I came across a quote that really moved me, and I was getting into it with a friend about whether liberals are biased and whether conservatism is just a bit odious. I want to “sketch out” why I am a liberal (a political designation, but also the more philosophical meaning of the term), and why, therefore, I criticize America. To that end, I will use quotations, not by crafting sentences and paragraphs. I think of it like a mosaic – every piece is made of a small piece of glass, but together it makes sense to the eye. It’s going to read like social criticism mixed with a clear-eyed recognition of some American strengths. In so doing, I will look to history’s intellectuals, artists, and fighters for social justice to do the talking for me.
I recently finished the fantastic, frank, and ferocious Why We’re Liberals, by noted scholar Eric Alterman. It was a shot in the arm. Recommend! Here it is on Good Reads. Indeed: “…[m]ost Americans are indeed liberals. They’d prefer to live in a society with increased equality of opportunity; greater access to health care for all; a more equitable system of taxation; a healthier respect for the environment; and a less belligerent and more cooperative foreign policy” (Alterman)
“We have made some terrible mistakes, but we still have a chance to correct them, I strongly believe.”
I’m sure a conservative could find three dozen opposed quotations, and that’s fine; that’s good. The more rationality your garden-variety American can exercise (without some aspect of institutionalized power putting its thumb on the scale in favor of conservatism), the better! Bring it on, I say; twelve fair rounds! Heck, I’ll give ’em the first one for free! “It is not bigoted for citizens to want their country to focus on their own best interests, not those of people from other countries; in fact, it’s the core foundation for any viable democracy” (
“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.” ~ D. H. Lawrence
“The Revolution of the United States was the result of mature and reflecting preference of freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence.”
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores; send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
“In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”
“Given a rich, empty continent for vigorous Europeans to exploit (the Indians were simply a disagreeable part of the emptiness, like chiggers), any man of gumption could make himself a good living. With extra hard work, any man could make himself a fortune, proving that he was a better man than most. Long before Darwin the American ethos was Darwinian.” ~ Gore Vidal
I look at the T.V.
I don’t see your America
I look out the window
I don’t see your America
I want to know how to get to your America
I want to know how to get to your America. ~ Vernon Reid/Corey Glover
“What makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our national distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have led us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations.”
“The White House’s reaction to the Watergate burglary was the first clue that something terrible has gone wrong with us. The elaborate and disastrous cover-up was out of all proportion to what was, in effect, a small crime the administration could have lived with. I suspect that our rulers’ state of panic came from the fear that other horrors would come to light – as indeed they have. But have the horrors ceased?”
“Suspicion of government is part of America’s political culture. This country was started by people who were suspicious of the British monarchy and authority in general. In fact, I think we should be suspicious of any organization with a large amount of power—government, church, whatever. I don’t have a problem with that. The problem is that the far right has moved from suspicion to hatred of government. That’s taking it too far. We need to see that, as a whole, democratic government is working well for us.” ~ Douglas J. Amy
“Although the equality of each citizen before the law is the rock upon which the American Constitution rests, economic equality has never been an American ideal. …The furious and enduring terror of communism in America is not entirely the work of those cold warriors Truman and Acheson. A dislike of economic equality is something deep-grained in the American Protestant economic character.” ~ Gore Vidal
“To become informed and hold government accountable, the general public needs to obtain news that is comprehensive yet interesting and understandable, that conveys facts and outcomes, not cosmetic images and airy promises. But that is not what the public demands.”
“Our unexamined belief in American exceptionalism has allowed us to imagine ourselves above anything so constrictive as international law. American exceptionalism makes our imperialism altruistic, our plundering of the world’s resources a healthy exercise of capitalism and ‘free trade.’” ~ Joyce Carol Oates
“Every country, culture, and people yearns for freedom. But building real, sustainable democracy with rights and protections is complex.”
“America’s revolution was an intellectual one. It overthrew existing modes of thought, existing ideas about the way the world can look. Franklin, Adams, Paine, Jefferson, Madison: America was founded by intellectuals, by thinkers, by readers – by people who risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in order to build a better society by speaking truth to power. Independence, impoliteness, disagreement, dissent: these values are encoded in our national genetics.” ~ William Deresiewicz
“The ‘miracle’ in Philadelphia was a great achievement of mind and will, accomplished through debate, through the counsel of the wise and the discipline of enlightened self-interest. The defects were recorded at the time, but those who put their names to the draft Constitution knew that what they had produced was the most that could have realistically been achieved.”
