The American value system
Daniel Shoumer
Contributing Writer
When we think about the United States of America, people usually think of it as being a concept. And it is! Whenever people see something as going against what America stands for, it is usually known as ‘un-American.’ However, if something goes against what France stands for, as an example, it is not referred to as ‘un-French.’ That is because America is an idea.
Many in the world have, at some point in their life heard about ‘American Exceptionalism.’ Moreover, America is known to be exceptional in the world mainly because of the ‘American Value System.’
Whenever you ask an American the question, “What is the American Value System?”, they may give you a ten-minute speech or what their views on it are, but, in fact, it can be seen on any coin. And they are three different terms that only America stands for: Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum.
These values are the key to building a good society and making people do good for the world.
Liberty:
The United States was the world’s first free country and it is the only country with the desire to spread freedom throughout the world. Americans have fought for freedom throughout our history, and it has never been so precious as it is today, with many who wish to replace our American values with values from Western Europe.
Liberty requires people to take responsibility for themselves and to earn money to support their families. It also requires people to pursue their dreams and goals in life through hard work and commitment. However, this also means that failure may be okay. In order to learn and improve when working for your goals in life, you need to fail in order to learn from the mistakes you make. Without having the ability to fail, there is no freedom. The only way to prevent failure is to have government take care of you and stop you from failing.
This notion of preventing failure has been tried in America today such as in public youth sports leagues. I will never forget my brother and I receiving trophies when we got last place in our soccer games. Even the kids who didn’t play received a trophy! This may seem like a nice thing to do, but the truth is it teaches children to forget about the notion that if you want to succeed you have to work hard. It tells them that you don’t need to try hard in order to do well because failure is prohibited in life, while we need to teach our children to never give up in order to pursue their goals. It also has kids thinking highly of themselves without having anything to merit thinking highly of themselves. The truth is that when these children go out in life in hopes of earning money, they need these ethics of hard work and commitment in order to succeed. Moreover, there have been many successful people who have failed before in life before succeeding. (i.e. Wright brothers)
When people work hard for their earnings, they will have most probably gained the most important quality in human life: gratitude. When you try you hardest in order to earn something in life, the chances are that you will feel more grateful for these things. Grateful people are happier, and they feel as if they have a moral obligation to help others around the world and to do good. That is why Americans give more charity that any other citizens of any other country in the world.
In God We Trust:
When our founders gave so much freedom to the American people, they knew that they would abuse it unless they had something to constrain them from doing evil. That is why the second in the American trinity is God.
The United States was founded on the basis of Judeo-Christian values. I truly believe that these values as well as the belief in God is the force behind why America has been the best force for good the world has ever known. It seems that America has a moral obligation to fight evil in the world and bring freedom to others living in tyranny. And sometimes, the truth is that the only way to stop evil in the world is to fight evil. The only reason I could think of to not to fight evil is to be loved by the world because if you are a strong country, you will never be loved in the world. The opposite is being taught in our different schools and universities. Teaching people that instead of fighting evil, fighting is evil. Thus it has taught people to come up with naive slogans such as “war is not the answer.” Death camps were liberated by the United States military, not peace activists.
The United States has had the urge to liberate other countries such as Korea and half of Vietnam. The truth is that Americans die for others so that other people around the world can also have a chance to pursue happiness and live in freedom and safety.
Our Judeo-Christian values are also a reason why Americans give so much. In fact, we are commanded by religion to take care of others and ourselves.
If America were gone today, the ideas of liberty and goodness would lose in the world because no other country has risked so many lives to fight for the cause of freedom.
E Pluribus Unum:
President John F Kennedy once said that no other nation has called itself a “nation of immigrants” as America has. Anywhere you go in the United States you will see people of different backgrounds. In fact it is actually strange to not see someone from a foreign country with an accent. They don’t even have to speak English and they will still be considered American.
If you are Chinese, you are Chinese because you were born to Chinese parents. There is no other way to be considered Chinese, even if you are non-Chinese becoming a citizen of China. However, if you are Chinese becoming a citizen of the U.S., you could be considered American in a day!
E Pluribus Unum, meaning for many one, has gone away from the significance of race, ethnicity, and blood.
Our society today, especially from the Left, has started to drift from E Pluribus Unum, replacing it with multiculturalism. This can be seen in the case of affirmative action where special treatment of admission is given to people of color. Furthermore, this gives the intention to them as if they are different and that they couldn’t get there on their own.
Before in America, every citizen of the U.S. was treated as equally American, and color was irrelevant to the society. History of left-wing policies shows that every policy decision is based on what feels good instead of what might happen in the long term. In this case, the consequences are that you will have people thinking as if they are different and not equally intelligent as people of a different color. I hope that someday we return to our motto of E Pluribus Unum.
It seems that we are forgetting what our country stands for. Many in this country are starting to adopt European values instead of American values. We have to learn and be able to articulate what the best country in the history of the world stands for. If we fail to do that, the best system ever devised to make a good society will be lost.
It is not enough to do what feels good in life; we have to also do good. Join me in keeping America, as Abraham Lincoln said, “the last best hope on Earth.”
Editor’s note: The original article misspelled the Wright brother’s last name, the article has been modified to reflect this change.
Sammy Lawrence • Dec 18, 2012 at 11:47 pm
SHOUMER,
First I would like to commend you for this provocative piece. Second I would like to address several claims you made. The first pertaining to your statements about “failure”. While failure is certainly a part of a free market economy and is beneficial for growth etc., there are certain areas of life where it is fatal for a person to fail. As we saw in 2008, many hardworking Americans, saving their money, working in the private sector, lost their jobs and all of their retirement. As a result of government intervention (bailout etc.), many, certainly not all, of these individuals were able to save their lively hood.
