PrintEric Holder challenges American greatness: 'Exactly when did you think America was great?'
Obama Administration Attorney General Eric Holder was, on Wednesday, interviewed by MSNBC's Ari Melber. Holder is reportedly considering seeking the Democrats' 2020 presidential nomination.
Both disputed American greatness.
Holder did concede, in passing, that America has "done great things" and "been a leader in, you know, a whole range of things." So his view did reflect nuance. But he devoted much more critical attention to our country's historic flaws.
Holder, per The GatewayPundit:
And that's what I hear these things about 'Make America Great Again,' and I think to myself, exactly when did you think America was great? It certainly wasn't when people were enslaved. It certainly wasn't when women didn't have the right to vote. It certainly wasn't when the LGBTQ community was denied the rights to which it was entitled.
Spewing such bile-pap probably will serve Holder well, should he take to the campaign road before armchair Antifa audiences.
I address this in my upcoming book, ...And It's Good Enough for Me.
"In what decade was America great?" some ask. "In the eighties? Sixties? Forties?"
Seeking immaculateness in the temporal world is folly. Any demand for flawlessness is unreasonable. Only Jesus was without imperfection.
No era is wholly free of flaws, but such were vanquished thanks to citizens’ faith in our foundational creeds. The good lasted, while the bad collapsed.
America’s strengths were made firmer by the refining process. Reasonable men and women who love this country see the glass as half full, not half empty.
We've moved onward and upward from yesterday's mistakes. No one can make the most of today's opportunities, or reach grand tomorrows, by remaining in the past.
Our nation should be saluted for its abundant positives, not cast down for this or that historical negative. What good parent would disown a child for wrongdoing?
True greatness lies not in never having erred, but in learning from error, putting it down, and rising above it to lasting superiority.
No man can be accurately defined solely by his faults, to the exclusion of positive attributes and accomplishments. Neither can America be appropriately measured by its past failures alone.
The founding fathers were men of great intellect and wisdom. Part of the brilliance of the Constitution they produced lies in its democratic nature.
Its arrangement of governmental authorities and guarantees of personal liberty not subject to authorities' beneficence stand yet as a marvel among formal documents.
We each have proprietary interest in maintaining both it and our sovereignty.
Our country's paramount strength is articulated in the motto "E Pluribus Unum" — from many, one. It is when Americans of all backgrounds unite in recognition of common national interests that we are truly formidable.
Author, essayist, music writer and author DC Larson lives in Iowa. His political blog is https://americanscenemagazine.blogspot.com.
