The phrase “Make America Great Again” either invokes a sense of proud patriotism or elicits a strong animosity toward the current administration. For many, America has always been great but has undergone a low point in recent years. Others would argue, to quote New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, that “America was never great.”
There seems to be no middle-ground in these opinions but is there any validity to either? Was America ever “great,” or has it always been the racist, misogynistic cesspool some liberal professors would have you believe?
I argue that beyond an inkling of doubt, the United States was, and is, the greatest experiment of personal liberty to ever grace the world stage. The U.S. was founded on the bases of God-given, inalienable rights for all men.
Of course, in the beginning, these principles were limited to white landowners. But this bit of hypocrisy on the part of the Founders does not negate the importance of the rights listed in the American constitution.
This argument is a logical fallacy known as the appeal to hypocrisy. The mere fact that some of the Founding Fathers may have been hypocritical in their conduct does not invalidate their arguments for liberty. For example, Thomas Jefferson, who is famous for writing the Declaration of Independence and coining the phrase, “all men are created equal,” also owned many slaves during his life.
While Jefferson’s participation in the abhorrent practice of slavery does make him a hypocrite, it does not negate the value of his argument that all men are indeed given (or should be given) equal opportunity before God and the law.
Another popular trope of leftists is to defame America as being founded on racism and slavery. No one can argue that the U.S., like all nations, has its fair share of regrettable history. I make no denials of the evils perpetrated under the yoke of slavery in America’s infancy.
However, to disregard and accuse the entirety of America based on wrongdoings in her past is foolish. If a Mercedes had a flat tire, would you junk the whole car? Of course not, you would realize what a prize luxury vehicle it is and takes the appropriate measures to remedy the problem.
America is much the same. People of all races recognized this country’s potential and worked to solve the issues facing the nation from its birth and through the present day.
Finally, one of the most popular methods of slandering the United States, often circulated via a hashtag on social media during the Fourth of July, “America was never great.” In the words of MTV’s “New Year’s Resolution for White Guys,” “America was never great for anyone who wasn’t a white guy.” This argument is blatantly false, and it is easily counteracted.
America was so great in fact, that people from all ethnicities were flocking to the East Coast in droves by the end of the nineteenth century.
America was so great that thousands of freed slaves were willing to lay down their life on the altar of liberty during the Civil War for a country they knew was worth salvaging. To be frank, America was and still is so great, people who claim to hate it so much still refuse to vacate.
The truth is the USA is the greatest nation to exist presently or to have ever existed in the history of the world. No other place, especially at the time of the Constitution, was such a bastion for freedom and liberty. The ideas presented in the American experiment were revolutionary and they shaped the way every progressive, modern nation operates today.
Despite the liberal indoctrination attempted by many institutions and professors around the country, American exceptionalism holds fast. This country and its people are unlike any other in history and, in my opinion, simply put, the best.
If America falls there is little hope for freedom’s survival in this world. We must strive to ensure this nation “shall not perish from the earth.”
