P.S. We’re not living up to the principles of the Declaration of Independence? We don’t behave in a way that makes our freedom “compelling to others”? I guess that’s why no one wants to immigrate to the United States
Precisely. For some reason, more than a million people annually brave life and limb to get here illegally across our southern border and millions more legal immigrants wait patiently in line overseas for years to get here. Today, one in every eight residents of this country is foreign-born and that number will go to one in seven in several years.
The NYT editorial reminds me of Jimmy Carter's 1979 Malaise Speech. Some excerpts:
"The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our Nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own."
"Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the door on our past."
"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose."
"The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next 5 years will be worse than the past 5 years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world."
Funny, but not long after Carter left office in ignominious defeat capped by the Iran Hostage Crisis of 444 days, the America he described [perceived] turned around immediately under Ronald Reagan. The glum, defeatist view of America held by many of the political and media elites reflects more on them than it does this country, which still remains the shining city on the hill to the vast majority of people on this planet. They vote with their feet.