“Don’t start a political party in opposition to the Property Party. From Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party, so viciously smeared by the liberal ADA, to today’s sad attempt to field a People’s Party, those who wish to promote economic equality should not be surprised to have their heads handed to them, particularly by a ‘free’ press which refuses to recognize any alternative to the way things are.” ~ Gore Vidal
“I want to be among the first to commend the president [George W. Bush] for choosing as his major ddomestictheme the “Ownership Society.” What could be more important than giving more Americans an opportunity to own assets and build wealth? The president is obviously concerned that ownership in America is now concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been since the day of the robber barons in the late 19th century. The richest 1 percent now own as much as the bottom 90 percent put together.”
“This is America. We don’t disparage wealth. We don’t begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we certainly believe that success should be rewarded. But what gets people upset—and rightfully so—are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.”
“Essentially, ‘The ‘War’ on Terror’ became a pretext for war on the American criminal justice system.”
“Truth be told, our country wasn’t founded by the strongest or smartest from other countries, but by those who dared to take a risk; they were competitors who wouldn’t accept the role their own repressive society assigned them.”
“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”
“After politics, journalism has always been the preferred career of the ambitious but lazy second-rate intellect. American exceptions to mediocrity’s leaden mean are, from column one, Franklin D. Roosevelt; from column two, H. L. Mencken.” ~ Gore Vidal
“Because of the civil rights movement, we became a country where a majority of people really embrace the idea of equality as an American ideal. It’s seen as un-American to be discriminatory or racist. That’s a major achievement, despite the fact that we still have inequality.”
“There are people with legitimate grievances as employees, taxpayers, and consumers who direct their wrath against welfare mothers but not against corporate plunderers of the public purse, against the inner-city poor but not the outer-city superrich, against human services that are needed by the community rather than regressive tax systems that favor the affluent. In their confusion, they are ably assisted by conservative commentators and hate-talk hosts who provide ready-made explanations for their real problems, who attack victims instead of victimizers, denouncing “liberal elites,” feminists, gays, minorities, and the poor.”
“The American legal system is based on a useful falsehood. It’s based on the falsehood that this is a nation of laws, not men; that in rendering decisions, disembodied, objective judges are able to put aside emotion and unruly passion and issue opinions on the basis of pure reason.”
“Martin Luther King is the most notorious liar in the country.”
“People don’t realize we have a system of open bribery in this country. And it is open bribery – it’s not lobbying – it’s bribery.”
“American journalism’s golden (a kinder adjective than ‘yellow’) age coincided with [journalist H. L.] Mencken’s career; that is, from century’s turn to mid-century’s television. During this period, there was still a public education system and although Mencken often laughs at the boobs out there, the average person could probably get through a newspaper without numb lips. Today, half the American population no longer reads the newspapers: plainly, they are the clever half.” ~ Gore Vidal
“I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”
“From childhood, we are indoctrinated with the propaganda that America is superior to other nations; that our way of life, a mass-market ‘democracy’ manipulated by lobbyists, is superior to all other forms of government; that no matter how frivolous and debased, our American culture is the supreme culture, as our language is the supreme language; that our most blatantly imperialistic and cynical political goals are always idealistic, while the goals of other nations are transparently opportunistic.” ~ Joyce Carol Oates
“That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world’s most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising.”
“Wal-Mart employees who have bucked the company—by getting involved in a unionization drive or by suing the company for failing to pay overtime—have been fired for breaking the company rule against using profanity.”
