AMERICA THE SINGULARITY - Memorial Day 2007

Throughout our relatively short, but amazing history, Americans have been characterized by the possession of a rather formidable belief that freedom is so valuable, it is worth dying for.

The precioous liberty that was bequeathed to us just a few generations ago has become an inseparable aspect of our lives; like the air we breath or the warm sun on our faces. We may at times take it for granted and imagine that it will always be there.; but in every generation of Americans there have been those who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect and preserve our own liberty; as well as to bring its blessings to others.

But even we tend to forget what a singularity America was when it was first founded two plus centuries ago; and what a singularity it remains to this very day. In the history of a world awash in human misery, bondage and oppression, America is the "shining city" of the human mind, made real; it is a lone beacon of freedom and hope and opportunity that slices through a darkness that has shrouded the world since the dawn of time.

That darkness had dominion over the human soul.

And then, a few simple words were written which altered time and space forever; and the continuity of the darkness was broken . The universe was forced to shift to accommodate this unprecedented, remarkable idea, that glowed so brightly, it upset the balance of all those invisible forces impacting human destiny. And even though the raw power and energy of this bright new paradigm is still rippling through the time-space continuum, a higher, more perfect equilibrium was suddenly achieved in human affairs: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

In a universe of moral chaos; in a world of pain and suffering and hopelessness, America was founded and the world has never been the same.

America was never perfect, but it was never conceived to be some abstract utopia showcasing human perfection. The 56 men who came together to usher it forth understood that in order to form a more perfect union they had to pledge their lifes, their fortunes and most of all, their sacred honor. They understood clearly that human freedom only guarantees that mistakes will be made; but that the human soul is only able to thrive when human nature is allowed to be free. Further, they understood that society too, will inevitably progress when the individual human soul is unchained.

A singularity, after all, is not perfect, it is simply a unique event in time.

Whatever our faults--and there are many-- our repeated willingness to stand and die for this incredible, shining idea of human freedom has never been one of them. This willingness exists at the heart of all our highest values; and it defines the essence of the primarily benevolent, generous--and often contemptously dismissed as naive and unsophisticated--character we present toward the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, those are the very traits that make us the object of all that envy, rage, contempt and reflex hatred that has been directed toward our country in recent decades ( though there are some signs that Europe is coming to their senses again).

For most of its history, America has been at the leading edge of Western civilization, promoting protecting, and nurturing the classical liberal values of that Civilization, which include freedom, democracy and individualism. Never in that history has our country been more consistent in that effort than it is right now.

President Bush in his 2005 SOTU address said the following:

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.

Of course, if you think Bush is evil, another Hitler, and the greatest terrorist in the world, these words will have little meaning for you. If you happen to believe like Glenn Greenwald that, "Neoconservatives hate liberty as much as they love war", then, not only do you not have the slightest clue about what neoconservatism is all about--let alone America; or, you are just another narcissistic and vicious anti-American leftist who simply cannot deal with the ethical and moral bankruptcy of your own little ideology and its failure to dominate the world in the last century.

The significance of the singularity that is America has always escaped you; as it has escaped all those whose most deeply held desire is to have power over others and be part of the ubiquitous darkness that oppresses the human mind.

America has never claimed to be perfect or infallible. It has stumbled along, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, doing the best it can at the moment to protect the precious legacy given to us at great cost by our forefathers; and defended down through the years with the blood of courageous patriots. America is unquestionably imperfect, but it stands for something real. It stands for something truly wonderful and rare in an insane world where delusional nations and psychotic murderers desire only tyranny and death as the legacy of mankind; and where the weak of mind and character willingly appease and submit to those dark desires.

I am more proud than I can say to be an American at this point in history, as the US stands so resolutely and fiercely against the vicious tyranny of this century's incarnation of yet another genocidal 'Thousand Year Reich.'

