Idealism and America

            I have often been called, in these increasingly politically divisive days, an idealist for expressing my beliefs that we as a nation, and as individuals, are capable of looking past ourselves, past our own immediate wants and needs, and doing what is right for the future of this country.  Well, perhaps I am a bit of an idealist, but at what point were we led so far off track that we became convinced that being so was a negative thing? 

            Looking back at this country’s incredible history, it’s clear to see that those who have had the greatest impact upon its creation, its evolution, have always been idealists. 

The Founding Fathers were a group of statesmen who looked at the way their colony was being run, saw the tyranny and oppression of imperialism, the suffering it was causing in the streets around them and, rather than step down, saying there was nothing they could do, or retreat into their parlors to rail in private against the unfairness of it all, but do nothing to stop it, chose to see a brighter future for America. 

No, they raised their voices, shared a dream of an America where everyone was given the opportunity to rise above the station into which they had been born, was given the tools, the education, the open doors and advantages that allowed them the ability to truly rise to their potential.  They saw a world that had never been and chose to believe, against great odds, that it could be and were willing to give their lives to make it so, because some ideals are more important than blood and pain and even death.

A century later, this country went to war with itself because many of its citizens still saw that the dream hadn’t been fully realized, not when many of those who worked to bring it to fruition were being held in chains.  So, again, those who believed in freedom, in equality and in our ability as a nation to be better than we had been, fought and died and created from the ashes of a dark past the foundation for a new and better future.

I know what many of you are thinking and you’re right.  While they were freed from one set of chains, those new, valiant Americans, many of whom had fought side by side with those who would see them freed, were then shackled with another, fashioned from the fear of reprisal for the injustice and ignorance that had been the core of their suffering. 

But, if anything, that was a failure of idealism, a failure to look at our fellow man and see that, despite difference and experience, they, too, could rise above what had been in the name of what could be, as so many did.  No, it is a testament to their idealism that, even in these newly-fashioned, more insidious chains, they believed that they could still be a part of this country, could one day stand shoulder to shoulder with their brothers and sisters in the dream of a nation of equality and prosperity.  And they were right. 

Though it took much suffering, and the deaths of many more brave men and women, they utilized the most powerful aspects of the dreams dreamt by those men who once believed that we could be a nation, to bring about true change, once again, not with violence, but with hope, with peace and with the voice they had been given by this great nation.

Today, we find ourselves once again on the precipice of darkness.  Our country suffers under the weight of inequality and, for the first time in a very long time, stands so divided that it may well break.  We rail against one another, tearing each other apart because there is no vision for a brighter future, there is no guiding light to which we can move and, without that, we are terrified.  And, like scared children, we scream and cry, without the understanding that we have the ability to chase off the monsters.

Now, more than ever, is the time for idealism.  But it must be tempered with realism.  It is idealistic to think that, given free reign, a business will look out for its consumers and the economy upon which it depends more than its own bottom line, to think that more weapons on the street will lead to less violence, to think that, freed from the burden of taxation, all Americans will instantly stand up to share the load on their own and do the things that must be done to hold this country together.  That, my friends, is idealism without the sobering voice of reason.

Certainly, we look at ourselves and say, without hesitation, “I would,” when asked if we can hold ourselves to those ideals.  But can you say you believe it so easily for those beside you?  What about those on the other side of the political line, those who, despite what the people in whose best interest it is to have to believe so, to keep you divided from one another and more easily manipulated, are only visionaries of a different sort, with a different idea about what this nation could be?  The words don’t come so quickly there, do they?

As Americans, it seems that we can’t agree on anything these days, and I couldn’t argue that we do, wouldn’t argue it, though not for the reasons you may think, not for the hopelessness, despair and desperation which seem to weigh down so many hearts in my troubled country.  No, I wouldn’t argue because I believe we need disagreement, were founded and kept alive and brought into power by those who disagreed.  We argue now because we are all visionaries, we all see a world that is better than the one in which we live, not only for ourselves, but for all of those who live within it. 

But there are those who would, who are, stopping us from realizing that vision.  Their ideals are not the same as ours.  They seek not to make a better world, but to better their own worlds.  And we have allowed them to do so, to divide us by our differences when we should be uniting beneath the ideals we share, the hope and the strength and the passion to be better than we have been.  It is within us, it is our birthright as citizens of this great nation, to rise up and take power back.

So call me an idealist.  I will wear the badge proudly.  My country can be great again, as once it was, and greater.  But do not doubt that I’m a realist, as well.  It will take sacrifice.  It will take some suffering.  And, more than anything else, it will take compromise.  It will take all of us giving without the instant gratification to which we’ve become accustomed. 

Instead, we will have to look to the long-term.  We will have to look around at the world and see it as it should be, not as it is, and, most importantly, to believe in its capability to become so with the same conviction as did those proud Americans who came before us. 

The greatest weapon of those who would keep us beneath their heels is hopelessness, is making us believe that things cannot change, that we should accept that this is how things have to be and that it is the fault of our brothers and sisters.  It is their voice in your ear that whispers that we should simply accept things as they are, that we must spend all our time and energy on blame, when it could better be spent on enacting change.  We must find hope in ourselves, in our ideals and, most importantly, in one another. 

There is so much in our history that proves we are better than those who would keep us down believe we are, that we are able to pull ourselves from this morass of despair and bring this nation back to where it belongs, to continue to forge the shining dream for which so many have given their lives.  We can be more.  We can be better.  We can be idealists and realists.  We can be Americans.