To Build or Destroy?

Name one country on this planet whose borders have never changed. Whose land was never fought for. Where every single inhabitant is an ancestor of someone who sprouted forth from within those borders. Name one country whose bedrock isn’t mottled with the cinders of conflict and the ashes of savagery. Can you?

I’m going to assume that you don’t approve of the practices of many Europeans during the colonization period of America, such as murder, pillaging of land, and slavery. By this logic I’m also going to assume that you don’t approve of the practices of the people that lived on this land before the Europeans came, like murder, rape, slavery, pillaging, scalping, roasting people over fires, and tearing the hearts out of children.

I’ve got some bad news. Humans have been doing this to each other ever since there have been humans. But stop and think for just one minute. Think about how you’ve never had to take part in or be the victim of such atrocities. Think about the luxury you have to sit by your sparkling pool on the 4th of July and make up songs about how much you hate your country. The luxury you have to dance on the flag and stomp all over the sacrifices that strangers made for you.

Think about how you’ve never had to shed one drop of blood for your freedom. How you’ve never had to fight for anything. And I don’t mean Twitter battles. Or making posts like this. I mean the unimaginable trauma of taking a life, or watching blood bubble out of your body because someone else can’t agree on where one country ends and another starts, or because you’ve given your life in the perpetual plight of defending the line between where liberty ends and communism starts.

Seriously. Think about it.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Sure, it’s great for me but it’s not so great for oppressed group X”. By now it should be clear that that narrative is constantly being hijacked for political purposes. But it’s also clear that there has been genuine oppression in this country, some systemic forms of which still exist. But think again about freedom. If you truly want to help, you’re free to find someone that needs help and help them. You’re free to start a literacy program. You’re free to teach someone a skill. You’re free to enliven someone by showing them the value of work. You’re free to start a humanitarian aid organization. You’re free to volunteer. You’re free to assemble peacefully and petition your government for a redress of grievances. You’re free to open your home. You’re free to get a job and put all of your spare earnings into making a real difference in your community. You’re free to do so many things that this paragraph could be thousands of words long and still not come close to chronicling them all.

You can’t right past wrongs. But you can make future rights. Equal opportunity is a beautiful thing to fight for. What’s also beautiful is the person you become by building something instead of tearing it down. This is the heart and soul of the American ethos, built by the virtuous vision of the founders: a place that protects your God-given right to make whatever you want out of your God-given life.

To deny the transcendental truth of the principles put forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is to deny the very composition of human nature. Have all American citizens lived up to every covenant outlined therein? No. Has any group of humans ever lived up to their collective code of conduct perfectly? No. But the foundation is there. The values are valiant. And to deny that America has made strides toward living up to its ideals is to deny reality. To tear down that foundation is a grave mistake.

Take one minute and think about what you’re asking for. Regurgitating the rhetoric of America being founded by slavery on stolen land and being irredeemably evil is not only short-sighted and deceitful, it’s dangerous. You’re inadvertently (and in increasingly more cases blatantly) advocating for Civil War 2. You know what that means right? Murder. Pillaging. Blood. Death. Concentration camps. Roasting people over real fires, not just on social media. If the side of communism wins, firing squads. Drawing new borders. Anointing new kings. Taking over land that was someone else’s. All the things you say you’re against. All the atrocities you’ve been so lucky to avert in your lifetime. You want to bring them all raining down upon yourselves and your fellow citizens?

We’re at a tipping point. This is our moment of truth. The fate of our country and our children will be determined by whether we choose to build or destroy – right now. If you care at all about humanity the way you say you do, the choice should be clear.