America is a deeply divided country by almost any measure.
Democrats vs. Republicans, people of faith vs. atheists,
creationists vs. evolutionists, capitalists vs. socialists,
abortionists vs. anti-abortionists, Christians vs. Muslims,
judicial activists vs. originalists, old vs. young, feminists vs.
stay-at-home moms, the list goes on. But one division overarches
most or all of the other divisions. It is this: Internationalists
vs. Americanists.
America is a deeply divided country by almost any measure. Democrats vs. Republicans, people of faith vs. atheists, creationists vs. evolutionists, capitalists vs. socialists, abortionists vs. anti-abortionists, Christians vs. Muslims, judicial activists vs. originalists, old vs. young, feminists vs. stay-at-home moms, the list goes on. But one division overarches most or all of the other divisions. It is this: Internationalists vs. Americanists. At the heart of many of the listed conflicts is this more basic division.
An internationalist is a person that, sensing the evident momentum of globalization, has begun to embrace the notion that they are citizens of the world rather than citizens of a particular country. An internationalist is a citizen of the world first and a citizen of the United States second. An Americanist – what used to be called a patriot – is an American that believes the United States is still a special place, the “city on a hill,” a model which the rest of the countries of the world would do well to emulate. Many of the divisions we encounter in social and political life are the result of this dichotomy.
Republicans tend to be Americanists while new Democrats – not the Scoop Jackson/Joe Lieberman type – tend to be internationalists. The war on terror has helped to define the division. Internationalists view the war on terror as an understandable if not justifiable response to exploitation of poor nations by rich nations. Americanists view terrorism as a war that must be fought to preserve the Western ideal of democracy and the American dream. Since the Vietnam war, the forces of internationalism have been steadily growing in the U.S. such that one of the two great parties now embraces internationalism almost without reservation. Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign was an illustration of the point. The dichotomy informs other divisions. Christianity and Judaism, alive and well in the Americanist viewpoint, is derided by internationalists as parochial and destructive. Judicial activists – like internationalist Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – use precedents from international law in voting on American court cases. Americanist Justice Clarence Thomas votes on cases based upon his understanding of the Constitution.
Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, during an address to the United Nations, held up a book entitled, “Hegemony or Survival” by Noam Chomsky. His ineloquent speech is riddled with anti-American slurs, and he called President Bush the devil. The author to which Chavez referred is a famous internationalist. The book itself attacks the United States as being a threat to global survival. Professor Noam Chomsky is professor of modern languages and linguistics at MIT. A lifelong leftist, Noam Chomsky is no genteel internationalist. He believes that every U.S. president since World War II should be impeached since “they’ve all been either outright war criminals or involved in serious war crimes.” He is the purest of the internationalists, an outright hater of America.
The Internet is sprinkled with Web sites representing international organizations that promote world citizenship. Such an organization is the Association of World Citizens. This organization works toward a one world government and promotes something called “A Human Manifesto,” wherein is the statement, “We declare our individual citizenship to the world community and our support for a United Nations capable of governing our planet in the common human interest.” Many prominent Americans are signatories; Jimmy Carter, Walter Cronkite, Mario Cuomo, Jane Goodall, to name a few. Another such organization is the World Federalist Movement. From their charter statements we read, “World Federalists are united in seeking to bring peace and justice to the world community through effective global institutions and binding international law.”
We are discussing here issues dealing with primary allegiance. Either you believe as Ronald Regan did when paraphrasing John Winthrop a Massachusetts patriot who said in 1630, “We will be as a city on a hill …” or you believe a citizen’s first allegiance should be to the world community. From that basic determination flows positions and attitudes in most of the conflicted areas listed in the first paragraph. Battered about in the sea of changes taking place everywhere about us, each citizen must anchor his or her self to one or the other of these propositions. As for me, I will let a great American author, Ralph Waldo Emerson, speak for me when he wrote, “America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.”
Al Kelsch is a Hollister resident who writes a weekly column for the Free Lance that runs on Saturdays. Contact him at
Oi*****@ya***.com
