Philadelphia: The Father of America and Resuscitator of Greatness

The other day, I spent a lot of time traveling through one of the greatest cities in the entire world: Philadelphia. A source of brilliance and revolution comparable only to Athens, Cairo, Timbuktu, Mecca, Karakorum, and Beijing, Philadelphia is the progressive and world-shattering father of Washington DC. While Washington DC became the gloomy realm of imperialists and aristocrats not too distinct from King George III himself, Philadelphia remained and continues to be a hub of working-class people originating from every race - descendants of abused slaves, white members of the lower- and middle-classes, children and grandchildren of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants - who know the struggles of existing in the lower echelons of the American hierarchy. It was once the city where Thomas Jefferson forged the Declaration of Independence, where Alexander Hamilton and James Madison guided the creation of the Constitution, and where the Second Continental Congress preserved American independence through the gushing rivers of crimson blood that defined the horrors of the Revolutionary War. And it still is a great city. It is like a multi-mile museum containing the hearts and minds of working-class heroes and relics of America's past. I was blessed to witness just a fraction of its magnificence.

I visited the Museum of the American Revolution, which presented fascinating antiques from the culture of Colonial America and the days of the Articles of Confederation.

While at the museum, I was also presented with reminders of just how fundamental the American Revolution was, especially within the confines of its place on the massive scroll representing human history.

But for all of the beautiful symbols demonstrating all the rights, freedoms, and benefits captured by the people amidst the Revolutionary War, there were grim artifacts showing all the pain and suffering used to obtain that progress. There were swords drenched in the blood of the old world, as well as swords drenched in the blood of some of the very first citizens of the new world.

Outside of the Revolutionary War museum, I enjoyed a number of other sources regarding the history of early America, a civilization that culminated in and managed to begin the world anew within Philadelphia. For instance, I visited the Polish-American Cultural Center, where I learned that the first-ever American-made imports into Europe were glass pieces produced by a Polish community in Colonial Virginia. I also discovered a collection of facts regarding Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish immigrant and one of the primary engineers in the Continental Army. The Polish-American Cultural Center also housed a piece of historical rhetoric highlighting America's greatest accomplishment since the Declaration of Independence and Constitution back in the 18th century.

The United States of America was a primary member of the Allies. From Ships-for-Bases to Lend-Lease before the attack on Pearl Harbor, to Operation Husky, D-Day, and Iwo Jima afterward, Franklin D. Roosevelt worked with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill to emancipate Eastern Europe from Nazism, the Mediterranean coast from Italian fascism, and East Asia from Japanese neo-colonialism. More broadly, the whole world was spared from collapse and the sharp, knife-like claws and violent fangs of fascist imperialism. And this was just over 20 years after Woodrow Wilson became praised by all the colonized masses of the world, trying to spin from WW1 a brilliant fabric of national liberation, global cooperation, and free connections between all countries.

And even after the war, the United States continued to fight for the freedom of countries, albeit mostly for cynical reasons. Either way, a spirit of liberty infused these policies, from the modern-day American Atlas keeping Ukraine's sovereignty from falling into the pits of Putin's despotism, to the expulsion of Iraqi expansionists from Kuwait to the liberation of South Korea from a North Korean-Chinese-Soviet invasion.

But of course, nothing can be wholly-good. My trip contained necessary reminders of America's crimes, misdeeds, and flaws. Reminders like these were arguably as important as reminders of America's charity, accomplishments, and virtues.

A monument etched with the name of a murderer who slaughtered indigenous communities

A sad reminder that slaveowners abused their fellow humans to such an extent that their victims were willing to fight for the incarnation of ancient tyranny

A memorial to Americans who died in the Vietnam War, innocent citizens murdered by their country's pursuit of the high provided by international hegemony

It contained many depressing moments consumed by sad reminders of America's past failures, but my trip to Philadelphia was, overall, an intriguing pilgrimage to one of the corners of the Enlightenment world. It gave me access to close-up sights of the swords, guns, and other tools that slayed the ancient dragon of authoritarian cruelty. I saw the artifacts used to exercise that old evil spirit, which had reigned in Europe since the death of the Roman Empire. While Asia, Africa, and the Middle East continued to function as generators of intellectual progress after 476, Europe could no longer do the same. But with the American Revolution, free speech, religious liberty, democracy, and public education became the basis of an entirely new nation, lending unprecedented credence to Enlightenment philosophy. The course of the world's future was changed forever, and freedom became the primary goal of everyone on Earth.

Unfortunately, America has lost these original virtues. Whether it was James K. Polk actively and formally stealing Mexico's land or George W. Bush overthrowing Iraq's government and setting up a shell successor in a foreign war, imperialism has become an ironic habit of the country to fight the first successful war for independence in multiple millennia and which promoted regional sovereignty after WW1. Donald Trump and his collection of totalitarian thugs have advocated for bizarre expansions in government power, demanding bans on drag shows and immigration in a country founded on libertarian principles and which owed much of its original success in the Revolutionary War to immigrants like Baron von Steuben. But these strange demands and behaviors are not what America is. America is the child of Lady Enlightenment, her successor at the chair of the Society of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Some may try to convince you otherwise, but this basic fact must be cherished, never to be tossed away.