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YEAR SIX BEGINS |
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CO-FOUNDER: WITH US FROM YEAR ONE |
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GOD LOVES GOOD GUYS WITH GUNS
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"JESUS LOVES US, THIS WE KNOW, BECAUSE THE N.R.A. TELLS US SO!"
of TheColumnists.com
It must have been some time in high school that I first
heard the idea casually uttered that America was The Greatest
Country in the World. It struck me even then, at 15, as a little
peculiar and over-the-top, and I wondered where this ranking
left, say, England, France, and Sweden, countries that didn’t
exactly strike me as chopped liver.
America’s unquestioned No. 1 status became a catch phrase,
a bumper-sticker credo, heard in old movies and in Washington
and proudly mouthed by teachers and parents and grandparents
and guys in bars: “We are the envy of every nation on earth,”
and “I’ve been to every country in Europe and, let
me tell you, this has got `em all beat!”
And if you doubt it, buster, maybe you’d like to step outside
for a minute.
Why was America greater than everyone else?, the junior skeptic
in me puzzled. America was an excellent country, to be sure,
one of the very best, but when did the United Nations vote it
Number One?
Many other countries, it was rumored, had working democracies,
world economies, and wondrous cultural heritages. Maybe they
weren’t quite as advanced in toilet tissue quality as we,
and it’s true that they lacked the Marx Brothers, Joe DiMaggio
and Louis Armstrong, but was that any reason to write them off
as second-raters?
It now turns out that America is greater than every other nation
mainly because Americans say it is--and, to be sure, because
God seconds the nomination.
After 9/11, when we began hearing “God Bless America”
sung at every kickball game and gas station opening in the land--not
as Kate Smith first sung it, lungs bursting with joy, but with
a kind of steely, dogmatic, defensive insistence, it sounded
less like a prayer or a wish than a vow or even a boast. We are
God’s favorite folks, are we not? So is it any wonder that
He insists on blessing us, unlike other nations that must grovel
for a meager nod of approval from the Lord.
God likes us better than anybody else because--well, because
we are the greatest nation that has ever existed in human history.
The ancient Greeks, Romans and Chinese (and the less ancient
Germans) used to think they were pretty hot stuff, too, but what
the hell did they know? Clearly they couldn’t handle greatness.
They frittered it away somehow--hubris and debauchery and poor
roadways--so they didn’t deserve permanent possession of
the world cup for all-time champion country.
America, we all know, is far too good, too blessed by God, to
ever blow it like those other lax empires.
It also makes certain people feel more secure, more American,
to salute names like “The Patriot Act” and “Homeland
Security,” to fly little flags in their lapel, or to unfurl
them on their front lawn, like the Marines atop Mt. Suribachi.
This lets everyone know that they are as (or maybe just a tiny
bit more) American as you, and that, by golly, al Queda better
not try to take over their petunia patch.
It isn’t enough now just to feel patriotic, or even to be
patriotic--to choke up when you hear the national anthem played
at the Olympic Games or overseas. Now, you’re expected to
advertise it, to let the neighbors and God know that you support
America. It’s a little like an unwritten loyalty oath.
All the grand talk about
God and country sounds a little desperate to me, like wearing
your bible and your flag on your sleeve, your rear bumper or
your T-shirt. Why not just put a sign in the living room window
saying, “Only Fine, God-fearing Americans Reside Here.”
This Up-with-God thing has really taken off lately, and is now
neck and neck with the new America First-or-Else movement. People
who love America, right or wrong, till death do us all part,
appear to be embracing patriotism as a kind of backup religion
in case Christianity doesn’t quite work out or the Muslims
win the God Loves Us Best war.
America and God are now merging into a new faith-based initiative,
like love and marriage, followed by a nuclear family at all costs.
The Family, which is now a sort of secular religion, is what
helped make America the greatest country. The marquee on a theater-turned-church
assembly hall in Concord, Calif., says, “GOD BLESS OUR CITY…Where
Families Come First.” Single folks and other godless sex
offenders can go straight to hell. Few other countries are as
foursquare in favor of families as America, and even if other
nations do encourage family life, clearly their families are
nowhere near as good as our families.
When I was a kid, God used to mind His own business, but lately
He’s also been stalking the corridors of power in Washington,
trying to spin legislation. In the old days, there was always
plenty for God to do just keeping people in line, without the
Almighty also worrying about bills in Congress and judgeships,
or which presidential candidate was the most devout and deserved
to be elected. The next time George W. Bush is called before
the 9/11 Commisssion, he can always go into his true believer
mode, invoke God’s name and say, “I was just following
orders.”
In recent years, presidents like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush have been praying up a storm. It all started,
if I recall, when Billy Graham began making White House calls,
hoping to save Richard Nixon, or at least America. All that old-fashioned
blather in the Constitution about the separation of church and
state was blurred once the Rev. Graham got his foot in the Oval
Office door. Yes, fellow congregants and fans of King George,
at long last church and state are together again!
Just to further confuse things, gay marriage threatens to ruin
the ever-popular nuclear family, but as one heterosexual woman
said, when asked if she believed in gay marriage, “Haven’t
they suffered enough?” Many straight American couples want
gays to leave marriage to the pros, implying that there is something
not just perverse but un-American about gay people wishing to
tie the knot in public. God loves straights best.
Lately I’ve heard another phrase echoing from my boyhood--“good
guys,” which I recall from neighborhood games where a couple
of us would be the Good Guys and a few others were designated
the Bad Guys. America, of course, is made up primarily of Good
Guys and anybody who says otherwise are the bad guys--or sometimes,
as President Bush phrases it, the “evildoers”--yet
another term that harkens back to my youth, from old afternoon
radio programs and Saturday morning serials, in which the foes,
always with some Asian or swarthy look or sound, were known as
“evildoers.”
What with all the “good guys” and “evildoers”
chasing each other around, America’s foreign policy might
have been written by The Green Hornet or The Shadow. When George
W. Bush first sneered about “the axis of evil,” it
sounded like a 15-part 1948 movie serial: “‘Batman
and the Axis of Evil’…Next week at this theater!”
Ever since 9/11, presumably adult politicians and pundits have
been throwing the terms Good Guys and Bad Guys around as we did
during a game we called “guns,” a shorthand term that
involved cap pistols and skulking through sandy vacant lots--not
unlike what’s been going on in Iraq--only, of course, without
the added fun of hoods, handcuffs and dog leashes.
©2004 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman caricature is ©2000
by Jim Hummel. The illustrations are from IMSI's Master Clips
Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506,
USA.
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