America loves an enemy

Our country is at its best when we are united. After a decade of hardship during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when Americans were hoping for some relief, the Axis powers launched World War Two. America quickly ceased production of consumer goods and started producing war materiel. According to the U.S. Defense Department, there were about three million automobiles produced in the U.S. in 1940. During the remainder of the war, until August 1945, only an additional 139 automobiles were produced for civilian use. Automobile tires were rationed and hard to obtain. Some food products were rationed. Household appliances were, generally, not available. Women left home to work in the factories, and 16 million men and women served in military uniform at a time when our population was much smaller than it is today. When the war ended, the U.S. had become the world’s leading industrial nation. The world was witnessing the United States.

In the 1960s, the USSR (Russia) was challenging the United States for dominance in space. Twenty thousand private companies, universities, and government agencies employed 400,000 talented people who worked on the Apollo program that landed American astronauts on the moon in July 1969 embarrassing the Russians in the process. When we are confronted by a formidable foreign enemy, we are a united team, and we deliver. University of California, Santa Barbara professor of chemistry Kevin W. Plaxco points out that “Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union did wonders for the exploration of the Solar System.” Since the USSR collapsed in 1989, America has experienced a period without a threatening enemy. Can our nation perform at its best without an enemy?

Politicians and legislators are now promoting policies and legislation that divide us. These policies are focused, especially, on race, sexual orientation, abortion, and religion, differences among us that have existed for thousands of years. Humans have never been in agreement on these issues and may never be, but we Americans should agree that we will not let politicians divide us and weaken the country for their political gain. 

Let us remember that on July 4, 1776, a unified thirteen American Colonies declared that their country would be a nation and would not be the subject of a foreign king. The colonists had their differences, but they understood that their greater good required unity.

We have the world’s leading democracy and most prosperous economy. We are not perfect, but we surely have the moral courage to teach our history—even if it is unpleasant—and make the future better than the past. Live united or die divided.

Jack Stevenson is a retired infantry officer, civil service and private corporation employee who now reads history, follows issues important to Americans, and writes commentary from his home in Pensacola, Florida.