Dinesh D’Souza’s America: Is It Also Yours?

Dinesh D’Souza’s America: Is It Also Yours?

Many of us are coming off of two weeks of exhaustive reading of legal opinions as the Supreme Court closed out its 2013-14 term. In learning how to write a legal opinion, law school students are taught to lay out the issue from the start, then present the facts, the law, the application of the facts to the law, and the conclusion as to how the issue is decided.SCOTUS If you read any of the recent Supreme Court decisions you will see this basic pattern being followed. So from the start of this article, I am presenting you with the issue: Whether the recently-released movie entitled America is worth going to see. I submit to you that the correct response to this issue is in the affirmative.

Lucky for you I am not going to structure the rest of this article as a legal argument. Instead, I have identified the issue in order to set a goal—to persuade you to go see a movie that could truly have a bearing on helping to heal the growing division in this country.

AmericaLet me also say up front that I am not being compensated in any way for writing about the movie America. There is no capitalistic incentive for me to plug the movie. Rather, as cliché as it may sound, it is patriotism and love for this exceptional country that prompt me to focus on the movie America in this week’s article.

Trust me when I say that I will not spoil the movie for you by giving substantive details. Indeed, I cannot begin to scratch the surface of all that filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza packs into this 100-minute film. But I have many friends and relatives who will not go see this movie if they hear that it is a “D-word”–documentary–or if they think it is merely a rebuke or slamming of Obama and Democrats in general. I want our Victory Girls readers to understand that this movie provides a premise that everyone, no matter their political persuasion or their lack of knowledge or interest in current events, should ponder and reflect upon. I am not being overly-dramatic in saying that the continuation of our country’s very existence depends on these issues being addressed, before they rip us apart completely.

My husband and I went to see the movie America on the morning of the Fourth of July. That was an intentional choice of days. There were only about 10 of us in the theater that morning, which actually was nice.

Watching the movie was a process for me. By that I mean I tried to absorb every image, every sound bite, every snippet of music, and every unspoken premise. But the movie is wickedly powerful even if you do not concentrate on every nuance as I did.

D'Souza
Dinesh D’Souza

Perhaps one reason I am captivated by D’Souza’s point-of-view is because he is the same age as I am. He and I are the same age as Barack Obama. We were all born in the same year—1961. I was born in Kentucky. D’Souza was born in India. Obama was born in Hawaii. So, how could the ideology of a 53 year-old woman from a flatland, farming community in Western Kentucky be more aligned with a 53 year-old man born in a highly-populated country half-way around the world than with a 52-year-and-11-month-old man born in the 50th state of the same country? D’Souza’s first movie, 2016: Obama’s America, provided a starting point for me to understand these anomalies because he addressed in that movie Obama’s upbringing and the influences in his early life. I encourage you to keep in mind your own background and upbringing as you view the movie America. Do you identify with one side over the other? With neither? That analysis should be part of your own consciousness as you process the film.

D’Souza’s movie is not what I expected when I heard about the film last year and saw the trailers in recent months. It does not actually try to show what the world would be like if the United States of America never existed, at least not in a concrete sense. Rather, it is built around what D’Souza calls “indictments” of America. (Not to be confused with the indictment of D’Souza himself earlier this year, which wrongdoing he acknowledges briefly in the film.) The film identifies several of the critical issues that have become dividing lines for so many people in the United States. These are some of the indictments D’Souza identifies and addresses in turn in the movie:

  • African American indictment of America for theft of their freedom by enslaving them;
  • Native American indictment of America for theft of their lands when settling this country;
  • Mexican indictment of America for theft of their lands after the war with Mexico;
  • The World indictment of America for imperialism through theft of natural resources;
  • Socialist adherents indictment of America for class inequalities fostered by capitalism.

I do not expect everyone to agree with D’Souza’s conclusions. Indeed, that is not the reason for going to see the movie. But if we can at least agree that he has successfully identified some of the key divisive issues, then that will go a long way toward bridging the gap that prevents us from having fruitful dialogue. There are numerous other issues not identified or addressed in the movie that also divide us (e.g., religious freedom vs. right to contraception, rights of corporations vs. rights of individuals, big government vs. limited government, personal responsibility vs. taxpayer-funded freebies, open-borders vs. enforcement of current immigration laws). But if we can start with the issues that D’Souza presents and have heart-to-heart talks with our neighbors and friends (especially if we disagree with each other’s political philosophies), then perhaps we can initiate a grass-roots movement where dialogue can help us find common ground. Tea parties gatherings are grass roots. Occupy movements are grass roots. Perhaps that similarity in itself dictates where the healing must begin.

If not, then it is not an exaggeration to say that we will only continue to push each other further and further toward the brink of complete division. As the precious document whose birth we just celebrated—the Declaration of Independence—says:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal DoIstation to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Click here for links to movie theaters where the movie America is playing. The comment section below will be open for your contributions after you see it.

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