Our nation may not be perfect, but it truly is exceptional – LancasterOnline

In recent years, I have noted that it has been increasingly politically correct for editorial writers and members of the public to bemoan the failures of our American democracy as a perverse way to celebrate the Fourth of July. This year, in our post-2016 polarized society, this trend is even more in evidence.

For our society to continue and prosper however, polarization must be temporary for only through working together can we advance. Eventually, just as in the past, we must get beyond our divisions.

Dont believe me? How about the Civil War? It took some time, but we did it.

You wont get much of that political correctness from this writer. I was fortunate enough to live abroad as an American diplomat in many countries under various and sundry systems of government: communism, socialism, social democracy, constitutional parliamentary monarchy, authoritarianism and near-anarchy.

Living and working in these societies, side by side with citizens of these countries, gave me a real appreciation of what life was like there. Those experiences lead me to acknowledge that, while we may not be a perfect society, we are a truly exceptional one.

Americans, from the earliest days of our republic, have exercised our freedom of speech to critique our imperfect society, from our treatment of Native Americans and the abomination of slavery, to the inequities of opportunity and fairness in modern life.

Our criticism has in many cases led to a better version of ourselves. That we Americans can criticize ourselves without dire consequences only proves the essential good inherent in our system.

Others in these pages may exercise their freedom of speech to criticize and complain; in a free society all are welcome to do so. But on this eve of the 241st anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, let us also pause to look unabashedly at our history and recall the many positives we have inherited from previous generations of Americans.

Americans, or more properly United States citizens, are something of a puzzle to many people abroad. We are seen as naive and Machiavellian, selfish and generous, idealistic and duplicitous, friendly and phony, diverse and homogeneous, religious and salacious, often by the same people at the same time!

One thing is generally agreed upon though. The USA is somehow exceptional and unlike any other nation on the globe. For most of the 20th century and into the 21st, this nation was and remains the indispensable nation. It is enormously influential, whether looking at economic power, military might, popular culture, science and technology, diplomatic weight or what we might call moral or humanitarian values. The combination of these factors has had an undeniable overall positive influence on world development. If you deny that, kindly come up with another candidate on this planet that can claim to be the indispensable nation.

Among these positive values is a government responsive to the will of the people through free elections. Anyone who qualifies has a right to cast a ballot. Regrettably, some of our fellow citizens just dont bother to do so. But they have a right not to vote too!

We are blessed with a system of checks and balances among the three branches of our government, so that a power-hungry branch is restrained in its actions. We complain that government is too slow or that nothing gets done, but our system deliberately slows the process so that our leaders must think through their actions and not simply rubber-stamp the public opinion of the moment.

The admonition that the government that governs best, governs least attributed variously to Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau or Napoleon Bonaparte has worked rather well for most of us for nearly 2 1/2 centuries. Im in favor of keeping it.

William P. Kiehl is a retired foreign service officer who served 35 years with the U.S. Information Agency and U.S. Department of State in Europe, Asia and Washington. He was also a Diplomat in Residence at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle. He resides in Lancaster County.

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Our nation may not be perfect, but it truly is exceptional - LancasterOnline