Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review Nov. 28, 2001/ 13 Kislev, 5762

Norah Vincent

Norah Vincent
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports

It's not our fault that we're better off


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- THE terrorists attacked the World Trade Center because they think the United States is about money. That's also why the political left, here and in Europe (both of which have deep roots in communism), has tended to take an anti-American view of Sept. 11 and its aftermath. Their common enemy is the almighty dollar, the only difference being that the terrorists are motivated by cultural envy; the ideological left by cultural guilt.

But this is mostly because they've failed--or refused--to see what democratic capitalism, at its best, is all about. It isn't the World Trade Center. It isn't Wall Street. It isn't really money at all. That's only a means to rather unambitious ends. If you venture outside today, you can't help noticing it. Walk around your neighborhood. Feel the almost palpable silence. It hangs like a thick and drowsy summer afternoon, a still point in the turning world, a dot of necessary ease. It's what we've been working toward all along. That's why the average American spends five days out of seven drudging through endless workdays, when the coffee has worn off and quitting time seems miles away. He doesn't do it for the money. He does it for the simple privacy and repose that his earnings can buy. A home. A nice meal. A day off. A morning spent in bed or in front of the television with family. A well-deserved rest.

This is no accident. These are the benefits of our economic and political system, and a great many Americans enjoy them. Not every American enjoys them fully, but this cannot negate the fact that even our poorest citizens are rich by Afghan, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese and African standards; neither can it negate the more telling fact that hordes of immigrants come to this country every year in search of that same small corner of contentment. Many find it.

On this day, when the mythologized American "way of life" is celebrated, we would do well to remember that adverse economic conditions in many countries are as much a direct result of those countries' self-inflicted political fiascoes as our prosperity is a direct result of our political equilibrium. Surrounded by bounty, we should remember that while famines and abject poverty in other parts of the world are deeply lamentable, they have arisen largely from the ravages of ongoing civil wars, the neglect of incumbent tyrannies and the outright greed of predatory warlords. It is not the U.S., the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund that is primarily to blame. What's more, in many cases--as we are doing in Afghanistan now and as we did in other starving and ravaged trouble spots like Ethiopia and Somalia--we have provided humanitarian aid to those in need.

This doesn't mean that we are blameless. During the Cold War especially, we partook in many a covert and dirty conflict, including anti-Soviet action in Afghanistan. Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua belong on the list as well. Protecting our interests abroad has not been bloodless or unfalteringly benign.

But it also has not been meritless. As in the current conflict, it has sometimes been necessary to protect not just the grosser things that our detractors think the U.S. embodies but the simpler things that we have, until recently, taken so much for granted.

Foreigners who have little acquaintance with this country and ivory tower intellectuals who have, in many ways, even less, think that the United States and its flag stand for the powerful rich and greedy imperialists alone.

Actually, the system that admits such excesses and abuses of power also makes possible such common, unsung niceties as a slice of leisure and a room of one's own. Not perfect, but surely defensible.


JWR contributor Norah Vincent is a New York writer and co-author of The Instant Intellectual: The Quick & Easy Guide to Sounding Smart & Cultured. Comment by clicking here.

11/19/01: The (cruelest) Season in the City
11/15/01: Whining and wailing won't win a war
10/26/01: Getting a grip is all we can do
10/19/01: The Sick Joke Is on Us Now
10/12/01: Bring a child into a world like this?
10/05/01: The war on terrorism resembles war on drugs?
09/28/01: Apocalypse now
09/07/01: Swimming with sharks
08/31/01: Time to 'fess up, America. Condit is doing exactly what he was elected to do
08/20/01: An Anti-Deconstructionist's Delight
07/17/01: Individualism Trumps Identity Politics
07/13/01: Blame anybody except she who did it
07/02/01: On reparations and mental slavery
06/27/01: I left the Left behind --- and the Politics of Victimhood
06/21/01: Spoiled Americans Here; Big Bad World Out There
06/13/01: 'Gotcha!' guidelines
06/06/01: Tit for tat, David Brock is a turncoat's tale

© 2001, Norah Vincent