“More than any other people, we Americans are afraid of one another.” ~ Wendell Phillips
“Though Americans dislike history, they do like soap operas about the sexual misbehavior and the illnesses — especially the illnesses — of people in high places. ‘Will handsome, ambitious Franklin ever regain the use of his legs? Tune in tomorrow.'” ~ Gore Vidal
“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.” ~
“Our growing impatience with the free play of ideas, our increasing tendency to reduce all virtues to the single one of conformity, our relentless and all-pervading standardization…. Europe doesn’t fear our military prowess; rather it is Henry Ford that gives them the shivers… By Americanization, it means Fordization – and not only in industry but also in politics, art, and even religion.” ~ H. L. Mencken
“A lot of Americans are very insecure economically. We worry about how we’ll be able to retire, how we’ll afford to send our kids to college, pay for our healthcare, or make our mortgage payments. People are looking for someone to blame for these problems. One of the loudest voices is that of big business, which routinely points the finger at government. They’ve made government a scapegoat to distract people from the real problems, many of which come from the private sector itself. The political right doesn’t want to talk about that.” ~ Douglas J. Amy
“Modern Americans travel light, with little philosophic baggage other than a fervent belief in the right to the pursuit of happiness.”
“One of the most common maladies of our time is a misunderstanding of success. In a recent book catalogue of new titles sent to my house by a national bookstore chain, I noticed on one page a book about how to help elementary school-age kids start and run a profitable business. On the next page there was a book about stress and young children. I remember thinking that these two volumes should come as a boxed set. We are in such a hurry to get the edge for ourselves and to give our children all the advantages.” ~ Tom Morris
“The United States was the creation of men who believed that each person has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he doesn’t interfere with his neighbors’ pursuit of happiness.”
“If we can be courageous in envisioning a democratic and egalitarian alternative to capitalism, we need to be equally courageous in envisioning a world of racial justice and equality. As these diverse movements and proposals demonstrate, though white supremacy may have been with our nation since its origins, in need not remain part of our future.”
“There is an aspiration that binds us. It is the dream of justice for a beloved community. It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to develop his or her full potential.”
“We’re all so isolated: if we had live, ongoing, popular organizations, this wouldn’t be so true. The history of the labor movement in the United States is interesting in this respect, actually; when people were really working together organizing, that overcame the isolation. In fact, it even overcame things like racism and sexism to a great extent.”
“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”
“The danger of ancient liberty was that men, exclusively concerned with securing their share of social power, might attach too little value to individual rights and enjoyments. The danger of modern liberty is that, absorbed in the enjoyment of our private independence, and in the pursuit of our particular interests, we should surrender our right to share in political power too easily.” ~ Benjamin Constant
“The right-wing in America has always believed that those who have money are good people and those who lack it are bad people. At a deeper level, our conservatives are true Darwinians and think that the weak and the poor ought to die off, leaving the spoils to the fit. Certainly, a do-gooder is the worse thing anyone can be, a societal pervert who would alter government with subsidy nature’s harsh but necessary way with the weak. Eleanor Roosevelt always understood the nature of the enemy: she was a Puritan, too. But since she was Christian and not a Manichaeans, she felt obliged to work on behalf of those dealt a bad hand at birth.” ~ Gore Vidal
“What is the current price of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them.”
“[We tend to picture John Wayne, on horseback, in the wilds, with his shotgun over his shoulder], but that’s not the America at the founding. The America at the founding is a communitarian America – colonists who understand their obligations are chiefly to each other. In fact, the idea then that the whole point of revolution, the Constitution, a just form of government is, to quote Justice Brandeis: ‘that somebody is to be left alone’ … would have been regarded as pathological. These were communities that understood themselves largely in Christian terms, very much in the patrimony of the Puritan fathers, understanding that a community of people must live together in such a way as to put private interest and self-interest aside and to operate in behalf of the good of the whole.” ~ Daniel N. Robinson
“The overestimation of the American contribution to victory [in WWII] also reflects a traditional ethnocentrism shared by our allies, as well as a desire to downplay the critical Soviet contribution to victory. Admitting that the victory depended on an alliance with a bloody dictator would challenge our view of the ‘Good War.'” ~ Mark A. Stoler
Some folks are born, made to wave the flag
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue
And when the band plays, ‘Hail To The Chief’
Ooh, they point the cannon at you. ~ John Fogerty
“Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.”
“What is patriotism now, and how to we get rid of it, and what do we put in its place, if anything? The word is politically incorrect, of course — Patria (“father”). So where is Mom? Didn’t she help Dad turn the American wilderness into a cement desert bright with golden arches? Didn’t she help Dad kill those pesky redskins?” ~ Gore Vidal
“Our American values are not luxuries but necessities—not the salt in our bread but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad—greater even than the bounty of our material blessings.”
