American mythology is almost all active struggle. Conquering a wilderness, gaining and keeping your property, defending your rights, building for the future. Very little of our culture has ever been praised for being passive. We are generally proud of the belief that all our ancestors were in one way or another militants – in a good way of course.
Unfortunately, struggle often became violent. Cowboys and Indians, labor and business, revolution from England, civil wars. Slavery. Even gangs and cities, immigrants, ranchers and farmers.
As America grew in power, we projected this dynamism to much of the world. We tended to view most foreign places as just another frontier to be tamed. We like to think we were mostly helpful, but we were never meek. And when necessary, our militant sense of what was right turned violent.
I find “militants” today amusing. The militants themselves want to tame distant “frontiers” over which we have no control. The “counter militants” just want the militants to go away and leave them alone. And a lot of the concern over “free speech” antagonisms is just plain silly – snowflake versus snowflake.
One thing certain is that militants – and some violence – are truly at the heart of American culture. We are not alone in that, but we should at least acknowledge our biases
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 