The city on the hill...

[Peter Kropotkin]

This phrase upon which American identity was forged on,
it was from the very start of the "American experiment",
(mentioned by Governor John Winthrop as early as 1630)
and the basis of virtually all belief about America and specifically
mentioned by Ronald Raygun as late as 1980...

This idea of the "city on the hill" has, as most ideas, its basis in the bible,
it is derived from the "Sermon on the Mount" and in its political existence
refers to "American Exceptionalism" along with the idea of America
being a "beacon of hope" around the world...

But after 300 years of extensive use, this term has almost gone out
of existence, and I for one, would like to understand both its value to us,
what does the idea of America being the, "City on the hill" mean to us today,
and why has that phrase suddenly lost its value to us today?

Raygun used this term last in his final address to the nation before leaving office,
in 1988 or 1989 or so.. and its context was in reference to us, American's or America
itself being of place where because of our high moral standards, both within government
and in the state itself, that we offer the world a higher moral standard..
This higher moral standard offered the world a place, America as being
a "beacon of hope", but the question becomes, how did America loss
its high moral standard?

Republicans/MAGA types like to point to Clinton as being the beginning of
the loss of the values implied in ''The City on the hill" and yet we can
hold to a much earlier beginning.... The kids today, born after 1975, can't
imagine the crisis in America caused by the dual events of Vietnam and
Watergate...

I recall sitting at the dinner table and watching the ongoing horror of
Vietnam... with Walter Cronkite intoning about how many Americans boys
died in the jungles of Vietnam this past week.. a weekly body count was
a vital aspect of our nightly news...

" This week in Vietnam, only 37 soldiers died."

I heard this weekly announcement for years...
and the question, unanswered to this day, why the hell
were we even in Vietnam? The death toll for Vietnam was
(According to WIKI) was 58,281, KIA or non-combat deaths
(Including the missing and deaths in captivity)

And still to this day, we have understanding as to why?..
Why did 58,000 Americans die?

How do we hold to having a higher moral value when we can't
even explain why 58,000 Americans died fighting a war thousands of
miles away?

and the second event was Watergate... I was 12 years old in 1972,
I recall my father being bitterly disappointed not being on
"Nixon's Enemies list" (he was a journalist)...

Imagine if you can, the profound disappointment that
American's felt at this dual event... a President lied,
cheated, attacked his enemies by fair means or foul...
today this is politics as usual, but back then, it was almost fatal,
to how American's saw America and its government..
Ronald Raygun pointed attack on the Government,

"Government is not the solution to our problem,
government is the problem"

This radical statement, a prelude to anarchism as it were,
would not have been possible before Watergate and Vietnam...
Recall that only a few years before, 1962 or so, JFK said this..

''Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what can
I do for my country"

Less than 20 years later, this was a thought from a long lost
era...the years before Vietnam and Watergate...

The crimes of Raygun, of which there are many, was to help
turn America away from being the "city on the hill" to
''Every man for himself" and the state and country be dammed...

Part of the modern experience is a profound loss of morals/ethics
that has had every single philosopher since Nietzsche trying to formulate
a theory of ethics/morals.. including Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Sartre
and Rawls...and there still isn't a moral/ethical universal theory that
we "moderns" can believe in..

For the idea of the "city on the hill" is basically an ethical/moral idea...
not a political or social idea....
and when can we point to that tells us the exact death of this idea of
the American "city on the hill?"

January 20, 2017......

and what values brought forth from conservatives/MAGA crowd, helps us
renew a modern return to America being a "city on the hill?"...
Indeed, what values does the MAGA crowd bring to the ''table''
in America?

Ask the MAGA crowd what they believe in and one will hear
debunked stolen election conspiracies, theories about
how the world/America is beholden to unknown forces,
including Jews, George Soros, unnamed "elites", Illuminati,
how "unnamed" elite democrats engage in drinking the blood of
children, or engage in widespread pedophilia including the Clinton family...
now what is important to note is that there being no evidence of this is cited
as being evidence for all these conspiracy theories...
that somehow there being no evidence is evidence...
and one will hear about disloyal, traitorous, un-American liberal/democrats
who should be shot or put into jail, (R. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
said this)

In the light of all this talk about MAGA conspiracies, where does the
idea of "the city on the hill" fit in? I can't see how the anti-democratic,
anti-human, anti-life rhotic of the MAGA crowd fits into this centuries
old idea of "the city on the hill?"

On what moral/ethical theory does the MAGA/conservative crowd
actually stand on? The MAGA/conservative holds to being "pro-life"
and demands the end of all abortions in America and yet,
and yet call for the death of gays and trans people... I am not sure
how they intend to put a square into this circle...or how some have
called for life in prison, for those seeking gender help for their children...
and yet, in still claiming to be "truly" Pro-life, they haven't called for
the end of the "death penalty"......they seem to be very selectively
"Pro-Life"...

now is the notion of the "the city on the hill" to be found on
a very selective ideas or concepts of insane conspiracy theories,
a "deep state" and morals/ethics that claim to be "Pro-life"
but aren't...

or said another way, have the MAGA/conservative created such
a negative notion of America, that hope, love, peace, charity and beauty,
no longer have a place in modern America?

Has the long-standing idea of an ''city on the hill'' been damaged,
perhaps permanently, by the MAGA/conservative greed, intolerance,
bigotry, prejudice, hate and fear?

One could easily make that argument..

So the question becomes, is this idea of America, of being a moral/ethical state,
of being the ''city on the hill'' worth saving or should we dump it along
with other forgotten American ideals like the "Monroe doctrine"...

Kropotkin

[Agent Smith]

This is (not) the via!

[Walker]

The Voyage of Life, Youth, was painted by the founder of The Hudson River Valley School (1842), when Manifest Destiny was the Spirit of the young nation. The Shining City on the Hill was possible because of frontiers.