Americans love battling imaginary foes so much that real enemies take on imaginary traits—marauding Indian savages we saw more fit to name streets after than to respect as human, imperial Spanish that somehow threatened us from a Caribbean island, the Hun, the Jap, the Red Menace, and, now, the terrorist who is somehow is a Muslim.

The essence of the enemy is, of course, the unknowable something that makes them foreign. Even worse to us is the foreigner in our midst, the American who cannot be identified in the crowd and who is working with the dastardly forces hidden in the shadows.

The simpleton enemy is so important to us that we depend on them to solidify us as a people. Since we emerged from the relative disconnectedness of the pre-industrial state, we were so bound to hardened lines of good and evil that we refused to see how we made up our enemies when we had none to define us.

We have also failed to understand that these enemies serve the greatest of all masters: Capitalism in all its spiritual, cultural, and social forms.

It is for this reason that I make this statement:

Thinking for oneself, questioning the values of the culture and the basis of morality, and developing one’s own moral center are what I consider to be the most valuable, eternal, and authentic of all human values, and which are at the center of who we are as Americans—regardless of the popularity of such concepts or which power may be threatened by them.

This, I think, is what it means to be an American. I do not salute the flag, though it means much to me. I do not pray with others because I think it is a private matter protected by the First Amendment. I do not sing anthems. I do not march in any line.

I do not bow to authority. I do not recognize the authority of police, government, or workplace bosses if they demand that I follow blindly. I question all who have power or wealth.

I love the worker, the child, and the oppressed and un... [Read More]