“They hate America” snarls a conservative pundit regarding the American left. And while Democratic Party politicians would never admit to this, many of their constituents would. After all, the United States was built upon the backs of slaves, the exploitation of workers by greedy capitalists, and destruction of the pristine environment previously safeguarded by the people they call “Native Americans,” at least as far as they’re concerned.
However, most people, whether they identify as conservative or liberal, would emphatically claim to “love America.” And there is no reason to believe they are insincere.
But what exactly is it about America they love? Do they know?
Certainly, everyone develops an affinity for the place where they were born and raised. Having lived in more than one state and traveled to most others, as well as abroad, I can understand this affection. No other place feels like the place one was brought up.
There is nothing special about America in this regard. The natives of every country feel the same, even those countries whose governments make them difficult to love. But when Americans say they love America, they mean something more than that. They recognize America as different from most or all other countries in some way. Some even describe it as “exceptional,” although that modifier has acquired a somewhat unsavory connotation due to its use by American neoconservatives.
If pressed, most Americans who say they love America would make vague references to the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence, although most probably couldn’t tell you much about either. Even many elected officials don’t seem to realize they are separate documents that the Constitution does not contain the words “all men are created equal” or endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…among these Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Regardless, most Americans who say they love America could at least paraphrase that paragraph (or the parts they like) from the Declaration. But most don’t actually agree with the political views of the people responsible for it.
Let’s start with “all men are created equal.” Like the rest of that famous paragraph, this is a concept drawn straight from John Locke’s Second Treatise, the document Jefferson told people to read if they wanted to understand “ the general principles of liberty and the rights of man in nature and in society” as Americans understood them. Its meaning is extremely limited.
All Jefferson and the Continental Congress meant with this statement is that no one person is born with a natural right to rule over another. Period. It doesn’t mean people of different races should earn the same incomes or men have a right to compete in women’s sports leagues or any of the other bizarre beliefs about equality 21st century Americans seem to hold. It was purely a political statement about what Locke claimed could be observed in the “state of nature” (the state without government).
It is because people are equal in this very limited, political way that their consent is required to any type of government over them. This is also the basis for Locke’s argument about the limits of government power, that even a democratically elected government could exercise no power than individuals had in the state of nature.
That’s a severe limit that virtually no American believes should apply to government today.
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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupidand Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
