Truth, Justice and the American Way

"S is for Superman" by Xurble is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Hank Thayer was not fond of last year’s change to the Superman tagline, and for good reasons.

Last October, I learned DC Comics had dropped the traditional “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” tagline from the Superman comic and replaced it with “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow.” Well dang, bubba, the American Way is the way to a better tomorrow! So unless DC believes the American Way does not lead to a better tomorrow, why did they change it? 

On the one hand, one could say who cares about a comic strip. It is a small matter. It is not the dreaded canary in the coal mine, nor even the much invoked straw that broke the camel’s back. The camel’s back is a long way from breaking. 

But it is a very telling event. It points to a sickness of the spirit that goes beyond the worst malaise of the 1970s. At least back then we could agree, whatever our faults and shortfalls, our principles were noble and worth defending. Even as the Vietnam War ground to its ignominious conclusion, we were able to celebrate the bicentennial of events that lead to the American Revolution. 

And only 15 months after the fall of Saigon, we were able to celebrate the actual bicentennial of our nation’s founding. Even when we felt we were deficient in execution, we knew who we wanted to be. We did not apologize for our principles, only our failure to realize them. We understood, at some level, how the American Way was aspirational -- much like “a better tomorrow.”

But now we seem to have reached the point at which we can’t even assert our own principles without irony or embarrassment. How did we end up in this situation? More importantly, how do we recover? And, as some may ask, why does it matter?

I will begin with the last question. It matters because our country matters. It matters because our country is not just a parcel of land or a group of people with a common culture. Our country is a set of ideas.

Foremost among the ideas is the principle that all men are created equal, or more precisely that all people are to be equal before the law. Another idea is the intrinsic value of human freedom. And closely related to both of them, generally unstated, is the sanctity of the individual. It is the individual who has rights, who exercises liberty, and who pursues happiness as he or she sees fit. It is the individual who is to be judged not by station of birth but by content of character. 

These are powerful ideas. Ideas so powerful that, when put into practice anywhere, are a threat to tyrants everywhere. These are the ideas Fredrick Douglass recognized as the most potent weapons against slavery and oppression. They are the ideas the Reverend Dr. King held up to convince us that we must end legal racial discrimination. 

Our critics will loudly point out that ending legally codified racism is not enough. And they are correct. But when they then disparage our founding principles, they are wrong. The fact the job is not finished is no reason to discard the tools that brought us this far. Without the American Way, there will be no Truth and Justice. There will be no Better Tomorrow.

Further, in times of trouble patriotism is sorely needed. Not the cheap nationalism of the far right, but a real patriotism. A love of country which not only celebrates what is best in our country but also seeks to fix what is wrong. Without a true, deep-seated and widespread patriotism, it will be all too easy for the far right to peddle its Old World Style Blood and Soil Nationalism. And Blood and Soil Nationalism is poison.

So, clearly, we need to shake off the malaise. But how do we do it? Part of fixing the problem is understanding how we got into this mess.

One way in which we’ve reached this point is through the United States and its principles coming under sustained conceptual attack, for decades. The attack from the Left has been mostly straightforward, built on the assertion we have failed to live up to our principles, those in power don’t really believe in them, and they may not even matter. The attack from the Right is like a backhanded compliment: They loudly proclaim the greatness of the United States and its principles, but then include all kinds of dreadful things they believe are part of American principles. 

Both attacks have been eroding people’s belief in the American Way for decades. They have contributed to the loss of faith in our founding principles. It is time to examine the attacks and rebut them forcefully.

The major line of attack from the Left holds that our founding principles have always been a con. They were never meant to be more than a cover for raw power politics and racism. This is the line taken in the 1619 Project. There are a couple of answers to this charge. 

First, if you actually read the writings of the Founders you see a level of commitment to the principles which is hard to fake. Why write the Federalist Papers if it was all “nudge-nudge wink-wink”? They fully understood the terrible contradiction of building a nation dedicated to human liberty while permitting, and in many cases practicing, chattel slavery. They weren’t hiding it. They recognized the horror but did not know what to do about it. Jefferson himself said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” (He should have trembled for himself too, and probably did.)

They also recognized that if they tried for perfection at the start they would fail, and the experiment in liberty would amount to nothing. 

Second, even if the words were a con, we would still benefit from taking them at face value. We should try to live out the “true meaning of our creed,” as the reverend Dr. King so beautifully put it. If we believe in them and try to implement them, we can actually make them true. Why are we today unable to see something which is both so obvious and so wonderful?

And then there is the far Right. One of the key concepts in their attacks on the United States is the oft-stated notion of America being founded as “a white, Christian nation.” This idea is not merely wrong, it is exactly wrong. It is so perfectly wrong that good people are often so stunned, or so overcome with laughter, that they can’t gather their wits fast enough to recite the First Amendment of the Constitution before the conversation moves on to other topics. 

But we need to take this idea seriously, and speak out against it with great vigor. Keep a copy of the Constitution in your pocket, or even just an index card bearing the First Amendment so you will be ready.

The Dominionist wing of the far Right has never accepted the First Amendment. They have always opposed it, and they have always dreamed of creating a theocracy in the United States. This fact should be raised whenever they push public religion. And if they ask what is wrong with creating a Christian Nation, we need to remind them of the religious wars that have plagued humanity through centuries.

Whether confronting Left or Right, the words of Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812 are worth recounting and putting into context. Old Hickory said, “Who are we? And for what are we going to fight? Are we the titled slaves of George III? The military conscripts of Napoleon the Great? Or the frozen peasants of the Russian Czar? No! We are the freeborn sons of America! The citizens of the only republic now existing in the world. And the only people on earth who possess rights, liberties, and properties they dare call their own.”

Jackson is out of style these days. He was a slave owner and the architect of the Trail of Tears, two epic crimes. And yet his very faults, and the faults of the United States back then, are almost the point. Because, as bad as we were back then, we were as good as it got. 

And now, as we contemplate our still imperfect Republic, we should reflect on our progress, recognize how far we still must go, and insist that the struggle is worth the effort. The Buffalo Soldiers, the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Code Talkers, and the 442 Infantry believed in our founding principles enough to risk their lives for them. By what right do we turn away from them now?

Hank Thayer received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts, and holds both a B.S. and a Masters in Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After serving as a U.S. Army Infantry Officer in the late 1980s, he has spent most of his professional life working in manufacturing. In addition to being an amateur historian he is a fair-to-middling shade tree mechanic.

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The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.

Opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute or its members.