America the Dutiful - Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America - page 59

a country where it is difficult to do things by halves. Some people are surreally fat, while
others are life-threateningly thin. Some can think of nothing but sex, while others seem
to regard sex as more reprehensible than genocide. Some right-wingers are not just con-
servatives but dangerous lunatics who should not be allowed out without a keeper. Those
who believe in cutting food stamps for the poor rather than raising taxes on the owners of
private jets are as much in the grip of fanatical dogma as the Muslim terrorists they would
love to see burning in hell. It is ironic that the United States is now faced with attacks from
fanatical fundamentalists, since there is no shortage of such creatures within its own bor-
ders. East coast liberals look anxiously out to the Middle East, alarmed by the bigotry of
some of its citizens. They should take a wary glance behind them as well. It is true that
most American rednecks are not intent on smashing aircraft into buildings. But a handful of
them are preparing for a bloody seizure of power should the nation lapse even more deeply
into revolutionary socialism than it has already.
Given its religious and political history, belief in the States plays a more prominent pub-
lic role than it usually does in advanced capitalist nations. Many such nations believe as
little as they can decently get away with. Doctrines are regarded as a hangover from earli-
er times. It is not belief that holds Finland or South Korea together. It is not what holds
the United States together either, but for historical reasons it is mightily more important
there. Given this centrality, beliefs are more easily pressed to an extreme. Such extrem-
ism is apparent even in fairly trifling matters. Rather than just objecting to other people
smoking, some Americans feel compelled to knock their cigarettes violently out of their
hands. People do not just rise early, they rise ludicrously, eye-wateringly early.
Excessive zeal also applies to homeland security. Whenever you visit the States these
days, you require a new photograph of yourself if the last one you submitted was taken over
six months previously. It is just possible that one's hair might have grown down to one's
knees in that period, or that one's nose might have mysteriously morphed from bulbous to
aquiline. Perhaps American eyes change colour more often than they do in the rest of the
world. On submitting a new photo of myself to the U.S. Embassy in Dublin, I once ven-
tured to joke that my fingerprints, too, might have altered out of all recognition over the
previous six months, and that they might wish to take them again. They did not seem to find
this amusing. On the contrary, they wrote a small note on my file, which was already alarm-
ingly thick. In American airports, one's boarding pass seems to be checked every three or
four minutes, as though one's identity might have altered in the process of walking from
security to the departure gate.
Law and the Irish
The American cult of prohibition would not go down well in Ireland, a nation where there
are plenty of laws but where citizens exercise a degree of individual judgement about which