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Everywhere I go, lately, I hear people saying how evil the United States of America is because it was “built on the backs of slaves,” and similar things.  People saying how much they hate the US and won’t be satisfied until the country is torn down and rebuilt with a “more perfect system.”  In order to explain my frustration with this thought, allow me to tell you about my dad.

First, let me introduce him.  For the bulk of his life, my dad was a high school science teacher.  He was highly interested in various aspects of science, including electronics, chemistry, astronomy and physics.  He was also interested in poetry, whittling, chess, orchestra music, and rock collecting.  For as long as I knew him, he was heavily into scouting.  Politically, he was very conservative and a card-carrying Republican.  However, as a high-school teacher with five children (including myself) he was often skirting the edge of poverty.

During my childhood, my dad was both my greatest hero and my biggest problem.  Much of the way I was raised could be termed abusive.  He wasn’t above spanking me, which usually meant his bare hand smacking my bare buttocks.  However, sometimes, I would be called into his presence and be required to stand and listen while he told me in detail exactly why what I’d done was wrong.  These lectures could last up to about fifteen minutes in some cases.  This was hard for me mainly because I’d get bored after about ten.  At fifteen minutes, I’d start to cry.  Then, frustrated by my tears and feeling manipulated, he would admonish me for “mooing.”  If I became angry, he would set me up with a physically demanding chore to do.  Intellectually, I understand that he was teaching me where to put my emotional energy, but emotionally, I felt like I was being punished for getting angry.  As for fear, that was quickly dismissed.  I frequently resented my dad for treating me like a boy.

As for respect, I rarely got any.  He often said that respect has to be earned.  He said that as long as I continued to act like a child, he would keep treating me like one.  If he screwed up, I never heard him apologize.  Sometimes, when I made a mistake, he would command me to put my nose on the wall, which was more than boring and I could never make it all the way through my time.  So he created a device that I would basically hold on the wall with my nose and two fingers.  If my nose ever came off the device, it would whistle ear-piercingly.  To say that I lacked a close relationship with my dad during childhood would be something of an understatement. 

Dad had opinions about most things. Music, for example.  He could occasionally be heard to say “Classical is the only real music.”  He never wanted to listen to any other kinds of music.  He thought metal was people screaming and banging on their instruments. Popular music was purile.  I was raised on classical music.  I knew Peter and the Wolf so well, that I could follow the story easily without any narration.  He had a copy of it on reel-to-reel with Lorne Greene as the narrator.  We even had a vinyl record of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.

Later in life, I learned that my dad had… well, other problems.  I don’t want to get into them in too much detail.  Suffice it to say that they got him into some serious trouble at one point.

However, I still thought he knew everything.  It was from him that learned the value of the scientific method and asking questions.  Later, when I entered high school, he would take the longest possible route home and that entire time would be devoted to a discussion of how my day went or whatever else I was interested in discussing.  It was during this time that I learned the one thing my dad had failed to teach me as a child.  Namely, that he really did love me.  From him, I learned the ins and outs of creating and keeping a budget.  If I ever didn’t understand something, I knew I could ask my dad and he would explain it in terms that I could understand.

Before he was my dad, he was a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War.  Apparently, he got wind that he was about to be drafted into the Army and, just so he’d have a choice in the matter, joined the Navy instead.  He made it all the way through bootcamp and then went to officer training, intending to become the engineering officer on board a submarine.  I still think it’s funny that, after all that training, even though he did wind up on a submarine, he ended up in supply and requisitions instead.   I learned a lot from him about what he termed “packing the submarine,” which just meant fitting lots of things into a small space so that everything fits neatly and can easily be removed when it’s needed.

When my dad died in the summer of 2016, I wasn’t really surprised at how many people came to his funeral or how many of his students expressed to me how he was their favorite teacher.  He was entirely devoted to teaching.  I once asked him what made a good teacher.  He said the best teacher is one that’s devoted to reaching the minds of his students.  That’s the axiom that defined his teaching career.  The one and only class reunion I ever went to, every one of my classmates asked after my father.  To many of them, he was a hero.

So, what does any of this have to do with whether or not the US is evil?

As you read, my dad was not a perfect person.  He could have been called abusive and whoever used the term would have been correct.  He could be narrow-minded, stubborn, and opinionated.  He was demanding and strict and his methods of discipline were often draconian.  Even beyond the sphere of fatherhood he was deeply flawed and none of the good he did during his life will ever erase those flaws.

However, my dad was also a good man who loved his family and did everything he could to provide for and protect them.  He used his time and talents to benefit his country, his classes, and his family.  He never in his life hesitated to act on his convictions or do the things he believed were correct.  Above all, he did the best he could with the resources he was given and none of his flaws will ever erase the good that he did during his life.

In the end, it would be unfair to label my dad as simply a good or bad person.  In order to do justice to his life and all the good and the bad associated with him, the best way I could ever describe him would be, “He was human.”  The same is true of every individual that ever lived or ever will live on the face of this planet.

The same can be said of the United States of America, or any country.  Yes, the US has flaws.  Yes, it was founded during a time when slavery was an accepted practice.  Yes, it failed to completely abolish racial prejudice.  Yes, it has grown in large part by failure to keep its promises and by brutalizing other people.  Yes, many, if not all, of its systems are deeply flawed and unjust in many ways.  The United States has been responsible for a lot of the evil in the world.  None of the good associated with the US can erase that.

However, the United States can also be remembered as the most successful democratic system in the world.  Its constitution was originally written with means that would allow it to be legally amended if things were found to have been left out.  The government was created in such a way that no one branch could ever sieze power and change it into any form of dictatorship.  Some of the flaws, such as slavery, were discovered.  Amendments were written to the constitution in an attempt to fix those flaws.  What’s more, the United States is currently the most free country in the world today.  The United States has been responsible for a lot of good in the world.  None of the evil associated with the US can erase that.

Since it was created and has been administered by people, in the end, just like with my dad, it’s unfair to label it as simply good or evil.  In point of fact, there’s no way for the US to be considered completely perfect precisely because it was created by flawed human beings.  Nor can it ever be rendered more perfect by any means now or ever available to its citizenry. That being said, maybe it would be best to accept both the bad and the good about the history of the US and say that the country is, at it’s core, human.