Searching for a Mission Statement

I’m not sure what brought this subject to mind. Maybe it was this post at Small Wars Journal and this passage in particular:

Our adversaries and allies alike must know that Americans do not love war for war’s sake. To do so is the definition of fascism. We are, and always have been reluctant warriors. But, we are a nation that is deeply attached to liberty and independence. When provoked, we know how to fight, and we will persevere until victory and an enduring peace is won.

While I’m in agreement with that passage, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s true. I find it hard to reconcile the pursuit of global American hegemony with it. I don’t think there’s a straight-line connection between dropping bombs on civilians in Iraq and Syria and preserving American liberty and independence.

Maybe it was watching Hacksaw Ridge yesterday. I found it very moving and recommend it, at least if you have a strong stomach. If you don’t know of it, it’s the story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector awarded the Medal of Honor. It depicts in nauseatingly graphic detail events in the invasion of Okinawa in 1945. Surrounded by hatred, fear, anger, and blood, Cpl. Doss brought only courage, faith, and determination to save his troopmates. A remarkable story and a true one.

Maybe it’s the Fourth of July tradition of political speeches, reflection on U. S. history, and quoting American presidents (frequently apocryphally).

I think we’ve made a lot of very bad decisions in recent decades and I’m sorry to say that I find myself ashamed of my country far too frequently. I cannot imagine myself as anything other than an American. My grandfather’s grandfather was an American. That said I think we need a new mission statement. Consistent with our July 4th tradition here are some quotes from American presidents of the past that I’d be proud to take as parts of a renewed mission statement.

George Washington:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

John Adams (from a letter to his wife, Abigail):

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

Thomas Jefferson:

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Ulysses S. Grant:

As the United States is the freest of all nations, so, too, its people sympathize with all people struggling for liberty and self-government; but while so sympathizing it is due to our honor that we should abstain from enforcing our views upon unwilling nations and from taking an interested part, without invitation, in the quarrels between different nations or between governments and their subjects. Our course should always be in conformity with strict justice and law, international and local.

Grover Cleveland:

A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil. Contented labor is an element of national prosperity. Ability to work constitutes the capital and the wage of labor the income of a vast number of our population, and this interest should be jealously protected. Our workingmen are not asking unreasonable indulgence, but as intelligent and manly citizens they seek the same consideration which those demand who have other interests at stake. They should receive their full share of the care and attention of those who make and execute the laws, to the end that the wants and needs of the employers and the employed shall alike be subserved and the prosperity of the country, the common heritage of both, be advanced.

In researching this post, I encountered quotes from James Garfield, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama that I could wholeheartedly endorse. Including all of them here would make this post entirely too long. I wanted to close with a famous quote from our national patron saint and tutelary spirit, Abraham Lincoln:

With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.