Commentary 43-The Real America

'Real' America has been here all along

By LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@miamiherald.com


A few words about the search for America.

Meaning not the piece of land bounded by Atlantic and Pacific but, rather, the one that exists as a fixed point in the communal psyche, the one that registers true north on our shared moral compass. It is the America where Beaver Cleaver lived, the America of manicured lawns and neat three-bedroom homes bordered by fences made of white pickets. It is the monochromatic America where dad worked and mom kept house and the family went to church together every Sunday, the America of once upon a time and never was. Some of us have been trying to get there (get back there?) for a very long time.

Conservative bloggers and pundits have exploited the longing for this America with shrill desperation to make voters fear Barack Obama, he of the ''funny name'' and exotic parentage. The lies have been brazen and prodigious, vivid illustration of the axiom that untruths big enough, repeated persistently enough, become true. So the airwaves and the Internet swarm with mendacity: Obama is a Muslim; Obama does not salute the flag; Obama mocks the Bible; Obama is not a citizen; Obama is the anti-Christ. Amazingly, the lies do not crumble under the weight of their own fatuity. Amazingly, they fester instead.

It is not surprising to see such tactics from the people who managed to paint a war hero as a traitor in 2004. But last week brought news that similar tactics were considered by one of Obama's fellow Democrats: Sen. Hillary Clinton. According to a story in the Atlantic Monthly, Mark Penn, one of Clinton's senior strategists, issued a memo urging her to attack Obama's ''lack of American roots'' during the party primaries.

'' . . . [H]is roots to basic American values and culture,'' wrote Penn, ''are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American . . . '' In other words, Obama was born in Hawaii (is that even a real state?), spent part of his childhood in Indonesia and does not resemble the presidents on the currency. Ergo, Obama is not American.

It is to her credit that Clinton never picked up on this line of attack. It is to Penn's lasting dishonor that he, even in the midst of a hard-fought campaign, offered it. He is toying with dangerous forces.

Perhaps it's enough to note by way of illustration that according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in this country has risen by almost half since 2000.

Yes, economic dislocation drives that rise, as do terrorism and a rancorous debate over immigration. But that rise also reflects the bone deep terror of those who feel that the further you get from true north -- true normal -- on the compass, from picket fences and church on Sunday, from a white middle American wholesomeness of once upon a time and never was, the further you get from America. To them, anyone who doesn't fit that America -- Muslims or Mexicans or gays or liberals or businesswomen or American Indians or India Indians or any guy with a funny name and exotic parentage -- represents a clear and present danger.

That's wrong, of course. And Penn knows it's wrong, but thought to exploit it anyway. That's beyond cynical.

One can only imagine how that cynicism plays with the Muslim who fights for this country because he thinks this country is worth it, or the gay man who petitions for change because he knows that here, change is possible, or the Indian woman who came here because, she felt, this is where opportunity lives. Their faith gives the lie to the cynicism of political calculation.

And proves that some of us have no need to search for America. Some of us know it's been right here all along.


My Commentary

The America that always was…however imperfectly…is a nation founded on the revolutionary premise that man the individual…every individual…has a natural inalienable right to be free from the exploitation of, and servitude to, any king, the state, the theocrat, the democratic majority, the “humanitarian with a guillotine,” the “social justice” totalitarian, or his neighbor.

America is a nation in which, philosophically, each is his own person, not his brothers’ keeper, who is free to pursue his own welfare and happiness under his government-protected rights to life, liberty, and property.

Obama is a threat (as is McCain, who holds the same fundamental premises but with a pseudo-free market veneer) because he is at root anti-American…not in the sense that he doesn’t love America, which I’m sure he does…but in the philosophical sense. He is the champion not of individual rights, but of collective “rights”…of the power of the group over the individual.

Mr. Pitts is right about the various false stereotypes offered up as what America was (or is). But Obama (and McCain) offers up his own false stereotype…that of an America built on sacrifice and service to each other or the nation. The exact opposite is true. America’s great strength is built on the tremendous productive energy released by free individuals pursuing their own self-interest by their own effort and through voluntary association and trade with each other.

I do not claim here that America’s ideals have ever been fully attained. From its founding, many have been legally barred from access to those ideals. But those ideals, now forgotten by most, are none-the-less real…and waiting to be rediscovered.

For the first time in my 41 years as a registered voter, I will not pull the lever for either major party candidate, because in my view, neither stands for the real America.