Without question, there are important human goods (especially material ones) that the United States provides more abundantly than any nation on earth, but to make too much of these goods is to misunderstand the nature of human flourishing. Many of my friends in high school and college assumed that what Americans most valued—socially, politically, or economically—was always in itself most valuable. Of course nobody would say that America contains everything of value. But sometimes Americans do seem to think that the absorbent power of democratic capitalism allows the nation to incorporate whatever is really any good about anyplace else. Why would anyone want the thickness of Indian society, when, even without it, they could have Indian engineers, saris, and samosas?

The dogma of American superiority makes many of its citizens defensive and humorless when faced with serious national failings, past or present. A too-earnest plea of extenuating circumstances or a rancorous tu quoque is generally judged sufficient, but sometimes the defense becomes more elaborate. Once in American history class, for instance, I noted the irony that the British abolished slavery before their rebellious colonies did (and without an orgy of bloodshed). In reply, someone suggested that I had ignored a counterbalancing fact: British abolitionists couldn’t invoke the natural-rights language of the Declaration of Independence.

In other words, what America officially aspires to be trumps what it demonstrably is. As Barack Obama said when he won the 2008 election, “That is the true genius of America—that America can change. Our union can be perfected.” Unlike, apparently, France, England, or Sweden.

The fervor of the republican faith naturally tends to backfire in the form of dramatic apostasies—which is why America has always produced some of the world’s fiercest anti-Americans. As the historian Walter McDougall once remarked, America is “not a lie, but a disappointment.”

But these criticisms should not obscure the fact that I feel unshakable loyalty and intense love for this country. I love the United States because I agree with Richard John Neuhaus that, on balance, considering all the alternatives, America is a force for good in the world. I am convinced that the glee many feel at the prospect of America’s fall is shortsighted idiocy.

Stefan McDaniel in First Things