Some insist that the monstrous evil afflicting the world today is the United States and the western values it promotes. I have heard these arguments over and over again in the last few years from my peers; endlessly repeating the talking points that daily appear in the news. They wave banners and spew forth slogans about American "imperialism" and "oppression"; yet, never have so many done so much to give the blessings of liberty a chance to take root and grown in the barren soil of the darkest places on earth. And never has their sacrifice been less appreciated or understood. Never, in fact, has the darkness had such allies as those who mindlessly and loudly condemn America, but are strangely silent when the death-loving, freedom-hating darkness makes its barbaric and anti-human agenda perfectly clear.

It is so easy and satisfying to condemn individual acts of atrocity, knowing full well that such acts are not part of official policy; nor do they reflect in any way the values of the West, particularly America. In fact, all those who place the highest premium on the sanctity of human life must be saddened to learn that human life is so cheap for some in our midst.

The triumph of the good lies in the West's relentless pursuit of justice and our demand that those in our midst who violate the fundamental values we stand for be held to account for their behavior.

This we will do. This we have always done, though not always as perfectly or with the necessary vigor in some cases. Since we are human, we make mistakes; but we are also capable of learning from them. We always aim for "a more perfect union" and not the unattainable perfection of an oppressive utopia.

Only the morally bankrupt and relativistic political left are unable to appreciate this. They would like nothing better than to say that the actions of a few individuals reflect the values of the whole society. Yet, when it comes to condemning real, observable and institutionally-sanctioned brutality, murder, torture, oppression and crushing of the human spirit; when it comes to denouncing the hatred and vitriol that is stoked and manipulated against certain groups, religions and countries; when it comes to confronting the mindset of the suicide bomber; the unmitigated hatred of the religious fanatic; the societal humiliation and oppression of women as a matter of formal and "virtuous" policy--well, the silence of the left is so deafening, it shatters the eardrums.

And worse, it enables the real monsters who once again threaten to engulf the world in the flames of their madness. How those monsters must laugh at the idiots who obsess about American imperfections; and by doing so are completely blind to the real threat to human freedom and progress. The monsters we fight understand full well that the moral relativists and cheapshot artists of the left will never willingingly call real evil to account--because they lack the fundamental courage to confront it.

To confront evil in the world, one must first have the courage to confront it within one's self; to be able to see the dark side of one's own nature and accept one's own imperfections. If you are able to do this, then you will easily recognize the pathetic behavior at Abu Ghraib--and other places-- for what it is: a manifestation of human imperfection, that part of ourselves which finds comfort in the darkness, and which can lead any one of us under the right circumstances to betray the light.

But honest self-reflection and confronting the dark side of their nature is something the political left will not do--they dare not do--and so they will continue to encourage and enable that dark side of themselves both internally and externally; even as they tell themselves how virtuous and superior they are. They know they are not capable of such evil. Their motives are always pure; their actions are always perfect and have no negative consequences. They are the only truly morally superior beings on earth. They have pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred denial on the truth of that belief.

Hence they are blind and unable to recognize those who--like themselves--are capable of incredible atrocities on a scale beyond imagining, simply because they do it in the name of some"virtue" or "good". This blindness to their own nature renders them morally paralyzed and incapable of confronting the threat of evil.

C.S. Lewis wrote:
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

The cruelty and inhumanity of this or that particular person is manageable--during time of war and during peace. Where a rule of law reigns, perpetrators will be--must be--held to account (see Bill Whittle's excellent essay that discusses in detail the ramifications to society if they are not).

But the dark is rising again, and its allies, who threaten humanity with their fantasies of a "pure race" or a "pure religion" or a "perfect" society, are loose and once more the singularity that is America must provide the light with which to confront the black, oppressive hopelessness it spreads within and without.

This Memorial Day, let us thank God that there are men and women in the world who are not morally paralyzed by the rabid nonsense currently being propagated by the left; and will not remain silent, but are willing to do what needs to be done to shine the light on that darkness.

And, let us also be thankful for America the Singularity, which freely nurtures a love of life and freedom; and which make such courageous people possible.

“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States