A Foreigner's America?

When the world comes to see the United States as an enemy, there is something peculiar and unsettling in the air. When a website of some renown describes this country as the world's "most reviled" nation, it cannot be denied that there exists nothing less than a vast and meaningful disconnect of respective zeitgeist that presents itself to any thoughtful observer.

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America was always a dichotomous, Janus nation - born of a revolution by democratic visionaries such as Tom Paine but built on genocide and enslavement. Enriched by immigration but made greedy by power and wealth. It was always a question of which America was in the ascendancy at a given time. I think that during Clinton's presidency there were elements of that democratic America to the fore. Or at least there were by contrast to a country now redefining its role as an international citizen, a country where democratic rights, enshrined in the Constitution, are eroded largely by consent. I am not leaving the country in which I arrived. The cafeteria in Congress changes 'French Fries to 'Freedom Fries'. Students are urged to monitor and report academics who oppose the occupation of Iraq. An Egyptian-American friend had a visit from the police after his seven-year-old son refused to sign a letter from his school to troops serving in Baghdad.

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And this is from only one article, and not even the one which was the subject of the editorial reference noted above. It is one, rather, that expresses regret that America is no longer the country the author -- a foreigner -- knew.

There is a madness about, of this I am certain. The madness is not that of the typical raving variety; not the Hitlerian, emotive kind that we sometimes see on the streets of countries far and wide, and even in this one. No. It is rather a sweet and sickly madness of loss -- the loss of pride, the loss of restraint, and the loss of what might be deemed empathy, on all sides.

For it seems clear to me that America's pride was deeply hurt by the attack on 9/11. That our wounded pride was translated into determination, and then implacable animosity toward our enemies. That this became a force unto itself, a blind rage that admitted of no boundaries.

It was an overflow of emotion against reason, and who could blame us for our anger?

Who, but the rest of the world, whose sympathy soon transformed into fear, and then contempt, toward a country that considered itself beyond the mere restraints of international law.

America discovered that bearing the torch of liberty while wielding the sword of self-defense were each tasks that demanded her full attention. But one cannot wield a torch and a sword in the same hand; one is dropped, in favor of the other.

Where the carefully meted pronouncements of America as Liberty personified fell as drips of honey feeding the oppressed populations of the world, now the edicts of a well-girded warrior sprang forth from the land of Lincoln.

The world was horrified, and angered, and in turn America was angered that the world did not follow as it had done before.

But the truest loss in this is not yet widely perceived. It is the loss of ratiocination that precedes this transformation of our nation. It is the substitution of emotion for rationality as a point of departure. It is the subjugation of rational interests in favor of short-term gain.

The loss for the world is therefore not limited to the loss of American standing in the eyes of the world. Nor is this a loss for America itself, since our strengths compensate for the world's disdain. The loss for the world extends to the fabric of political flux. It is the failure of human rationality to configure our fate.

And no leader, anywhere in the world, is immune from its effects.

Source of excerpt: Link.