Kathleen Parker December 31, 2013

America’s capacity for optimism and hope has been boundless through much of our short history.

The tangible returns of hard work, the ordered liberty sustainedthrough community consent and opportunity honed over time to applyequally to all men and women — these were the currency of what we called the American Dream.

Essential to these achievements was courage. The Founding Fathers were, above all, courageous as they challenged aking, fought and died for freedom and created a country from scratchwith little more than mettle and intellectual vigor.

If this isn’t exceptional, then we have lost the meaning of words.

As we begin yet another year, it is less easy to summon the dream. Instead of hope, a word that brought us a new president, we have entered an era of envy and doubt — envy for those who have more and doubt that we canever dig ourselves out of debilitating debt. What happens when even ourdebtors no longer want our dollars anymore, as China recently declared? A country that no longer wants our money likely doesn’t want our debt, either.

Depending on whose prognostications one believes, we are either rebounding, bydribs and drabs, or perched on the precipice of economic ruin. Let’sfigure we’re somewhere in between, which falls short of inspiring. Whatis certain is that our economic standing in the world is damaged, ourcredit and credibility are weak, and business confidence is still inlimbo.

Do weak economies and moral decay go hand in hand? We certainly seem poised to find out.

From Miley Cyrus’s naked cavorting on a wrecking ball — well, one can at least admire her metaphoric succulence — to AnthonyWeiner’s Twitter projections of His Very Own Self, we have lost allsense of decorum, that voluntary commitment to behavior that combines awillingness to consider others first (at minimum keeping our clotheson), enforced through the exercise of self-restraint.

Note theterm self-restraint. No one’s arguing for a new Puritanism, heavenforbid, but a pivot toward responsible adulthood would be helpful inrecreating a culture that doesn’t pinch our faces with revulsion. How do we expect children to navigate through this tawdry muck to become thesort of people most of us would like to know?

Part of the problem is our sense of helplessness before the overwhelming power oftechnology, which has erased the physical boundaries of community. Withso many liberated ids running around, it’s hard to find a safe place togrow children. Figure it out we must. Does shame have a place in theAmerican Dream? Why aren’t irresponsible parenting and behavior asabhorrent to society as, say, smoking?

I suppose what I’mlamenting is the loss of our national imperative to do and be better.Where once we fashioned ourselves according to best behaviors, we nowaccommodate ourselves to the least. Take a look around a mall, if youcan bear to enter. Valium recommended.

So, yep, we’re a mess, but, in the spirit of American optimism, not doomed. To preserve the dream,two resolutions come to mind: Denounce envy and resurrect the communitystandard.

Envy is the core emotion driving the current debateabout income inequality and the notion that the poor are poor becausethe rich are rich. Nonsense. The economy is not, in fact, a pie. Whenone gets a bigger slice, others do not ipso facto get a smaller one.Instead of redistributing wealth to spread misery around, the goalshould be to make the poor richer, which means jobs, education andtax/regulation relief for employers.

Fundamental to all else isallegiance to community standards — the tacit agreement among adultsthat our communities be as physically secure and psychologically safe as possible for the well-being of children, who — let’s do put a fine point on it — someday soon will be in charge. For guidance, the correct answer to nearly any question is another question: What is best for children?

Perhaps I am naive, but cynicism isn’t allowed today. And besides, I am in good company when I propose that America’s strength and well-being come from her goodness. Our lack of attention to our goodness, combined with ourcraving for instant gratification and near-toxic stimulation, has led us far afield from our Founders’ intentions. Don’t worry, my angel wingsare in sorry shape.

We may have been created with a universalyearning for freedom, but we have learned through experience thatfreedom is earned rather than bestowed. To keep it, one must bevigilant.

All it takes is courage.

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