My concept of America formed early and was gathered largely from old black-and-white movies, Schoolhouse Rock cartoons, and, yes, Star Trek, which despite all the lip service about a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-species crew projected a largely American (specifically JFK’s “New Frontier” America) sense of identity. And while I never subscribed to the jingoistic “we’re number one” mantra that so many of my classmates seemed to reflexively utter whenever news of some international dispute managed to filter down to our grade-school consciousnesses, I always understood that Americans were the good guys. I may not have quite believed in the concept of American exceptionalism, but I did believe that our country was respected in the world and, more importantly, worthy of respect, not because we were superior human beings who were inherently better than everyone else, but because we chose not to do the kinds of nasty shit that other nations did. Like Captain Kirk choosing to spare the helpless Gorn, who would surely have killed him, the Americans of my understanding struggled to rise above our brutal natures, to find a better, more humane way of doing things.
That meant we didn’t send our own people to Siberia for speaking their minds. We didn’t persecute people because of their religion or lack thereof. We didn’t invade and take over other countries in order to expand our own territory or influence. We tried to help the rest of the world, not just ourselves. We cared if innocent blood was unavoidably shed. And we most certainly did not, under any circumstances, torture people.
