JFK was wrong—Americans don’t owe their country anything, and the U.S. has been letting its people down for a long time.
, who famously declaimed: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”The fact is, most of us are here by happenstance. We found ourselves pushed into a world neither of our making nor our choosing. The fact that we find ourselves in this particular nation at this particular time is no more than luck of the draw. So why do I owe a single, solitary thing to this landmass on which I find myself?There are many ways to think of a nation.
I’ve started to think about Kennedy’s words with something resembling bitterness. Yes, I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had in my life. But I can’t honestly say they were given to me by “America” any more than I can say the macaroni and cheese I made for lunch was given to me by Kraft. I paid for that mac and cheese and I have paid for America.What does any nation owe its citizenry in return for the citizens’ allegiance? Safety, certainly. Can the U.S.
Even then, what were we? A beacon of freedom in a darkening world? That’s the story we liked to tell ourselves, but it was always, at best, an exaggeration. Since World War II, what we’ve mostly been is a war machine sponsored by Ronald McDonald. The Soviets just gave us a place to point our missiles.
Increasingly, I’m not sure it matters who wins in November. Can any person reorient this hobbling and sclerotic nation in four years? In eight? What can be done to reinvigorate/redefine our national identity? Must we have another goddamned world war for Americans to find purpose?
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