Dear America,
This series extends from the Finch Fries vision and mission, specifically the idea of American Cultural Restoration (CuRe). My goal is simply to seek the truth, engage in a dialog with you, and find points of commonality that we all share as Americans (i.e., “the ties that bind us”).
What is the ultimate cure all? I believe it is the truth. Not a truth or my truth—the truth. I say truth and not “common sense,” because common sense can be relativistic in nature.
I seek the truth. I have opinions. Truth and opinion are different concepts. For me, truth is objective because God is real. For you, have it however you like but be clear on terms and their meaning.
When I hear these talking heads in politics and the media parroting the words “speak truth to power,” I roll my eyes. What does that mean? Based on what I see, they have no idea how to “speak truth.” And they also have no idea where real power lies. For them, speaking truth to power is a soundbite on the evening news. It is pure spectacle that unsurprisingly benefits those in power as much as those supposedly speaking truth to them.
For myself, I have always found that the greater the truth I was telling, the more difficult it was for me to be careful. And even though I am a cautious and deliberate person, I think the only way to fix our cultural problems is to be boldly honest, rational, and dedicated to the never-ending effort of seeking truth. To wit: Most politicians, press, playactors, professors, and priests are too crafty, calculated and careful to be entirely truthful. Some of the most evil men in history have worn the costumes appropriate to those roles. Our founders understood this. They also understood that some of the greatest and most moral men have worn the same costumes.
So, what is the truth?
We the People…
Friends. Americans. Countrymen. Please. Think about these words. Do you ever consider them on a deeper level?
The People. Not government. Not power. Not wealth. Not ideology. In our constitutional republic, the government is of us, by us, and for us. And for people like me: God is with us, if we are with him.
A poorly led government reflects that The People have a troubled culture. A malfunctioning government reflects that The People are incapable of, avoidant of, or have been prohibited from learning how the governmental machinery should function and be maintained AND have neglected it or been prohibited from maintaining it.
I posit that if the governmental machine is broken now and was not broken when it was first built, then it can be fixed. Perhaps it cannot be fixed “from within itself,” but it can be fixed. I also posit that, if We the People are dedicated enough, no earthly prohibition can withstand us. So, what is stopping us from fixing the machine?
After nearly 40 years of watching two “sides” play tug-of-war to basically only ill effect, I think the clear answer is that we don’t know how. I think we are all so twisted by the culture war that we have a hard time telling what truth looks like. So, using a war analogy, I am suggesting that we retreat, regroup, heal, study, and prepare ourselves for the next battle.
And what is that battle?
From a CuRe view, it is to find common ground and return to cultural unity. To battle for each other instead of against each other. To find a common reality rather than damaging the “other” reality.
For my entire adult life, I have seen my worldview not only undermined and attacked but misrepresented and bastardized. Both “sides” are guilty. I think a lot of us feel this way, no matter our worldview. And that gives me hope that we can find common beliefs, goals, and aspirations.
While in my worldview all power belongs to God, the voice of The People is—in both Christian and secular terms—the source of political power on earth. Thus, We the People have the power to change things, because we own—we are—the culture. If we want our leaders to be more articulate, moral, and logical, then I think it’s simple math that The People need to emphasize and prioritize those traits in and for ourselves.
The next generations are the inevitable consequence of our choices, behavior, and beliefs.
Whether you are a scion of Reagan, Clinton, Obama, or Trump—ignoring the bland others in between—it is wise to remember that these leaders are mere landmarks on the journey of the American People. We the People, from among whom those leaders rise and to whom they return when their borrowed power is relinquished. Nowadays, I fear that for many Americans, these powerful men are action figures we tote to the adult version of playdates and do pretend battle with. Winner takes all. If I win, you have to agree with everything I say for a week (or 18 months, until the next election cycle heats up)! The function of our governmental systems reduced to a spectator sport…
As a right-leaning person, I am a little embarrassed by how much “we’re winning” is being tossed around right now. Because Goddamnit, that was never the point. Winning is only valuable if our wins are moving us culturally forward in the direction of truth.
This era is a massive test of our discernment, resolve and tenacity as Americans. Even if the economy booms and we win the AI race, there are deeper issues yet unresolved. For instance, in my view, we should let the entire truth come out over Epstein, Russia-gate, Autopen, and all the rest. If the truth offends your reality, then the problem is probably not the truth.
Leaning into controversy, let me use immigration as a case study.
I think immigration is, along with AI, the moral issue of our era in America. Perhaps a third moral problem—one that is a close cousin to the immigration problem and entangled with the AI one—is our dealings with the Chinese and similar actors. All three problems present different existential threats as well, and I don’t think this is a coincidence.
Anyway, I have dealt more with the US immigration system than anyone I can think of. My mother became a citizen in 1998, so in some way these laws and processes impacted my entire childhood. In 2009 and 2010, for my now ex-wife, I explored the process for waiving the two-year rule (i.e., when visiting the United States via certain visa classes, like a J1 worker exchange, you must reside in your home country for two years before you can reenter the US on any visa). From 2017-22, I helped my wife, Jane, immigrate and navigate the path to citizenship. From 2023 to now, I have been helping my mother-in-law immigrate.
