Yes, but...

OK, you there in the back of the room. I see that hand. Please speak up so that we can all hear you.

My last three blog entries have been about Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About America, a book with much insight about many things, from why we are nation is hated by Muslims to how we came to be who we are as a people.

In response to this defense of America, at least one person has written to point out that “I think the ideal is great, but the reality is far from the ideal.”

He also took issue with my statement that America did not shove its ideals down other peoples’ throats by force. “And the U.S. government hasn't only been using guns, bombs, napalm, and chemicals to control people. They also use forced drugging; invasive Family Court orders that control people's personal lives, and use children as pawns; zoning laws that prescribe in Teutonic DETAIL what people can do, and can't do, and, HAVE to do with their own property; abusive police who almost never are found wrong even when they murder or torture, or are accomplices to murder or torture; secret surveillance of private phone calls with no court warrant required; food inspection laws that allow multi-million pound recalls of filthy rotten meat and vegetables from corporations, but forbid a farmer to advertise and sell even a few pounds of clean, fresh meat .... etc., etc., etc.”

“I've been adversely affected, more-or-less directly, by all of the above. I could write a book about my experiences in the ‘Free’ Vaterland. It's a funny kind of ‘freedom,’ in my opinion, and I wonder how it will look in the history books a couple centuries from now, should this world survive.”

And this is only the short list of grievances one could cite, I’m sure. The insurance racket, the sorry state of health care, the Washington lobby game, unspoken issues which even politicians can’t talk about because it would put them in a bad light to be honest….

In short, we live in a broken world, and America’s beacon may appear inviting for those in more oppressed parts of the world, but this country is not itself exempt from the brokenness.

I am reminded here of the way Bob Dylan puts it in the opening number on his Oh Mercy album.
Everything Is Broken

Broken lines broken strings
Broken threads broken springs
Broken idols broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.

Broken bottles broken plates
Broken switches broken gates
Broken dishes broken parts
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken.

Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
Broken cutters broken saws
Broken buckles broken laws
Broken bodies broken bones
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath feel like you're chokin'
Everything is broken.

Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face
Broken hands on broken ploughs
Broken treaties broken vows
Broken pipes broken tools
People bending broken rules
Hound dog howling bullfrog croaking
Everything is broken.

editor's note: D'Souza's book is more than a polemic about America's achievement. He addresses a range of issues that need a fresh perspective, including race relations, multiculturalism, Colonialism and a better understanding of our global situation in regards to the Muslim world. The book is worth reading, wherever you stand on the issues.