DISTANCES
Ours is a very large country.
We seldom realize how large it really happens to be. We are puzzled at tines when we live among Europeans for a while to learn how they conceive it to be more compact. I remember talking with knowledegable Englishmen and women who could not undertsand why we Americans did not come to know each other since we lived in the same country. They spoke of visiting us and spending a day with me in Virginia, a day with so-and-so in Seattle, another with Carl and his family in Texas and, perhaps a week-end at Harry's in New England. They had no idea of the geographical expanse of the United States.
Considering the unusual diversity of the actual geographic structure of our land, it is amazing that we get along with each other as well as we do. I often hear people all under to the fact that such-and-such an area seems to be closer than it used to be. That magic is being worked out constantly by improved transporation systems , vehicles and highways as they bring people closer together. In many areas towns are actually building closer to each other even to the point of becoming one, so our nation, if anything, is getting "smaller" in size.
It is disturbing to me, however, to notice that there are other areas in which one can see marked preferences for dangeorus divisions.We need to pay some detailed attention to what is becomeig of the idea of "one nation" as well as the a nation "under God."
The problem of what should best be done concerning the placing of a monument to the "Ten Commandment" of the Judeo-Christian faith in the rotunda of the State House in Alabama has become headlined sensation throughout the land and beyond. Other indications of continued separations in religious preferences are brought foreward as a result of that rather severe controversy. Certainly a mere glance at world history should be enough to show us that such inclinations are suggestive of deeper confusions which can be dangerous to a nation's unity.
Other social and economic inequities can, and are being, set forth in some area and concealed in others. Many of these are quite obvious and listing them here would serve little purpose.
We, as Americans, need to re-define the terms we use to descibe what we profess to believe. Among them we are in dire need of a firm defintion of what we call a "democracy".
I get a strong feeling our present stance pretending ito model "democracy" for the world at large and to export it as a preferred manner of rule for eveyyone is an error. The greatest, most threatening divisions right now, is the gulf existing between what what we apparenty think democracy entails and what it has and will mean.
A.L.M. October 27, 2003 [c490wds]
