Keep Seeking, You're Looking at It All Wrong

This ad appeared in one of my local newspapers on Christmas day:

It was a full-page tall, on a right-hand page. I've cut it in half and put the two halves side by side to show it better here, but you can imagine that a tall skinny shape like this would have almost as much presence in the paper as a full-page ad.

Tying Jesus and Reagan together is what got my attention first, but then I focused on what Reagan said specifically. A quick search tells me the words are from his 1982 Christmas address:

In spite of everything, we Americans are still uniquely blessed, not only with the rich bounty of our land but by a bounty of the spirit — a kind of year-round Christmas spirit that still makes our country a beacon of hope in a troubled world and that makes this Christmas and every Christmas even more special for all of us who number among our gifts the birthright of being an American.

It hit me in at least three ways that I disagree with it (predictable, I know, for those of you who read this blog regularly).

First that "we" are uniquely blessed. This is the typical Reagan and conservative/Republican message of unexamined American exceptionalism. It may be human, on some level, to think you're special, and children particularly go through developmental stages of thinking they are the center of the world. But it's healthy to outgrow it, and if you don't, you're probably an asshole, as Robert Jensen put it in Citizens of the Empire, way before we had to suffer through Mafia Mulligan's presidency. 

Second, that this blessing included the rich bounty of our land. Whose land? "Our" land, again. Whose land? All that empty land no one else was using, of course! We didn't kill anyone to get use of that land, and we didn't murder, rape, sell parents/children, or generally exploit anyone to use that land. We didn't damage the land itself, either, of course. Remember, today is the anniversary of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. It was in 1862 at Mankato, Minnesota, when 38 Dakota men were hanged, with permission from Abraham Lincoln, the "Great Emancipator." Four thousand white spectators looked on. Afterward, the bodies of the men were dug up and used in medical training (including what became the Mayo Clinic) and hundreds of Dakota women, children, and elderly died of disease and cold while they were being held in camps before they were forced westward to reservations.

Third, that the Christmas spirit (generosity, right?) that makes "our" country a beacon of hope is only to be shared with those who are part of "we," the ones who "number among our gifts the birthright of being an American." It implies (or says, let's be clear) immigrants don't get to share in that gift—it's only a beacon seen from afar to inspire. The U.S. is not a place someone should actually go to to share in its promise, nope. We took all that bounty (whether from "our" own land or others' land through imperialism—not mentioned in the quote) and we're keeping it for ourselves.

The idea that the luck of where you happened to be born determines your life outcome is so at odds with my worldview. It doesn't fit very well with what 90% of Americans think, either (at least before 2010). So talking about birthrights based on national boundaries makes zero sense to me, especially in a country created from stolen land. And being righteous about exceptionalism on top of all that... whew.

Merry Christmas, Christians. I think your god would have a few things to say about this.