A recent poll showed that large numbers of Democrats and young people would rather flee the United States than “stay and fight” if the nation were attacked. This alarming revelation has caused many to criticize Democrats, but the bigger focus should be on why they are wrong.
The simple answer is that this nation, by any standard based on human history, is one of the most, if not the most, blessed, prosperous, free, and humane nations ever to exist.
<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1646944488458,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000167-2d90-df7d-abf7-fddf2cc50001","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1646944488458,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000167-2d90-df7d-abf7-fddf2cc50001","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"rnrn
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_46944488", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"968451"}t}); rnrn","_id":"0000017f-758a-dbdc-a37f-75bb83ce0000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedThe Quinnipiac poll in question, released March 7, found that 55% of Americans would “stay and fight” if they “were in the same position as Ukrainians are now,” finding their nation under attack by an invading army. Only 38% said they would “leave the country.”
Those aren’t awful numbers. But among those aged 18-34, a 48%-45% plurality say they would run away. Among Democrats, a 52%-40% majority would flee.
It is easy to scoff at Democrats’ seeming lack of patriotism or courage. As for young people, many are probably suffering from the toxicity of school systems steeped in ideologies left over from the Soviet era. Teachers trained to disseminate “wokeness” have taught young people the lie that their country is uniquely, inherently, and intractably racist, repressive, etc. One can only hope that at some point, these young people’s brains recover from this washing and that they are able to appreciate the objectively grand reality around them.
Regardless, a free people with any sense of self and of pride should feel a duty and an inspiration to defend their homeland from assault. Moreover, the U.S. isn’t just any homeland — it is truly exceptional in ways that should readily inspire devotion to it and fortitude on its behalf.
Start with the least important measure — namely, Americans’ material standard of living. This regularly and significantly outpaces that of all but the smallest and wealthiest European countries, not to mention that of less-developed parts of the world.
Indeed, judging by the whole history of mankind, Americans are blessed to live in what is by far the most prosperous time and place ever known. The common objections to this fact are simply not serious. For example, “income inequality,” an unimportant concern in any event when everyone prospers, is not nearly as bad in the U.S. as people make it out to be. And that oft-invoked narrative about two decades of “wage stagnation” is just based on the mistaken use of the wrong dataset in measuring inflation. Before Bidenflation hit, Americans were consistently raising their effective incomes and standard of living.
Then, there are the issues of human rights. Here, it is almost enough to look at the competing models, China and Russia, to recognize how good Americans have it. But that’s not all — they are also better off than those who lived here in the past.
More people are voting in the U.S. than ever before. More nonwhite people have more opportunities, higher incomes, and more savings than ever before. More protections exist to prevent discrimination against racial and sexual minorities than were imaginable even a quarter-century ago.
Americans enjoy the cleanest air and water since the Industrial Revolution began. The amount of forested land in the U.S. has been stable for more than a century, despite a tripling of the human population. The U.S. has a vibrant system of national parks, more and cleaner energy resources than ever, and greater food production, with more efficiency, than at any time in history.
Before the pandemic hit, U.S. life expectancy had been steadily growing, reaching 79 years in 2020 — nearly 10 years longer than it had been half a century before.
All those considerations are enough to make one treasure and want to protect the blessings of life in the nation that has made them possible. Yet even these are superseded by the liberties Americans enjoy.
Even today, despite the advent of “cancel culture” and related ills, Americans massively outpace Europeans, and even more so the rest of the world, in their degree of freedom to speak openly and practice their faith. Americans also enjoy legal protections and procedural guarantees against unjust imprisonment that remain a model for mankind.
All of these goods make America what it is: the envy of the whole world and a continuing example for it.
Thank goodness the U.S. is not and will not likely soon be under attack. But if it were so threatened, every American should be eager to fight for his or her country’s cause. Today, even more than yesterday, this land is worthy of every last measure of their devotion.
