment that even the founding fathers did not know for sure would actually work.

So much of how America is set up as a society from the federal government to the powers of the state to the rights and powers of the citizens was very new when America was first starting out.  Nothing like it had ever been done in any of the societies from which our founding fathers emerged.  This thing called “The Great American Experiment” consisted of some core values that we now consider to be the normal things of the society in which we live including…

*    The reach of the government will be kept away from the religious life of its citizens.  .

*    That the rights of the individual are paramount even over the rights of the government.  Those rights they came down from God, not from man.

*    The founding principles of the society were not just based on man’s philosophy but on the natural law of nature and of God.

*    Government must be constructed to keep human leaders from abusing their power.  This is done through a carefully set up system in which no one section of the government can get too powerful.

*    The ultimate “bosses” of government and of society are the American people themselves.  If government officials ever go against the will of the citizens, they should be removed and replaced with representatives who know how to follow the will of the people.

These ideas that sound basic to us but were nothing short of revolutionary at the time our country was founded.  But as we look back, we can see that in the minds of our founding fathers was a concept so above and beyond any other former government before it that it was certain to create a virtual utopia compared to the social systems of its time.

To be sure, there have been struggles as the American experiment slowly became the great country that we know it to be today.  There were a lot of changes that had to happen.  Slavery had to go away and we had to recognize the rights of everybody to vote, to work side by side and live in equality.  But through it all the concept of power residing with the people has endured and prospered to the point that few in America can imagine it any other way.

Over our history, the American system of social order and government has been challenged by opposing systems of thought.  Communism was more than just a dread enemy to be fought overseas.  There was a real movement here in America to get that system of government in place here.  But, as always, the wisdom of the people prevailed and democracy won out over a totalitarian system that would remove rights from the individual and give them to the state.

Even within our government from time to time we see movements to take power away from people.  The system of fifty autonomous but unified states adds another layer to an already brilliantly designed system of keeping the federal government in a servant’s role and keeping the power where it belongs, with the people.  So we can expect that we will see more movements come and go that go against the founding principles of the great American experiment.

But we have good reason to feel confident that because the American people have solemnly and seriously kept America on track with the vision of the founding fathers for over two hundred years, their wisdom will prevail again and again.  The American experiment will continue to show itself not to be an experiment any longer but a beacon of democracy to shine around the world.