Manifest DestinyHow Little the World Understands

I was visiting one of my favorite sites, Crossroads Arabia, which links to many Arab news sites. John, the owner of the site, has taken great pains to show the myriad of opinions in the Arab world. They range from liberal to ultra conservative, but gives you a better view of the place that we are so uninformed about. Articles include careful introspection on the Arab and Muslim world, calls for change in the Arab/Muslim society as well as lambasting America for not understanding their culture and America's force upon it.

Please make sure you take time to read John's blog. He worked in Saudi Arabia and the middle east for many years and has a balanced understanding of it's conditions. I find it very refreshing whenever I despair of a change in the middle east. It is proof positive that such a change can come and that we have embarked on the best course at present to insist upon it.

Having said that, while reviewing an article from John's blog, I came across another one, written by Martin Kettle in the Guardian, which he titles: Militant Conservatism in American Public Life.

It is Mr. Kettle's attempt to explain the new "manifest destiny" of the United States, which he comes close to, but fails, as all liberals do, because he assigns it some mystical religious reason:

The Lebensraum aspect of manifest destiny is less significant now. But the military power that always went with it is not. Yet the part of O’Sullivan’s phrase that resonates most for many core Republicans today is the part that concerns Providence’s wishes for America. There has been this strand to American ideology ever since the Puritans first described their settlement in the New World as the creation of a city upon a hill, on which the eyes of the world were trained. It has always been part of many American religious cultures, most notably Scots-Irish Protestantism and the too often neglected phenomenon of Mormonism

Read the entire article (there is a place at the bottom to comment by the way) and then return to the inner sanctum to see my reply, written to the Arab news.

My reply below. We'll see if it gets printed or if they are just too happy to accept Mr. Kettle's explanation since it makes them feel better.

While Mr. Kettle has some parts of his article correct (manifest destiny), he, like many of our liberal friends, is mistaken on what drives the American populace. Far from "militant religious conservatism", it is a different religion all together.

It is, frankly, the religion or, if you will, ideology of "freedom".

It is easy to understand how someone would confuse the issue. Because the President of the United States is not ashamed of his belief in God and invokes his name in prayer and blessing, does not make him some evangelical militant. Anymore than the Queen of England being the protector of the Anglican church or singing "God Save the Queen" make British foreign policy subservient to evangelical desires.

And the President of the United States is not even dubbed with the title "Defender of the Faith" because, simply put, the government is prohibited from creating or supporting any particular religion.

His article would also seem to negate the pluralism (not polytheism; but multiples) of the religions in the United States. If one is Hindu or Muslim and believes in the ultimate destiny of freedom, does that make one "evangelical"?

Simply put, he and any who believe like him, are at a loss to understand the policy and look for some sort of label to place on it in order to make them feel comfortable in their liberal morality.

There is but one driving force behind the policy of the United States. That is that freedom is the right of every man. Men are born free and choose to place themselves under laws to govern them. They are not born to the laws.

America has seen what over thirty years of liberal morality has wrought in the world. Much hand wringing over the plight of their fellow man, but no efforts to truly change them. It is comfortable to sit in one's house and see pictures and stories of the poor and oppressed and send them money or even possibly volunteer to build a school or dig a well. All important aspects of lifting people up in the world.

But, hand wringing and pleas for men to behave better towards one another falls on deaf ears in some places of the world. In the end, it is the intemperate laws of man and the governance of intemperate men which is the final oppressor of freedom and man's ability to lift himself up above the conditions. It is these men and these laws which must be opposed by all means.

Unless of course, one feels no compunction about his fellow man, but is happy enough that, at least, it isn't he that is suffering.

In reflection, he may have actually chosen the correct term already, "manifest destiny", but only ascribed to it a cause that is false. The reality, the reason, the purpose, comes from a document that we hold to be sacred here in the United States, the Declaration of Independence. In which, the opening paragraphs give the meaning to "manifest destiny":

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Maybe, if Mr. Kettle actually understood American history, he would actually understand the current foreign policy as well as the meaning of "manifest destiny".