In concern for time, and anticipation for our conversations at lunch, I will only touch on one more point. That is the belief that American can spread liberty and freedom across the globe. On paper, it appears that spreading freedom and liberty to the oppressed peoples of the world is just and pushing on saintly. Unfortunately, foreign policy is not executed on paper. While America does have an obligation to those who are in immediate danger (to an extent). Often times American intervention abroad can often lead to unintended results. For example, many argue that invading Iraq allowed Iran to focus its resources towards developing a nuclear weapon rather than protecting itself from its greatest enemy.
America is however still the most stable country in the world. Despite sharp disagreements and steep, often fiscal, cliffs, we still know that in 2 years every congressman will be up for re-election and in 4 years YOU (Daniel Shoumer) will be able to vote for president. Regardless of who wins we know that the day following the election there will be no revolution and no power rampages by a legislature. God Bless America!
Howard Zinn • Dec 12, 2012 at 11:58 am
The most incredible of all the incredible statements in the piece is this: “Before in America, every citizen of the U.S. was treated as equally American, and color was irrelevant to the society.” One doubts that African Americans subjected to Jim Crow and other de jure discrimination would recognize the author’s America. It was the later Senator J.P. Moynihan who said that we’re each entitled to our own opinion, but not to our own facts.
John Boehner • Dec 17, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Mr Zinn,
I think you are looking at the wrong side of this. Mr Shoumer’s point was that our society today, especially the left-wing treats people differently based on their color. In affirmative action, admission is changed based on the color of people’s skin. That is in fact racism. Mr Shoumer was saying that before, we didn’t take color in mind when making decisions. We shouldn’t treat people differently based on their color. If a republican criticizes any democrat today when they disagree with them, and if the democrat is black, the republican is immediately called a racist. I think that republicans who want to keep America as E Pluribus Unum, take blacks more seriously than democrats who want to divide our country by treating blacks differently in colleges and who refuse to criticize any black if they are doing something wrong.
Dennis Gindi • Dec 11, 2012 at 2:16 pm
I had an epiphany whilst reflecting upon this beautiful piece of literature. I think that the foremost element of the American Value system is the ability to form ones own opinion of ideal beliefs based on their own moral conflictions within themselves. In god we trust. One of the most controversial statements to be proclaimed as an American value. Skepticism is one of ‘In G-d we trust’s’ most prominent obstructions. As youth rapidly beng swayed rocked and pushed around by the influence of science, it is hard to connect to the beauty of G-dliness. Steven, do we need America to have a stable world? or do we need America’s value system? I feel the confusion between the two is that of, “we cannot imitate the value system, so we will do as you do.” The very humain notion that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder can illude to it being a opinion based article by the amazing Daniel Shoumer rather than a factual statement.
Dennis Gindi • Dec 13, 2012 at 10:52 am
yeah right.
Steven Ashoori • Dec 6, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Mr Shoumer,
I agree with this entirely. America has done the most good in the world and it is entirely based on their values. Our country, as you said, is adopting leftist values with bigger government. Many from the left believe that America is not exceptional and it is morally equivalent as any other country. We need America in order to have a stable world.
Grover Norquist • Dec 5, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Well done, Daniel. You’ve made Falwell proud. Your mention of the atrocities of the Holocaust as a means of denigrating peace activists is especially tasteful! You’re correct that the Left propagates European values – values that uphold racist multiculturalism.
My favorite line: “The only reason I could think of to not to fight evil is to be loved by the world because if you are a strong country, you will never be loved in the world.” Amen, brother. Amen.
J Martin • Dec 5, 2012 at 12:59 pm
I suppose that hearing the minimally developed ideas and disturbing prejudices we, as a society, so often visit upon our students is instructive. As a consequence Mr. Shoumer’s editorial is valuable. He is attempting to come to some embrace of the interesting idea of exceptionalism – an idea that either glorifies our democratic “values” or defines us as a profoundly arrogant culture. It is not so important to contend regarding our specialness; rather we might spend more time in serious consideration of the value or “good” (as Mr. S. references repeatedly) we share, model or impose on the rest of the world.
I for one am grateful for Mr. Shoumer’s providing grist for the critical and informed mill of American Studies Integrated. While we could dismiss his various position, claims, and warmed-over generalizations on the basis of his reference to the Write Brothers, perhaps he intends Wright, or on the basis of the Lumbaughesque absurdities of replacing American apple pie with French pastry and other leaden xenophobic commentary, he provokes some essential and valuable debate, exploration, necessary applied rigor, and “good ole AmurCan shoutin” from the town square. So thank you Daniel for risking an opinion, for expressing that opinion in print, for being willing to take some response, and for focusing your faculty on the long committed hours of work we have to do in order to inject into this type of discussion some seriousness and rationality.
Dennis Gindi • Dec 6, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Whilst i see your very valid and very conclusive point, I must disagree. America’s value system is impecable. Our mere existence as a nation stands on the notion that we have built our country to believe in certain values. It is as a nation we must encourage and influence our fellow citzens to consent to the following of laws, to be one nation under G-d. Whether or not our society views it to be justifyably correct to recognize such a force, we must agree that if it makes citzens abide by laws and such boundries of society it is a positive force.
Dennis E. Gindi