Never Let it be Said

Never Let it Be Said

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
-Ted Kennedy

Americans are, first and foremost, a people without timing.  We arrive too early, dragging everyone along behind us, or nearly too late, coming only in time for the rescue.  But one thing you can be sure of is that we are never anywhere when the rest of the world wants us to be.  

But we have never been what the rest of the world wanted us to be; we have only ever been ourselves.  From a second-rate colony of ne'erdowells and orphans who did not know how to behave themselves to an overweening nation run by incompetents whose nose will not remain where it belongs, but keeps butting into everyone elses business, the people of the United States will just not leave well enough alone.  

We are consistently out of step with global consensus, acting when we want to, despite the opinions of others; we take what action we can when we can, because we want to.  We are iconoclasts, and have been since our inception as Americans.  It is the chaotic and sometimes violent thread that simultaneously unites and divides our country.  We are a nation created on the notion of revolution, one that often believes that the rules do not apply.  At the heart of our iconoclasm are the energy and motion that define the American character.

Possesed of an vigor that will not allow us to settle, but keeps us moving, searching, and ultimately doing we are, above all things, a people who have not stopped trying.  Our character impels us to action in every part of society.  We are pushed to not only do, but do well, and do better, besting previous marks, our own or another's.  In all fields Americans are possesed of the will to accomplish, making achievement the central force around which all others are placed.  Not a nation of philosophers or theologians, our men of genius are inventors: Franklin, Edison, Ford.  Admired not merely for their genius, but because their genius, combined with their actions, brought about monumental change.

Because of this unique characteristic it has been said of Americans, in quiet continental voices, that we are both ignorant and stubborn, ignoring both precedent and tradition, and forging on despite the reluctance and warnings of our betters.  These traits, they might say, bookend the stacks of mistakes that we, as a people, have made, though it is often conveniently overlooked that these traits bookend our successes as well, that are equal, if not greater, in number.  For every Iraq there is a Normandy, events whose outcomes may appear so dissimilar to history, but whose spirit was essentially the same: an uncompromising responsibility to act in time of crisis and accomplish that which needed to be done.  The American people have not learned their lesson, if that lesson is to stop trying.  We can be proud of our ignorance, if education should mean the cessation of spirit, and hesitation in times of need.  

In acting we may fall short, because there are times the task is greater than our means, and there are times that we do not know how to do what we have been called to do.  But that does not daunt us, for we are swayed by neither shame nor pride.  Discovering through action not study, we would rather learn by doing than wait passively by the side and let the job go undone, because often there is no precendent of how to proceed, no model for assured success, knowing as we do the dangers of theory failing in the face of action.  Experience then, our favorite teacher, has taught us this: doing something is better than doing nothing, and asking forgiveness is more important than asking permission.

In over two hundred years, we have never stopped trying, because it is an inextricable part of our character to do, to make, and to change.  It is who we are and who we want to be.  We are trying to be the best that we can be, to be the best we know how to be, and though that effort may be misspent, whether because we do not know better or because we think we are right, does not matter.  What matters is that we are trying, for a better neighborhood, for a better city, for a better nation, and for a better world.

Let anything else be said about Americans; let it ring across the Rockies that we are impolite, and uncouth; let it echo the Appalachians that we are ignorant and loud; let it toll the plains of the midwest to the placid beaches of the Pacific that we are stubborn and impatient when we're not being pious and puritanical, but never, when it is within our power, never when we are standing by, and never anywhere that we can stop it from being heard, never let it be said that an American did not try.