An Ode to America
by Cornel Nistorescu
Why are Americans so united? They don't resemble one another even if you paint them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how many they are.
Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about.
The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the first moments of panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colours of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a minister or the president was passing. On every occasion they started singing their traditional song: "God Bless America!".
Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday once, twice, three times, on different TV channels. There were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts, Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Silvester Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film or producers could ever bring together.
The American's solidarity spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word. What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul. What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say without facing the risk of stumbling over words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this charity concert.
I don't know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn't sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because you weren't able to sing for your country without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests.
I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that would have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.
How on earth were they able to sacrifice for their fellow humans? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.
What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.
Only freedom can work such miracles!
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Thank you Mr. Nistorescu for reminding all Americans, the prize and value that is our great nation.
Thank you, Cornel, for reminding us that although we are a nation of people of manifold color, it is not our color that unites us. Although we are a nation of many different cultures and languages, it is not our cultures or languages that unite us.
Thank you, Cornel, for seeing America's greatness does not stand in the fact that we are all the same, but that this bouquet of humanity is united by one ideal, the Ideal of Freedom. It has been this Liberty that has made us the envy of the some, and the enemy of others.
When this Liberty is threatened, this mix of color, culture and language have united to defend this ideal for ourselves and for others, reminding us of the words of greatness that was once spoken ages before, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." This is certainly true in the case when that friend, is so different from ourselves. The One who spoke this truth, was not just philosophizing. He backed-up what he said with action. He laid down his life for people the same as Him, but yet very different from Him. He was the same as his 'friends', yet He was much different from them.
It is the Freedom of the individual that translates to the Liberty of the whole of our people. When the Liberty of the individual is secured, the Freedom of the whole is secured also. This is the vision our founding fathers reached for in that document that is at the core of this American Experience, Our Constitution. This unique document ensures for us a Republic, not a democracy. In a Republic, the liberties of all men are safeguarded, whereas in a democracy, the freedoms of the 49% can be taken away by the 51%. This, our founding fathers, warned us against.
We have been bewitched over time to believe that we are the latter, when Our Constitution provides for the former. If we fail to regain Our Republic, this "democracy" can only lead to the eradication of those freedoms that once made us great. These freedoms even now, are being attacked by those sworn to defend them. There is a word that is used to describe such men, who swear allegiance to something with their mouths, then secretly or not so secretly, work to undermine it. That word is 'traitor'.
We recognize that this document is so vital to the maintaining of our Liberty, that every government official, from the lowest to the highest, every naturalized citizen, every person entering military service, swears an oath to Support and Defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is that important to the integrity and the maintaining of our American Life. We swear no allegiance to a government or its party, but to the Law of the Land, which stands as a safeguard against such powers seeking to destroy these freedoms.
What America has seemed to have forgotten, is where and how we have obtained this Liberty. It did not come to us in a vacuum.
Our Founding Fathers understood something that we have lost, or has been stolen from us. They knew that this liberty is an Unalienable Right, bestowed upon us by our Creator.
They actually viewed these Unalienable Rights as three-fold. They saw that Our Creator endowed us with the God-given rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. These rights are unalienable, in that no government can grant them to us. They are granted to us by He who created all things. The government is to be the protector of these rights, not the one who steals them. These rights were viewed not just for Americans, but were seen as the rights granted to All Men Everywhere.
Our Creator has endowed us all with the right to Life. No man, institution or government has the right to take from us that right to Live.
This Life can only be fully expressed where Liberty is allowed to be fully exercised. Life without Liberty is mere existence. The exercise of this Liberty is fully expressed in the ability to pursue Happiness. This happiness, is the ability to pursue our full potential in this world, as we are able to attain such potential. The only limiting power of attaining this potential is the individual themselves, and not the restraining force of a coercive government.
Thank You Mr. Nistorescu. You have brought the reason for America's greatness back to our minds. May we continue to prize this costliest of human rights, the right to Live Life, in Liberty, Pursuing Our Full Potential, Unrestrained.
This is the American Dream and I believe the dream of true men everywhere.
Larry Wishon