America and Americans have been able to do whatever we wanted — and gotten away with it.  We spread our footprint over this continent, then our influence over the rest of the world — and have got away with it.

Others have admired us for the range of our freedoms, how we’ve celebrated liberty, without the constraint of old sectarian religious conflicts, tribal antipathies, etc.  Until now it appeared that we Americans were unaccountably chosen, “favored by the gods” with wealth, power, prestige, untroubled by the ghosts of the past which the Europeans know so well.  We are a people, de novo, not bent by old failed revolutions, or aristocracies with old grudges to settle.

We saved the world from the darkness of Nazi aggression, from the attempt of the Japanese militarists to establish hegemony over all Asia.  With much of the world wrecked by war, we’ve unhindered access to every market.  In the post WWII years American goods, and the exports of democracy and capitalism were marketed in tandem.  In comparison to the grim authoritarian ideologies which were defeated at great cost two generations ago, an American umbrella of business and political alliance seemed such a great deal.

This banner in front of a home, was glimpsed as I drove past in Geneva on Tuesday.  I circled the block, and parked so that I could capture a good photo of the banner.  It seems to me the American attitude, our way of thinking about the meaning and function of “belief” is the substance and heart of freedom, American style.

We find ourselves, as does every other country around the world under assault by a virus that is hyper aggressive to replicate, and is inordinately deadly.  For the past month, there has been a patchwork of decisions made state by state suggesting, requesting various levels of social distancing.  Only in a few states, New York being in the forefront has the governor imposed a stay-at-home quarantine in the strictest language possible.  Yet there has been and continues to be a fair number of citizens who chose to go about their business as per normal as they can.  My point, American individualism, is practiced, celebrated as an attitude that each person is an exception to all of the strictures that restrict others.  There is the American-reality principle taken with mothers milk, that I matter more than anyone else, that I am special, etc, etc.  (You don’t need to excel to get a ribbon.  At the end of the game they are passed out to everyone)  Sadly, tragically this is the expectation, that outcomes do not depend upon performance, that everyone is a winner.

A few months ago in a phone conversation between the leader of China and our President of the United States, a serious disagreement over trade policy, and the imposition of high tariffs took place.  To the press it was described as a great phone call, and a great friendship  with Chairman Xi, — so said the President of the United States.

In America, you can believe whatever you want, as long as you allow others to believe whatever they want — with no ill consequences.  Yes, it sounds crazy because it is … crazy.  “Just Believe” gets you … nowhere.

I think that we are about to discover what our boundless, unconstrained-by-consequence “freedom” amounts to in the face of the covid-19 virus.  The virus is an expression of Nature, and is nothing but impartial, without care, imperceptible of the net worth, or the lack thereof, of its potential host.

We Americans can continue to believe and to do whatever we want, — and fall frightfully ill and perhaps die.

---

If you look carefully you will note a cross drawn to the right hand side of the Believe banner.  In the future I will share my thoughts about the quasi sacred nature of “belief” which has been absorbed from American Evangelicalism.