From President Reagan’s farewell address to the nation 1-11-89:

The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the “shining city upon a hill.” The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.

Where is that shining city upon a hill today? America is a house divided where civility and decency are in decline, where people meet online in “unsocial” media platforms that spew out hatred and conspiracy theories and “alternative” facts bolstered by monkey see monkey do politicians.

This is a beautiful and a bleak America.  Which you see depends on your zip code, your parents, good and bad luck, government policies, human nature and yes upon you, what you choose to see and what you choose to do. America has declined to #24 out of 107 countries in world happiness. We are clearly moving in the wrong direction.

We have a compulsive obsessive President focused on retribution and the destruction of everything he doesn’t understand and therefore cannot accept. (art, sports, science, culture, kindness)

In his speech President Reagan offered “lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins.” Today we spend more time in front of screens and less time eating together or enjoying the company of friends. When we do talk no one listens. We have lost our ability to communicate with each other.

“Come let us reason together” was a favorite saying of another great President, Lyndon Johnson, whose passion for consensus building encouraged him to cross party lines. Working for consensus does not mean abandoning your values. It means learning about the values of others and trying to find a way to bring two opposing sides together. Sometimes that’s not possible. As they say, it’s the journey that’s important.

Of course, some journeys are not worth taking and some people are not worth your time. They close themselves up and make cooperation impossible. Sadly America is headed in that direction today. We now take the side of the aggressors when independent democracies are invaded. We are abandoning relationships and responsibilities abroad like a child who claims “Everything is about me!” Well, it isn’t and we will find that out to our detriment down the road. A narcissist will never admit error no matter what the mirror on the wall has to say.

How embarrassing that the French have asked America to return the Statue of Liberty. It’s absolutely understandable. President Reagan in his speech told of a Cambodian refugee saved by an American sailor: As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, “Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.” America is now known for splitting up refugee families and deporting people without due process. Secure borders are important but not at the expense of our American values.

Once known for open markets and free enterprise we are now known as the country of punishing tariffs and strong-arm economic tactics. We negotiate fair trade agreements then break them and alienate our important trading partners. Our trading partners have options. America first cannot be America only or it will become America last.

Unlimited Presidential power will not serve us well. “L’État, c’est moi!” Is not the motto of a free and independent republic. Our democracy has survived because we have three equal branches of government. Emasculating the legislative and judicial branches will not make the President stronger but weaker in the long run. What is democracy if not standing up for checks and balances and human rights?

The tactics used by our self-proclaimed macho man President—shame, cruelty and embarrassment—may play to a certain crowd but does not represent the majority of Americans. It is not a plan to win friends and influence people but to alienate them.

America has never been perfect. Slavery, witch-burning, poverty, greed, commodification of everything including sex—there is a long list of past and current defects. We are currently focused on the so-called masculinity crisis, the lost young men of today who live with their parents, spend an average of 8 1/2 hours in front of screens, prefer pornography to living breathing partners and are often addicted to drugs because they see no viable future. We contemplate something like DEI and wokeness for young white folks. Call it what you will, America has clearly failed to draw this group into the dream. Of course, all the other defects remain. Helping one group does not preclude helping another. The inevitable rise of artificial intelligence is almost certainly going to make a bad situation worse.

These are gloomy uncertain times. The fact is, there has never been a shining city upon a hill but there has always been the potential for one. It is that potential that defines America. Americans have always come around to accept that we have the ability and the responsibility to strive to reach that potential. If we fail at that and if we block others, we commit Camus’s gravest sin: “the world is ugly and cruel,” said Camus, “but it is only by adding to that ugliness and cruelty that we sin most gravely.”

I’m closer to the end of my journey than the beginning. Unlike the great preacher I haven’t seen the other side. I have no idea if the moral compass of the universe bends toward justice or not. Frankly I have little hope that it does. When it comes to religion, I’m with Tom Paine: The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. Like one of my lifelong heroes William Blake: 

I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem,

In Englands green & pleasant Land.