MM#77--What is America's Record?

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.


Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. And it's our final Mojo minute before the New Year, how exciting. So often at this time of year, people begin to reflect on the past year, and the successes and the failures that they've had, and how they are going to do better in the coming New Year. And that's obviously natural. And in our last Mojo minute, we conducted a quick history lesson around Washington's crossing in the Christmas miracle of 1776. And if you missed that one, be sure to check it out. It's already garnered a significant number of downloads. 

Now, some of you might have noticed in several Mojo minutes in the past couple months that I've spoken about the American decay happening before our eyes. And it is happening. And because this is our last Mojo minute of the year, and keeping with that natural reflection, back on the past year, I want to zoom out to let's say, a 50,000 foot level and take a broad sweeping look at America and her record. Is it a good or a bad record? As some people suggest? Most especially we've heard how bad it is from a very vocal minority of people. So I thought we'd spend the next couple minutes examining that record. And let me just say as an aside, I was given one of the best books as a gift this past Christmas by my mother. So thank you very much mom for such a good gift. And inspiring me to record this Mojo minute. The book is entitled America the strong by Bill Bennett, the former education secretary under President Ronald Reagan. And in my research outside of this book, there is a lot of talk about how bad the American record is. 

And we see this primarily from the most especially poisonous book from Howard Zinn, the People's History of the United States, which is a primarily a high school textbook, but it's been somewhat used in colleges and universities around the country. And it's been, it's been taught from this history book for about the past 40 years. And when I was in college, thankfully, I had great professors who understood and were familiar with Zen and his work. And again, thankfully, my professional or my professors were professionals. Who knew when they saw rubbish masking as political pop propaganda, they completely debunked the whole book. And they taught me what true history was. They taught me how to think, not what to think, which is the true sense of a classical education. 

Now, the funny thing is, is I didn't go to a classical education university. It was a regular private university in Ohio, who just happened to have professors in the political science and history departments, which believed in correct theories of teaching students, which is in the facts and the trends of philosophy, political science, history, and criminal justice. So I'm very much indebted to most of my professors. And as far as this Howard Zinn book, finally, there is now a movement to expose how bad Howard Zinn's history book was, and is. It's crazy to think about his book and how it's been used in American education for so long. But that just speaks volumes about our state of education in 2021, and, frankly, over the past 40 years. But most of you already know this because of the COVID 19 pandemic, which revealed much of what was being taught in our schools with remote learning. 

And as parents, most of you were flabbergasted. And you took off to school board meetings and began community groups to educate, help educate other parents of what was going on what your kids were learning, so good for you. Good, absolutely good on you. We need more of this in America at a local level. And as an aside If you haven't checked out, Prager University did a great overview video of Howard Zinn and his purely poisonous book, which I will link in the show notes. But let's get back to this American record. And as always, let's go to our book for a quote.

If you listen to the cynics and the critics, there isn't much to admire about America. Some history books, and professors give the impression that this country is fundamentally flawed and unfair. And then Americans have much to apologize for. After all, stealing land from Native Americans fouling up the environment and slaving Africans withholding rights from women. Exploiting laborers discriminating against people of color, waging imperialist wars against the Third World. Unquote.

 However, as Bennett, Bill Bennett encourages us in this book, let's take a step back and look at that broad picture and just see how remarkable the American record is. And he goes on to list these eight major points. So let's examine these real quickly. Number one, the United States was the first nation in history created out of the belief that people should govern themselves. And back to the book, as James Madison said, this country's birth was a revolution which had no peril. In the annals of human society. The US Constitution is the oldest written national constitution and operation. It has been a model for country after country as democracy has spread across the world. Unquote. Isn't that fascinating? The oldest written national constitution in operation, our founding fathers got it right. Number two, the US military is the greatest defender of freedom in the world. Bennett tells us from the time of the Revolutionary War, Americans have been willing to put themselves in harm's way for freedom. The US military led the way in defeating fascism during World War Two, then led the free world and a decades long struggle against communism during the Cold War. And it continues to fight against Islamic terrorism. 

He goes on to quote the late great General Colin Powell, who recently passed away saying, and this is Colin Powell, we have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last 100 years, and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives. And we have asked nothing except enough ground to bury them in. And otherwise we have returned home to live our own lives in peace, unquote. So true. We do have the greatest defender of freedom in the world, in our US military, even though it's starting to suffer dramatically, with its current leadership, but that's Mojo minute for another day. And so we move on number three, no other country has done a better job of establishing equal rights for all citizens. And Bennett, in his brilliant analysis, says here, certainly there have been times when the United States has fallen, tragically short of its founding principles. Unquote. 

Certainly, we all have to agree with that. And I think that's why upwards of 95% of Americans believe in Martin Luther King Jr's famous line from his I Have a Dream speech on the National Mall in 1963, saying, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Unquote. And Ben, it goes on and says, but especially in recent decades, no country has worked harder to eliminate discrimination and protect the rights of minorities. And there are plenty of nations where people's ethnicity, religion and gender define them as second class citizens. And in contrast, America has been a pioneer and strike I mean toward the ideal that all people are created equal, unquote. I could not agree more.

