Some disqualifying hints appear in rabble-rousing proclamations in the U.S., hints that reveal significant errors in the assessment of this country. One is the use of cultural oxymorons, phrases transplanted into the U.S. that have no real application to the country. These are not simple hyperbole, they are a disjunction, an inappropriate continuation of an immigrant's culture (or a student's reading) from an old culture to the new one. If you hear "class," or "caste," you know the speaker is living in his own past as much as if he had said "serf" or "kulak." That past has nothing to do with the United States save its determination to escape it.
The only other explanation is that the speaker believes in a common, unifying, "intelligent design."
New Americans
What all the discord and upheaval has taught this country's enemies is this: The American no longer wants the risks and accomplishments of individual, personal freedom; he wants not to think too hard and to be left alone.
This is not the flint-eyed loner of Western American myth, it is a man trying to be an innocent bystander in a shooting war.
Hobbled by ignorance, overwhelmed by criticism, the modern American is not dropping his shoulders and leaning into the storm, he's pulling the covers over his head and hoping for the best.
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