And now, we are facing the very harsh reality that my minor brother-in-law (my wife’s brother, who is only nine years old) will be separated from his mother and—given the visa pathways available to him other than a visitor visa—possibly unable to immigrate until he is nearly eighteen.
Is this fair or just? Hell no, it isn’t. Am I righteously angry? Hell yeah, I am.
But, even given the difficulties of the system and our intimate knowledge of it, our entire family advocates for strong borders and legal-only immigration.
No one has the right to break our nation’s laws (except maybe speed limits from time to time). Within our American system, I think the truth is that you either change the laws or accept them being enforced as written, whether they align with your worldview or not. Otherwise, move out or stage a revolution.
In our nation, citizens have rights above and beyond non-citizens. Unchecked, unvetted immigration is impossible for our systems to handle. This erodes our present. Culturally, it is not feasible for us to absorb unfettered population growth. This erodes our future.
Inherently, this erosion has moral and ethical implications.
A knowledge of our history, our society, our laws, etc., is critical to functioning within it. By letting so many people in so quickly, we are damaging the fabric of our culture and flooding our systems. On this point, as a brief tangent, I would like to highlight that today’s natural born citizens have such a poor understanding of civics that I believe no one should have the full rights of a citizen until they prove they understand our system and their role within it. This would be fair (and be of aid) to those non-citizens aspiring to become American, don’t you think?
Furthermore, now that the problem of some 30 million illegal immigrants residing within our borders is real, even fair enforcement of our laws is going to seem harsh. We Americans—left or right—are a generous people. We care. I believe that. We know some of these people. Some have been here 30 or more years.
Yet, in my view, there is only one cold truth: Borders inform our identity as citizens of this nation and our laws regarding protection of our borders are clear and known to all (as is the penalty for breaking them). Also, if someone residing here illegally had interest in righting the record over the past years and decades, they had plenty of opportunities to secure papers.
Simply, enforce the law as written or change it. Anything else we do will be unfair to someone. If the American Slave Trade and Civil War taught us nothing else, it should have been that half solutions to obvious moral problems—which this one certainly is—only lead to catastrophe and strife.
I would argue that—while a segment of the American left uses immigration as a lever in the culture war to serve their aims of remaking the country and its systems, whether through cultural erosion, demographics, or whatever—the real problem is the people hiring individuals without papers in the first place. And I suppose this indirectly implicates all of us, since we like cheap stuff so much. This is evidenced by the disgusting media coverage proclaiming, “But these people do all the shitty jobs we citizens would never deign to do! And they do it for almost nothing!” It is also apparent in the large number of business owners petitioning their elected leaders for a reprieve in the (oh myyy, how unusual) enforcement of federal laws. “Don’t take away my wage slaves—what ever will I do?”
In short, We the People must be better. This mess is for us to solve, not some political icon. That is the truth. It may take time, but it is our burden to bear.
Finally, I want to say one more thing, which is that I believe Americans left and right have more in common than the fierce debate portrayed in the media suggests to us. Every single news outlet is biased. But not in the way we normally think…
They’re biased toward turning a profit. Money will always rule the day with the media, no matter what government sits next to or behind it. In my lifetime, the establishment media has basically been an arm of the Democratic National Convention. Why? Are the executives ideologues? Maybe. But the real reason is that it has been profitable. And now that tide is turning. Similarly, Fox News has made a killing by being a foil for the mainstream, even when it toes the line of becoming a caricature of itself.
Does that mean that the commentators and contributors are all fake? Paid actors? I don’t think so. Like professional athletes in a way, I think they accept the machine for what it is in the hope that the megaphone has more value than the price it costs to speak through it. But it is a business. Never mistake it for anything else.
And so, just to call out the BS spouted by some right-wing commentators that all immigration should be prohibited for 10 years: You’re absolutely wrong. Just as much as amnesty in any form, it’s a bad idea.
Legal immigration is critical to our culture and society. To our future. Legal. Immigration.
And the next questions I ask are: Why are the laws so hard to follow? Why are people who want to do the right thing punished? In over forty years, why have we been able to do exactly nothing about solving the problem of making legal immigration to the United States more straightforward and situation-appropriate?
While I believe the American system is easier to navigate than many or most others in the first world, there seem to be so many ways that we could make improvements. And we are doing few to none of them. As with the bias toward profit pertaining to the media, I think the reason why is the ugly amalgamation of power and money brought to bear for the sake of control.
In closing I want to summarize some key points. I addressed this letter to “America” because, to me, speaking truth to power means seeking truth together with those who hold the power, which is you/We the People. In our pursuit of the truth and the betterment of ourselves, we can repair our culture and move beyond the culture war of the past century. The first step is, calling back to my post entitled “One Plus Many Realities,” for us to find the ways in which we are common. For example, regarding immigration, I think that a majority of Americans would support reformation of our (legal) immigration systems.
I think we also agree on many things that reside at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Without speaking honestly, we can never identify and strengthen the ties that bind us. The truth is that—if we cannot find a way to do this—our culture will perish long before our government does. As with Rome, what a pity that would be…
Best,
Finch Fries