We live in a time of reconsideration of the nature of American liberty, equality, justice and equity. The current discussion – more of a one-sided argument characterized by shouting, demonstrating, looting and burning – seems rooted in the idea of America the Evil.
This past summer, a student with whom I’d interacted for more than five years, who had enrolled in Summer Senate,[i]made a motion to forgo the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. The student questioned the notion of “…liberty and justice for all,” stating that he did not see fruit of that statement in today’s America. The Summer Senate defeated his motion 11-3, but found an accommodation by allowing those to remain silent who preferred not to say the Pledge.
Upon reflection, however, I realized what lacked in this young student’s thinking – a sense of perspective and the understanding that the idea of American liberty is aspirational. Since its founding, America has pressed toward the ideal of “liberty and justice for all” as aspirational goals. We have not yet arrived, but we are on the road.
Elder Americans, like me, easily recall our formative days during the 1950s and 1960s, when racial discrimination was aggressive and overt. Our experiences differed by locale and local culture, but to some extent we all lived in an era when racial discrimination began to be openly challenged, and it needed to be. We witnessed it in many forms, although quite differently depending on where we lived. De facto segregation, for instance, somewhat isolated those of us who grew up in white working-class families on St. Paul’s East Side from those who grew up in black working-class families in the Midway area.
We lived during the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, witnessed and heard Martin Luther King Jr.’s message and many other voices crying out for “liberty and justice for all” regardless of skin color. We learned of integration, affirmative action, and watched news coverage of marches and confrontations. We knew we had wrongs to right, but also that much had already been done.
Today is not yesterday, however, nor is it tomorrow. The aspiration to do better, to end racial discriminated and push toward “liberty and justice for all” will always be with us, unless we tear ourselves apart under the illusion that America is, indeed, evil.
Three individuals whom I recently met, all foreign born, — one British, one Liberian, one Chinese – have given me a perspective about which we should all be reminded.
Tony Simon, 73, a Jew, was raised in Great Britain where he ran a successful business. Upon retirement Tony enrolled in a London university. There he extensively and passionately studied American history. Tony fell in love with America. In a talk Tony gave to my Student Senate, he stated:
William Faulkner was right to say about America that “the past is never dead, it is not even past.” Maybe he meant, America is still a young transformative country where any past errors are always being revisited and revised-putting previous wrongs to right!! All countries have had chequered moments in their history coupled with original sin, but, few, if any, have conquered, reformed and overcome like America has.
Simon provides a history that has been forgotten, of all that American idealism has accomplished in the world in, as he sees it, the country’s short existence. He concludes:
It seems to me that the only real way for America to be hurt can be by hurting themselves and not fully appreciating where they have come from and where they have arrived at. I confess to being, perhaps too much, at least for an Englishman, head over heels in love with America, but there are way too many who appear, unjustifiably, out of love right now. It is a fitting time to reconnect.
Now to Alexander “Buster” Deputie. Born in Liberia, Alex’s family fled genocide. “Genocide,” he says, “is when only the other side has guns and they use them to kill your side.” I met Alex at least a decade ago when I spoke in his church about America’s historic founding, and the necessity of infusing Christian and moral teaching into our culture, laws and government.
Alex, now in his 30s, chose to run for the Minnesota State Senate in 2020. Subsequently, his wife and he had dinner with Rosanne and me. Alex presented to us that evening a powerful and profound love for America. Who among us has suffered the kind of discrimination his family faced, that ends in indiscriminate killing by people who don’t like your kind? Alex knows a vicious and violent kind of discrimination that had nothing to do with color.
Alex passionately loves America. He explained how he’s never experienced discrimination and I believe by that he means, he does not let it stop or slow him down. Instead, he married wonderful Cassie and the couple have seven children. Alex and Cassie own and operate three businesses and serve together as lay people in church ministries. His passion for “liberty and justice for all” drove him to run for elected office.
Chao Yu, 48, a Chinese refugee, came to the United States seeking political asylum. During the 1990s, while still living in China, he became a practitioner of Falun Gung. He also began providing story lines to American journalists which revealed a dark underbelly of Chinese Communist rule. For this, his country imprisoned him for more than nine years. Released from prison, he made his way to the United States.
Chao Yu heard me speak about health care at a GOP women’s event early in 2020. He asked for my books, which I provided. Later, he sent me the transcript of his own talk to the same group. Soon I invited him to hear Dr. Alan Keyes, PhD, speak on the “Foundations of Liberty,” on July 19.
During Q&A with Dr. Keyes, Chao rose and asked, “Do you believe that Christian people in America will step up and defend the nation?” Keyes could not give a definitive, positive answer.
Rosanne and I had dinner with Chao Yu the following Sunday. We shared in a candid discussion about his own plight and the plight of the Chinese people, and of the current challenges to liberty or order faced in America.
Once again, he asked about the commitment Americans had toward their own ideals. “You must understand,” he explained with sadness in his eyes, “if America falls, the world will fall.”
Chao Yu knows America is not perfected yet. Alex and Tony, Rosanne and I, would agree. But all of us agree that America is a great country, built on a solid foundation of faith in God, and in our forms of governance as conceived by our Founders. We would all agree that much remains to be done, but progress toward “liberty and justice for all” cannot happen when staring down the barrel of a gun, in the midst of riot and chaos, when human hearts lack the discipline of high moral character.
We would also agree that now, as much or more than ever in our history, we need to fall head over heals in love with America for all she can become. If good people will take upon themselves the mantel of self-governance, first in their own hearts and actions, and then in concert, America will be the land of “liberty and justice for all” to a greater degree tomorrow than today.
[i] Summer Senate is an independent program which I offer to high school and college students in the Twin Cities. The Senate acts as a mini-legislature, listening to witnesses while gathering facts, then writing bills and working to persuade the Senate to pass them.
