The latest episode of “Madam Secretary” has three former Secretaries of State giving advice to Elizabeth McCord (the Secretary of State on the show) about what to say in a speech she was to give after some angry protests and a terrorist attack.
The political philosophy of the show, like that of the movie “The American President,” is decidedly leftist. But neither throws its philosophy in our faces and both have heart. So we watch.
The latest episode was different. Almost every sentence spoken by the former secretaries was a mixture of truth and error, the main point being “nationalism” as something bad and, yes, divisive, while “diversity,” they said, is unifying.
At one point Hillary brought up our “original motto, ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ ‘From Many, One,'” and used it to say diversity somehow unites us and makes us stronger. (Really?)
(Many people believe E Pluribus Unum is about many people from many cultures becoming one. But it actually is about thirteen free and independent states becoming one nation.)
Let’s talk about diversity and unity.
It’s human nature to want to unite, to be part of a group. But that unity is most often “us against them” or at least “we who are different from them,” as in our team, our school, our state, our city. We pick one factor to unite around and we find a commonality in that and emphasize it to form the bond. Because we all have the same common factor, we’re friends and we work together. The same is true of nations.
People are united in a nation by their culture or their ethnicity. Without that, they find no common ground and wind up fighting among themselves.
One of the many examples of that is Yugoslavia, a country put together in 1929 from several cultural and ethnic groups that, as of 2006, are, once again, several nations. Recently, we met a couple from Serbia, part of the former Yugoslavia. Their biggest, political concern was an area of historic importance to Serbia, that they considered part of Serbia, that’s now under the control of another country that had been part of the former Yugoslavia. Ukraine has a similar situation.
Ok. So, if people are united into nations by a common culture or a common ethnicity since America has people from every culture and every ethnicity, what unites us? What’s our common bond? What is it that makes us one people? It cannot be diversity. Diversity divides. Diversity, our differences, can never hold us together. How can the thing that makes us the same be that we’re different?
But we do have a uniting factor, one that has made us the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world. And, if we embrace it, it will make us the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world once again. Not only that, but that same power and prosperity will fly into, and become part of, every, other nation that embraces that same uniting factor.
What is that uniting factor? It’s our culture. It officially started in 1776. It’s not a culture of dance or costume or food or language or ethnicity. It’s a culture that can be embraced by every person on the planet. It’s a culture of the mind. It’s a mindset. Our culture, our uniting factor, is a culture of liberty based on hard work and godliness.
Yes, liberty based on hard work and godliness – as a culture, not just a nice idea. It’s the reason we choose to live here, not somewhere else.
Up until illegal immigration became a big problem, most people came here legally. And most came for liberty. Today they come for the money but, even as far back as the Pilgrims (in the 1600s), they came for liberty.
In the 1800s, when a couple or family moved into a frontier area and claimed some land, everyone for miles around would show up to build them their house. The men would build and the women would prepare meals. Even the children pitched in.
Still, today, we are the most generous nation in the world, showing up to help at almost every national disaster, giving billions in foreign aid, and sending volunteers to help people find water, grow crops, and get medical attention.
That’s because our culture of liberty is based on hard work and godliness.
Liberty is the thing that defines us as a nation. The Declaration of Independence declares our basic philosophy and our basic principles. Our Constitution defines our republic (not a democracy!) and limits our government. And our Bill of Rights lists and specifies some of our God-given rights.
That’s what unites us! Liberty based on hard work and godliness!
The diversity mongers of the Left can’t stand that. They want us destroyed because our liberty is a threat to their lust for power over people. That’s why they hire people to scream lies and do violence. That’s why it’s so important to them to teach hatred and “diversity” in the news media, in the entertainment media, in politics, and in every school. That’s why it’s so important to them to make all of us as angry as possible!
We cannot counter that by screaming, insulting, denigrating, ridiculing, being violent, or any of the Left’s other tactics. Neither can we counter that by falling into their trap of being angry or offended every time they want us to be! We can only counter that by embracing and teaching our culture of liberty based on hard work and godliness.
Our culture is one of the mind. Liberty based on hard work and godliness. Whatever diversity there is among us, whatever ethnicity, whatever customs, whatever languages, whatever history, whatever lifestyle, whatever differences of opinion, we can unite on the one thing that united us into a country in the first place: Liberty based on hard work and godliness!
Diversity? We can respect or ignore or tolerate our differences but the thing that unites us is our culture of liberty based on hard work and godliness. We need to teach that if we’re going to continue as a nation! Not just liberty for the people we like, or for those who agree with our philosophies. But liberty for all. Liberty in speech, in religion, in business, in associations.
We may not like what someone else says or does. But, if he’s not harming anyone else, or advocating harming anyone else, we need to insist on his freedom to do what he wants. Freedom to speak only what we agree with is not freedom of speech! Stopping someone from doing something just because it offends us is also not freedom or liberty!
Diversity does not and cannot unite us! We are only united by our culture, our mindset, of liberty based on hard work and godliness!
Not diversity.
Liberty based on hard work and godliness.
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