Somebody is going to have to arise to point out that this is a deeply wrong and un-American story. The whole point of America is that we are not a tribe. We are a universal nation, founded on universal principles, attracting talented people from across the globe, active across the world on behalf of all people who seek democracy and dignity.
The core American idea is not the fortress, it’s the frontier. First, we thrived by exploring a physical frontier during the migration west, and now we explore technological, scientific, social and human frontiers. The core American attitude has been looking hopefully to the future, not looking resentfully toward some receding greatness.
Brooks usual nonsense, rather complex to unpack.
There is no such thing as a universal nation.
Napoleon had tried to make France out to have been it!
So much nonsense here, which we have all heard before, can't shake a stick at it all.
There are a few correct observations: this country was founded on (highly flawed) universalist principles.
However, contrary to Brooks' fairy tale, the colonies themselves started out mainly as a fortress (hardly as a frontier of anything, except the Atlantic Ocean!), both against mainstream religious faiths in Europe, Popish aristocratic and Crown authorities, and against Indians in the woods, and against the hostile French and Spanish forces dogging their fitful and pathetic development.
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