Some sore losers at Oxford put forth this question for debate: "This House regrets the Founding of America." Relax -- you don't have to pack; the motion was soundly defeated. And, in this coverage, a British correspondent covering the U.S. for the folks back home comes up with one of the more eloquent defenses of the American idea I've read lately:
America did not come from nowhere. It was an offspring of Europe, the step-child of a corrupt, moribund post-feudal system. America encapsulated the principles of the Enlightenment - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - wrapped them in the pursuit of happiness, underpinned them with an inalienable right and turned an IDEA into a country.
It took the missteps of the French and the English revolutions and it made them work.
Yes, there were terrible mistakes - the gross hypocrisy of slavery, segregation and McCarthyism, to name a few. But America found and keeps finding the solutions to its mistakes. It is a giant, rolling social experiment in constant pursuit of self-correction. As Bill Clinton once said: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."
The whole thing is a good read.
