Does America Still Have a Purpose?

I'll try to answer that question in a minute.  This weekend in her Wall Street Journal column, Peggy Noonan writes about the "debt crisis" roiling Washington.  But buried within, she brings up an interesting point,

"Pretty much everyone over 50 in America feels on some level like a refugee.  That’s because they were born in one place—the old America—and live now in another.  We’re like immigrants, whether we literally are or not."

Although I am not yet 50, I know what she means.  As L.P. Hartley once wrote, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there".  So on one level, Peggy's complaint could have been lodged by every generation since Sumerian times. 

But still, I think she's onto something.  Later she writes,

"They miss the old America they were born into, 50 to 70 years ago.  And they fear, deep down, that this new culture, the one their children live in, isn’t going to make it."

Of course, the America of 50 to 70 years ago wasn't such a great place for large segments of society:  we've made important strides in many areas that we don't want to reverse.

However, perhaps we've lost something important along the way:  a sense of purpose for America.  I imagine that if you asked most Americans of 50 to 70 years ago "What is the purpose of America?" I imagine that you would get a lot of funny looks.  The answer should be so obvious, why even ask the question.  If pressed, I hope that you would get answers along the line "spread freedom at home and abroad", "increase the prosperity of each generation", "secure the blessings of liberty".

Now I wonder.  Would you get anything other than a funny look?  "America has a purpose?" "Send me checks?"

Michael Walsh writes in his New York Post column about the debt crisis and gets closer to the heart of it, asking,

"When did it become the primary function of the federal government to send millions of Americans checks?"

And answering,

"The debt-ceiling cage match is the culmination of the Democrats' 75-year-long fight to establish a voting bloc of dependents under the false flags of "compassion" and "social justice."  It's sapped our strength, created a welfare mentality and, if unchecked, will reduce us to a nation of aging, resentful beggars with eyes cast permanently toward Washington."

"The preamble to the Constitution talks about promoting the general welfare, not the welfare state. For the welfare state is incompatible with the rest of the preamble, which concludes: 'and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'  By definition, dependents are not free."

Without a common understanding of what we are trying to accomplish, it's difficult to see how we will be able to move forward.