In Defense of America

	This essay is intended to defend America --- primarily to those
Americans who have come to believe that America is bad enough to justify
giving aid or comfort to its enemies.  The hope is that a few of them
will lay off and that some young people who might otherwise engage in
activities harmful to the country will decide not to do so.

	The primary method is to show that America is pretty good.  Some
of its supposed defects are imaginary, some are not as bad as they are
sometimes depicted, some are in the process of being fixed and some we
will just have to live with.  I would like to convince people that
exaggerating particular defects is usually not a legitimate way of
getting them fixed.  It contributes to a general atmosphere of dishonesty,
and it induces some people to undertake harmful actions.

	I will not be primarily concerned with criticizing America's
enemies, mainly communism or criticizing its domestic critics.  However,
this can't be avoided to some extent, because some criticism of America
is based on the idea that others do things much better.  Moreover, it
helps to understand the motivation of critics in order to avoid accepting
``where there's smoke there's fire'' arguments.  However, such remarks
will be separated from refutations of the criticisms themselves, since
pointing  to defects of the critics rarely constitutes a refutation of
the criticism.

Lists
harmful actions that some Americans have taken
mistaken accusations
irremediable problems