Most, especially in the last 50 years since the Civil Rights Movement, we've done a tremendous job and moving forward and then protecting the rights of minorities. The fourth point of our eight points on why or what is the American record. Our fourth point is no other country has welcomed and united so many people from so many different shores. And countries. Bennett elaborates on this point. Never before have so many people from different backgrounds, races, nationalities, and religions lived in a work together so peacefully. And no other nation has the spirit of brotherhood accomplished more than it has in the United States. Unquote. Absolutely true. 

We are the largest most multiracial society on the planet. And when you look around at other large countries around the world, China, for example, they are currently putting imprison some 100 or 1 million Muslim Uyghurs it's absolutely horrific. And no one holds them to account. Not on the world stage, not regionally, not even within our country. We have NBA players that are defending China imprisoning 1 million people, because a different differentiation of their religion. When you look around and other countries India, is struggling with two or three different sects of peoples. So obviously, the United States is leading the world in this area. And these next four points are just simply undisputed. So we're going to progress quickly through them. 

Number five American companies have made the United States one of the most powerful economic engines the world has known. And one of the most prosperous countries in history with one of the world's highest standards of living, why are our unquote that is Bill Bennett statement. And I'm going to comment on it. This is absolutely true. This is the reason why people are coming from all over the country and trying to get into this country. Without a doubt, the fact of the number of hospitals and libraries and, and parks and great universities. Not to mention the number of cures for diseases that American companies and private research have completed is is frankly, just mind blowing. And Bennett concludes this section, saying American companies have improved human life in countless ways. Absolutely true. Number six, the United States is the world's greatest marketplace for the free exchange of ideas and information. 

Again, without a doubt, absolutely true. We created the internet, we've given the internet out to the world that has created more information flowing around the world. Then probably going back to the printing press would be a fascinating book to to research both of those in the the amount of progress or the the amount of influence that the printing press had versus the Internet. In the last just just take a minute, subsection of 50 years for the printing press and 50 years for the for the internet. We will move on to actually Bennett. Let me share this Bennett comments on this saying the free expression and freedom of the press are bedrock principles of American democracy. And some countries this has been talking in some countries, governments shut down newspapers broadcast stations, like they don't like or that they shut down broadcast stations that they don't like and they limit access to the internet. Now I should mention here this book was written in 2015. 

So it's well before the COVID pandemic, which obviously most of us would agree has given a significant rise in censorship, and especially this ravenous canceled culture in the United States. So we'll have to watch this one closely as our freedoms are starting to be lost in this area, especially with the tyranny of big tech, Google, Facebook, Amazon excetera moving on number seven.
In the American record, America is the world leader in scholarship and intervention. Let's go back to the book, the US is home to the world's finest collection of universities and research institutions, named just about any subject from ancient philosophy to quantum physics. And chances are that leading authorities work here. American medical research facilities are among the best in the world, the US leads the world in space exploration, the computer revolution started here, unquote. Now I understand the American medical universities have lost a lot of credibility in the last two years with the pandemic, they made a lot of bad calls, we relied on them for expertise. Am by and large across the board, they have failed. So we'll have to see if they can write their own chips, they can get back to science based arguments and leave the politics and the propaganda outside of their medical analysis. 

But on a good note, on the space exploration, Elon Musk is doing very, very well with SpaceX, I think he's had, I think he's had up to some 100 successful launches, and trips to the space station. Now, that's just frankly, that's an exciting field to watch and grow. And finally, let's round out and number eight on this list of the American record by Bill Bennett. In his book America, the strong. Bennett says this country is the planet's largest source of humanitarian aid. And this really doesn't require any further explanation. The US is frankly the best in the world. When there's a crisis involving humanity, from hurricanes, to tsunamis, to earthquakes, America will show up with a ship or airplanes full of workers and relief equipment and supplies. Without a doubt. It happens, it always happens. The American people by their nature will help anybody in trouble around the world, we are very giving people. And I would probably make the connection that we have been a very giving people for over the last 100 250 years because of the foundation of the country, and that it was a Judeo Christian foundation. And that foundation involves a love of neighbor. 

So let's go back to the book for Bennett to conclude this section of the book. Quote, none of this means that America or Americans are better than everyone else, or that the United States is always right, or that the country is without its faults. Of course it has many faults. Its history includes wrongs such as slavery and segregation and the denial of women's rights. And all human institutions are imperfect. Yet over the years, Americans have shown themselves to be pretty good at taking a hard, honest look at the nation's wrongs and trying to make them right. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it this way, quote, am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there is there are societies that are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is on balance and comparatively, the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. Have we done obscene things as a country? Yes, we have. And how did our people learn about them? They learned about them on television and in the newspapers. Unquote. 

Right on right on Senator Moynihan. He was one of my favorite Democratic senators. He was one of the few last ones that you really respected what he said and how he thought about certain issues and policies. So let's go back to the book Bennett concludes with these words. I think they are poignant. To end this final module in a country like a person should be judged by the totality of its acts, and any honest men assessment. America's total record stands tall, tall enough to be called a great unquote

And I couldn't agree more. This book was a joy to read. 

And in today's Mojo minute, let us be proud of the American record because the American record is strong and exceptional.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.