"You must become an ideal!"

Sometimes I use movies to illustrate a point. Some people use powerpoint, some people use absurd hand motions, and so on. I use movies and really any story. I think it's an easier way to express a point because we can all have an opinion on a story. It's fiction, it isn't 'real' so there's no one to offend. This is how someone can say the thought a story about abortion was trashy but they will never in their entire life say what they feel about abortion.

So yes, I've been thinking about what the villain in Batman Begins says when he tells Bruce Wayne "You must become and ideal!" I add the exclamation point because he said it while swinging a sword at him and starining his voice. I don't think he was actually excited or yelling - maybe passionate. Now the point was that becoming an ideal is a better way to inspire fear because people can't fear man or some such. It was something like that, yes. However, while the concept was used to do harm by the villain and to do good by Batman (though in an arguably insane way by literally dressing up as a giant bat) I believe it can apply to other things.

America; the land of the free and the home of the brave, is something many Americans take pride in a sense. Very few people I know actually take pride in our founding fathers beyong the overly romanticized stories and concepts behind them. I believe that all of our founding fathers were essential and did great things together, but of course they were imperfect men who fell asleep during constitutional conventions and were obsessed with the national bank. They could be petty and whiny and stubborn and offensive. But out of all of that we got America.

And when I was watching National Treasure: Book of Secret I was stricken with fascination when the President of the United States tells Nicolas Cage's character no one believes in the President anymore to which Cage replies, "Yes, but they would like to." And it's true, at least for me. I believe in the ideal of America, in the perfect memory we have of our founding fathers in basic history. Not because that's how it all went down, not because I'm delusional, but because I feel we should aspire to it.

Right now our President's popularity is severely low and there is a lot of strife regarding not only the war in Iraq, but immigration, oil prices, and the economy in general. Did we not have similar problems when George Washington was President? My point is not to say "Well everything is fine because in two hundred years these era will be romanticized so we might as well not get fed up now" but my point is that if we did take more pride in America, in the ideal of America, that we could improve things a lot more instead of being outright defeated by beauracracy and the stereotypical "fat cat" politician in Washington. One thing the founding fathers without a doubt got right was their attitude about a free nation and an idea for what the kind of land they wanted to live in and be a part of. I believe that we need that attitude of we'll continue to be dark and pessimistic regarding America's future. And if we go forward expecting the worse rather than aspiring for the best we are going to come to accept the things as normal which we should recognize as atrocious.