“Marx and Engels always thought that it was the United States that was the great revolutionary country, and Russia the great country of backwardness and reaction.”
“Thomas Jefferson knew that it would be necessary for each generation not only to cherish and preserve the Declaration of Independence’s heritage of freedom, but to enlarge and extend its reach until the children of slaves — his own children — became the sons and daughters of Liberty. The work goes on. Now it’s our turn.”
“No country in the civilized world pays less attention to philosophy than the United States.” ~ Alexis de Tocqueville
“On its marble walls a carved panel proclaims Jefferson’s boast, “I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of men,” without ever mentioning his participation in racial slavery. Perhaps asking a marble memorial to tell the truth is demanding too much. Should history textbooks similarly be a shrine, however?” ~ David Walker
“In the United States of America today, there is massive injustice in terms of income and wealth inequality. Injustice is rampant. We live, and I hope all of you know this, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. But most Americans don’t know that. Because almost all of that wealth and income is going to the top 1 percent.”
“Certainly, it is very hard for most Americans to be patriotic when there is no agreed-upon country to cherish, only warring tribes and, over all, a National Security State to keep the lid on — $300 billion a year for law and order. There is one nation for a black, one for a boat-person, a third for a Cherokee, and milk and honey for that one-fifth of the population with money.” ~ Gore Vidal
“Freedom … ? The land of the free! This the land of the free! Why, if I say anything that displeases them, the free mob will lynch me, and that’s my freedom. Free? Why, I have never been in any country where the individual has such an abject fear of his fellow countrymen. Because, as I say, they are free to lynch him the moment he shows he is not one of them.” ~ D. H. Lawrence
“How does the character of the economy affect the character of citizens? For one thing, as the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville observed nearly two centuries ago, greed and corruption at the top tend to foster greed and corruption at all levels. People think, ‘If those guys are just out for themselves and break the rules to grab what they can get, then I’d be a fool not to do the same.'”
“I hate it when they say, ‘He gave his life for his country.’ Nobody gives their life for anything. We steal the lives of these kids. We take it away from them. They don’t die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them.”
“The assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. showed that all of the wishing and hoping and holding hands and humming and signing petitions and licking envelopes is a bit futile.”
“What if the way we measured the nation’s overall prosperity were based in part on how many additional low- and moderate-income people were able to fulfill the American dream of owning their own home, and had good health care?”
“Everyone recognizes as myths the idea that Columbus was the first to discover America or the story that George Washington admitted cutting down a cherry tree. But very few people realize how much of what we think we know about American history is also mythical and mistaken.” ~ Mark A. Stoler
“After two thousand years of history, it is fairly evident that once the few have total charge of the many, they will forget to preserve the environment, and we shall perish as slaves rather than as what we are now – demi-slaves. It is not wise ever to be optimistic when it comes to the human race. Prometheus stole fire from Heaven so that we could cook not only dinner but one another.” ~ Gore Vidal
“The theft of meaning – of truth and faith and the ability to believe – has been one of the worst things the Republicans have done to the American people.”
“It is marvelous and great that we do have a dream, that we have a nation with a dream; and to forever challenge us; to forever give us a sense of urgency; to forever stand in the midst of the isness of our terrible injustices; to remind us of the oughtness of our noble capacity for justice and love and brotherhood.”
“The Vietnam War raised a red flag about any future military actions that did not enjoy, after an open national debate, the full backing of the American people and support from the international community.”
“I’m not singling out the American democratic system as against other systems. I’m not saying our system is worse than other systems. I’m just saying that it’s not much better. And I mean this for this reason: any mammoth social organization in the twentieth century places huge obstacles between people’s needs and power.”
“Public schools are based on the principle of solidarity…: I happily pay taxes so that the kid across the street can go to school. That’s normal human emotion. You have to drive that out of people’s heads: I don’t have kids in school. Why should I pay taxes? Privatize it, and so on. The public education system – all the way from kindergarten to higher education – is under severe attack. I mean, that is one of the jewels of American society!”
Here is a link to 75 podcasts about values and ethics, much of which has relevance to American institutions, values, and history. Enjoy.