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Pluribus
Placing oneself on a pedestal is something at which the human race has been exceptionally good. Other things at which we’ve been good racism, systematic oppression, and forming countries on principles that lift us up above every other living creature. Examining Patton Oswalt’s exposé responding to the Boston Marathon Bombing of last spring, we see the presence of such pedestaling—and this is a good thing. He states “So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’” Who is the evil being overthrown by Oswalt? Who is going to help him conquest? Justifying anything for the wrong reasons is erroneous, but Oswalt is right; we outnumber the evil, and we always will. Never in a civilization before ours could you walk in to a restaurant and be told to leave. Never in a civilization before ours could you ask for a margarita on the rocks and get a half-cold slush of alcohol and bad listening skills. Never before our society were we broken down by each other, only to be built back up. This is called rock bottom—the ever-familiar act of being completely and entirely broken down such that we can be rebuilt, employing a new sense of superiority and unity in our lives. What better way to become anew than by recovering from an act of terrorism? Presently, it’s March of the year 2014—roughly a year after last April’s national tragedy that is the Boston Marathon Bombing. It is additionally thirteen years after the tragedy that ensued after an Al-Qaeda led terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. What these two events have in common, besides terroristic aggression, is national unanimity. For every peg we are knocked down, we build 2 additional. We hit rock bottom after 9/11, and we’ve hit rock bottom from the Boston Marathon Bombing—so now it’s time to rebuild ourselves as one.
It was Theodore Roosevelt who said so long ago that “If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a minute”. I very much like to think that sir Oswalt would be so inclined as to appreciate the audacity of Teddy’s statement; it is indeed courageous, at the very least. You see, former President Roosevelt had the rare privilege of ruling our country when our defense department was defending our nation instead of offending others; he ruled at a time of peace and prosperity. Because of this, he had all the grace in the world to state that he would kick another country in their crotch if they attacked our pedestaled, proud homeland. He tasted the Civil War as a young lad but never was forced to grasp the concept of a full-fledged confrontation between world superpowers. This is something that you, Oswalt, and I do not have in common with Mr. Roosevelt; war is everywhere for us.
So when Mr. Roosevelt climbs up on his very literal high-horse and announces to his peace-loving nation that he will knock any aggressive country on its behind, us modern day observationists should take that statement in its context; self-empowerment can only exist dutifully under the American apple tree in the harmonic orchard of goodwill and wealth. And so therefore you and I can both draw the conclusion that Oswalt is not trying to empower us—no; we’ve already been empowered by the time we’ve spent mourning. Oswalt instead