The U.S.A.: A Secular Federal Republic (Not a Nation)

The classics scholar William Arrowsmith said that the major ancient Greek tragedies dealt with the meaning of key terms politically-involved Athenians "contested," argued over.

We in the U.S. also have profound disagreements over basic terms. Case in point: America as a "Christian nation" (or a "White Christian nation") vs. the U.S. as a "secular Federal Republic" and not in a meaningful sense a nation at all.

We have no established church (synagog, mosque, or whatever), and Amendment One in our Bill of Rights forbids "an establishment of religion"; and, in a significant omission, "God" isn't mentioned in our Constitution. As a matter of official state policy, we're a secular establishment (which has been quite good for the various religions in American society: they're stronger than in most places with established religion).

And we're not a nation: one "ethnos" — people — with one origin and culture, and a history beginning "back in the mists of time" or even in an origin myth, all united by "blood and soil."

We're a hodgepodge; if you want a fancy image, a mosaic, the one I prefer, that thoroughly American dish, chop suey: one thing, sort of, but in complex ways. Collin Woodard counts "Eleven Regional Cultures of North America," and there are good historical reasons for that kind of regional analysis. For one thing, we're not only still kind of fighting the U.S. Civil War, but also the English struggles of the 17th century that separated out Puritans from less radical Christians.

Plus other ways that we're sliced and diced and divide ourselves up, which on balance is a good thing — *IF*

Our diversity is a good thing if, but only if, most Americans can see ourselves as «One Republic (if we can keep it)», with citizens unified by some agreement on basic terms, plus consciousness of what it's important for us to argue about and dedication to rules of civil contention and competition

PEDANTRY TIME: "Our Democracy" and Other Mischievous Myths

The US is not a democracy; at least aspirationally, we're a liberal federal republic with a "mixt constitution".

The "mixed" part includes a large dollar of monarchy with a president who's chief of state and head of government (or head of state and chief of government, and screw it, I'm not going to look *that* up again). The Senate was initially designed to represent the States and to be the aristocratic element, and for good and for ill it's kept a lot of the aristocratic bits.

And we common ruck got the House of Representatives and elections.

From the Bill of Rights on, we've had the liberalism of limited government with a People with "unalienable" rights, and eventually and most of the time a judiciary that aren't "lions under the throne" working for the king, but an independent branch of government having final say — in theory — on the meaning of the Constitution and laws. (Check out Andy Jackson and the Indians on the "in theory" part.)

This is all important, because "democracy" has some literal meanings and history as well as the warm-and-fuzzies of a complimentary term. It's a bit part, but the nominal hero of Aristophanes's THE CONGRESSWOMEN gets to summarize a whole lot about Athenian democracy when he identifies himself as "I'm Athenian, male, of age, and free." I.e., he's a native and not a resident alien, a girl or woman, a boy, or a slave. He's part of the _demos_ which was only a relatively small part of the population of democratic Athens.

A lot of the history of the "liberal" part of "liberal (republican) democracy" is expanding that "demos" in "democracy."

The US formula for a long time was "free, White, and 21," with "male" and often "Christian" going unstated: that was the effective demos. We may be heading back to that idea, which will not be good for republican institutions and liberal protection of people who's ancestors weren't free in the USA, are not White — and who's White and who's not has been complex historically — and maybe young and on their way to inheriting messes their elders created ("Posterity don't vote").

And "male" can also get complicated: "Real men" and all that.

I'm a member of the Democratic Party and fond of democracy, but I swore allegiance to the Constitution and a Republic in which institutions and norms are supposed to keep any part of government from growing tyrannical, including a self-defined Demos that comes to see itself as a Nation and "The People" (who count) and an arrogant, exceptional, downright Chosen People at that.

Pledging Allegiance (Flag Debates Again)

As long as we're re-cycling arguments on patriotism, treason, the National Anthem, and such, here's me briefly on The Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag from April of 2004. Hey, if we're going to keep recycling arguments on symbols, I think I should get to recycle my short contributions. Anyway,  I take very seriously my oath "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States (and will repeat that below) but have some qualms about the patriotic exercise of pledging allegiance to a flag.


* First off, allegiance is pledged to the flag, with "to the Republic" almost an afterthought: following an "and" and never mentioned as a variant title for the exercise (we don't talk about "Pledging Allegiance to the Republic").
* The Republic in The Pledge is defined as "one nation," as opposed to a confederation of states undoubtedly, but also as a conflation of nation and republic. The U.S. isn't a nation in the same sense that Japan is a nation, or in the sense of "nations" in the joke in the song from HMS Pinafore: "But, in spite of all temptations / To belong to other nations / He remains an Englishman."
In everyday usage "nation" is still often expanded to "Christian nation," and at one time that was "White, Christian nation" (and Catholics, in such usages, weren't Christians, and Jews weren't White). And the nominally-Christian racists had and have a point: traditional nations were supposed to be united by "blood" and faith or "blood and soil" (Blut und Boden). I am a citizen of and have sworn my loyalty to the American Republic established by the U.S. Constitution; I don't belong to some hypothetical American nation.

* As the U.S. prison population continues to rise, with many inmates incarcerated for minor drug crimes — and many of them young African-American males — the line on "liberty and justice for all" becomes increasingly problematic.  In the War on Drugs and the War on Crime, Americans may prefer security for themselves over liberty for other Americans, often justly, but often not.
* Between "liberty for all" on U.S. territory and a sense of security for "natural born" U.S. citizens, most Americans would probably go for security.

If we want a patriotic exercise, maybe reciting this: "I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Republic established thereby, and will strive to achieve domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for us today and for future generations."