Make America Good Again

I’m a MAGA guy, with one tiny — but very important — modification. Instead of saying Make America Great Again, I’m campaigning to Make America Good Again.

I know, I know. You’re thinking, “Why didn’t you get into the presidential race? That “good” thing is something I could get behind in a big way.”

By the time I thought of it, I was about a year late and about a billion dollars short in fundraising. Otherwise I would have totally done it. (If anyone out there wants to fund a race for 2028, I’ve got just the candidate for you.)

In the meantime, I’ll keep on pushing for good in my normal ways, through writing, teaching and leading. It may take a little longer, but it takes a whole lot less money. And it can be just as powerful. Plus, you can help.

Just so you know…

I don’t know about the “great again” people, but I’m guessing a lot of them think America is already pretty great. And in fact it is. I’ve been in perhaps a dozen countries and in 49 of our 50 states. (Montana, I’m coming!)

France is beautiful and has the Louvre. The history of London blows me away. Links golf in Ireland holds a special place in my heart. The people in Australia lifted my spirits and made me smile. Singapore is incredible in so many ways — although durian is definitely iffy.

Still, with all the wonder and amazement — and great people — around the world, there is no country other than America that I’d rather call home.

From my perspective, this is the greatest country among many great countries. Can it be greater than it is? Like every golfer in the world, every country has room for improvement. And if the greatness of America is taken for granted and not given attention, it can and will wane.

Make America good again

As with the greatness of America, there is a lot of good here. America is not evil (the opposite of good), but if good is taken for granted and not given attention, evil will prevail. That already happens far too often, and you are acquainted with it.

Here is a story of evil from 30 years ago. A woman named Susan Smith, then 22, drove her car to the edge of a lake. Strapped into their car seats were her two sons, three-year-old Michael and 14-month-old Alexander. She then got out and pushed the car into the lake, drowning the boys. Her story was that a black man had hijacked the car, but she later confessed the lie and the murders.

Her defense attorneys “called expert witnesses to testify that she had mental health issues that impaired her judgment when she committed the crimes.”

On the other hand, a reporter for the New York Times Magazine, who had interviewed Susan Smith’s pastor, came to a different conclusion. He wrote that Smith “had a choice between good and evil. She had a choice and knew what she was doing when she made it.”

The jury came to the same conclusion, and Smith was sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 30 years. It seems unlikely, at least from what I’ve read, that parole will be granted to Smith.

This case highlights what is less and less good about America, though it won’t be obvious to many.

Increasingly we are less likely to call anything evil, and more likely to assign the cause to mental health issues. Doers of evil have always tried to say, “It wasn’t my fault — I’m the victim here.” Now, it seems, people are starting to believe it as the most likely cause. It is not.

Sick happens, but so does evil — and good

People get sick, both physically and mentally. Mental illness is a real thing, but it is not the only — or even the most likely — reason for acts of evil.

In the fiction book Silence of the Lambs, a young FBI agent asks Hannibal Lecter, a fiendish serial killer who cannibalizes his victims, for help in catching another serial killer. He asks why he should help her, and she replies that it might help him figure out what happened to him.

Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism…. Nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you say that I’m evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?

And therein lies an area where, odd as it might seem, we can help make America good again: hold people accountable for their choices.

At one time we did that pretty well on the good side of the ledger. People who do good in extraordinary ways have been recognized and honored. It still happens, but it doesn’t make the news as much as it once did. And no one ever accuses such a person as being mentally unstable, which is encouraging.

But we do a fairly poor job of holding people accountable for evil. I don’t just mean in the justice systems of the country, but in our families, in our schools, and in our workplaces.

A straight line

C. S. Lewis was an atheist precisely because he (especially as a soldier in World War I) had seen so much evil. But when he thought about it he realized this: “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”

To make America good again, we need to talk about that straight line to both children (especially) and adults. It needs to be part of our everyday conversations. Morality is too seldom taught, yet it is exactly what children and students and even adults need to learn.

Teach morality. In that one act you will both do good and create more good. That is good indeed!