by Holland McCabe ‘11

The greatest threat this country faces today comes not from Muslims, North Korea, environmental catastrophe, President Obama or Sarah Palin. The greatest threat the United States of America faces today is the last several generations of Americans, who have either forgotten or never learned what it means to be American. Many people claim to be “American,” but very few people can articulate what, exactly, it means. This is not an attack on anybody’s patriotism, but one can love America and say that he is “American” while still not living up to this country’s ideals.

The values of E Pluribus Unum, Equality of Opportunity and Liberty seem to have been lost somewhere in the past, and many people today do not understand what those uniquely American values mean. E Pluribus Unum, “from many, one” in Latin, is a key motto of the United States and a key to understanding how we came to be a nation. It originally represented the unification of 13 independent colonies into the original 13 states. But it also represents the unification of many different ethnic groups, ideologies and common values into a unified country. Equality of Opportunity is the American belief that all people are created equal, yet each person must still work hard towards their own prosperity. Equal opportunity does not automatically equate to equal success. Another founding value is Liberty—the freedom from oppression. And one uniquely American component of Liberty is the belief in a small government that guides the country as a whole, while leaving citizens as free as possible to enjoy their individual lives. All of these key elements make us what we are: America.

The Greatest Generation was the last generation to have truly lived by these American values. They got through the Great Depression and saved the world during World War II, but their values seem to have largely stopped being passed down to generations that were born after the 40s. No society or individual can exist without expressed reasons to exist. Everything needs a “why.” So if we do not re-learn what it means to be an American, the America of the last 230 years may cease to exist.

Today, government has bent itself to every whining minority faction, and society is fragmented into groups of people who frequently take offense whenever they are not directly pandered to. As a result, people and government must pussyfoot around issues rather than face them head-on, lest they incur the wrath of one of these groups. This system of appeasement is generally known as “political correctness.” But this goes directly against E Pluribus Unum. There can be no cohesive American identity if every group and every ideology demands “celebration” and attention to the exclusion of all others. The entire point of E Pluribus Unum is to overcome these differences and unite as whites, blacks, gays, straights, hippies and gun-nuts — Americans all.

Equality of Opportunity has also been lost somewhere along the line. America has been for many the land of opportunity, where people could make a good life through their own hard work. But today this county is becoming more like Europe, where “prosperity” comes collectively through massive government and taxation programs equally applied to all citizens.

In a similar vein, Liberty is diminishing. Our government is growing and its powers over citizens are increasing. There is a moral aspect to the size of government, not just an economic consideration. Americans give more charity per capita than Europeans, but Americans are not necessarily born as better people. It appears that the larger the government, the worse the citizens are. Large governments cause people to worry over issues like how much government-mandated time off work they are going to get, where they will take their government-handout vacation and when they will be able to get their government retirement pensions. These are selfish considerations, not philanthropic ones, and these are considerations our Founders did not intend.

We, as a unified nation, must live by our core ideals that our nation was based off of from the beginning of our independence. If we fail to do this imperative task, our compassion and high standards for personal accountability may quite possibly cease. America is E Pluribus Unum, Equality of Opportunity and Liberty. But the current generation may be its own greatest threat if it does not learn this and live by it. American values need to be reintroduced in schools and public life if the America of our past is to remain the America of our future.