Bush is optimistic, filled with the possibilities that inspired a generation of baby boomers to the Peace Corps and to volunteerism
Bush's world about dignity
Published on: 09/24/04
Just as JFK's appeal to a nation's idealism inspired a generation yearning for something more than materialism, George W. Bush's vision of the world that lies beyond the war on terrorism should appeal to a generation drowning in relativism.
The partisans and cynics won't see it. But the president who spoke last week to the U.N. General Assembly was a visionary who stood in the midst of chaos and angst to project a boldly clear vision of the course and the destination. It is a striking difference between Bush and the muddled and vacillatory John Kerry, whose positions on Iraq are evolving.
The world Bush sees is one that shares the United Nations' commitment to the "equal value and dignity of every human life."
"That dignity," he continued, "is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice and religious tolerance. That dignity is dishonored by oppression, corruption, tyranny, bigotry, terrorism and all violence against the innocent."
If we, as a nation, help to create others that honor the rule of law, limit the power of the state and adhere to principles spelled out by Bush, we will have created a more secure world. "The security of our world is found in the advancing rights of mankind," Bush told delegates.
Democracy, yes. But the democracies we nourish don't have to be in our image. "Finding the promise of representative government takes time, as America has found in two centuries of debate and struggle. Nor is there any — only one form of representative government — because democracies, by definition, take on the unique character of the peoples that create them."
He spelled out the course to peace, too, in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and he proposed a Democracy Fund within the United Nations to "help countries lay foundations for democracy by instituting the rule of law and independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions."
The difference between the world Bush sees and the one seen by those who nominated Kerry are stark.
One is optimistic, filled with the possibilities that inspired a generation of baby boomers to the Peace Corps and to volunteerism. Its foundation is healthy and hopeful, the promise that there is a "transforming power of freedom" that elevates civilizations beyond the holocaust of terrorism.
Intellectually and spiritually, it's a call to sacrifice, to endure, to keep the faith — "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation," the biblical reference of JFK's inaugural address — on the promise that a better world awaits, and that, by our efforts, we can each be a part. It is the hopefulness of the Old Shaker hymn:
"Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear the music ringing;
"It finds an echo in my soul, how can I keep from singing?"
"When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, and hear their death-knells ringing,
"When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing?"
Bush, in standing before the United States, described a world grounded in absolutes. His moral clarity is at odds with those who now dominate the Democratic Party. The America they see is the one Kerry described when he returned from Vietnam, one in which the boy next door kills for sport and routinely commits atrocities, reflecting the pathologies of a nation whose dangerous imperialistic impulses must be constrained by international authority.
You never like the America they see or describe. It's an evil place, where greedy, amoral corporations push war for profit, where corrupt leaders expend lives on the basis of — to use former President Jimmy Carter's word — "deliberate" misinterpretation of intelligence, and where vileness, maliciousness and incompetence are the hallmarks of our political system.
That's not the America Bush — or most Americans — see.
• Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
