Train riders know essence of America

Tibor Machan: Syndicated Columnist

After recently landing at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, I took a cab to my hotel in the Chicago Loop. I was in town to attend the American Philosophical Association Central Division meetings, where I had the honor of having one of my books critiqued in a session of the American Society of Value Inquiry.

OK, to the point: My cabby into the city hailed originally from Pakistan, and he and I got into a conversation about current affairs. We both came from abroad, we both have lived here for a couple or more decades, and we both follow current events closely enough to have formed views.

My cabby was understandably miffed about having to endure a lot of personal and official profiling these days, given that he looks Arabic and many therefore carelessly group him with those who look like him and have committed terrorist acts.

He noted, “My wife, kids and I are now under constant suspicion, when we travel, even when we walk around in a mall.”

He added, “My kids are as American as George W. Bush’s kids, yet they are now picked on constantly.”

After some more lamentation along these lines I asked him whether he regrets having come here in the first place.

“No way. It is still much better than in Pakistan. There is far more religious tolerance in America, a much better chance to speak one’s mind. And, of course, the economic opportunities are still much greater,” he said.

Of course, anecdotal evidence like this doesn’t get you very far these days when experts must conduct studies before anything can be treated as true. Common sense, ordinary personal reports count for very little. But, actually, they should not.

My own experience pretty much confirms what my ex-Pakistani friend told me. Whenever I travel abroad I speak to train riders, students, workers and waiters — very rarely to diplomats and intellectuals or the clergy. It is usually these latter whose views are talked about so much in the papers, while those others do not get a chance to chime in with their opinions.

The workers, waiters and train riders, however, know things better. They are closer to the action in most countries than are writers and diplomats. And these folks still think America offers a better chance for them to flourish in their lives than where they live.

This is so not just with Bulgarians or Poles or Slovakians, all of whom are emerging from a half-century of dictatorship and economic disaster. It is even so with the ordinary folks from Spain, Italy, France and Germany. Such folks, if my sample isn’t terribly askew, testify to the fact that the American idea — not always the practice, of course — that individuals count for most (not classes, races, ethnic or religious groups, and nationalities) resonates with millions abroad.

Is it any wonder that people are still lining up everywhere to immigrate to the United States? Sure, this country has never quite lived up to its reputation to be free, to respect and protect everyone’s rights. But it still has the reputation of doing that more so than other countries. The momentum hasn’t died completely, even if America’s politicians and intellectuals care little about the ideals for which the country is famous.

It is too bad this point is rarely mentioned by political candidates these days. Perhaps the reason is that their agendas are so far from living up to their oath — to secure our rights — that they want to hide the fact from us. But to the rest of the world, to those who aren’t among the privileged in various parts of the globe, America is still sought out for being free.

Maybe that’s because most of those folks, like I did when I was a kid back in Budapest, get their impression of the country from its fiction — dime novels, old-fashioned Hollywood movies and television shows — not from what the eggheads are saying about it. And maybe those images are truer to the essence of America than what scholars and pundits say about the place these days.

Tibor Machan advises Freedom Communications, parent company of this newspaper. E-mail him at:

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