They’re stealing our pride and moral authority

By Dick Tunison

We’re between a rock and a hard place, and we’ve let ourselves, as an American culture, slip unto the crack without so much as a squeaky protest. Since the end of World War II there has been a growing trend toward making us the culprits of the world. It has caused a wearing away of our national pride and a loss of our moral authority.

Shelby Steel, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University wrote a piercing column on the subject this past week for the Wall Street Journal. Steel’s piece was titled, White Guilt and the Western Past. He does a much better job of exploring the subject than I can, but he has certainly made me think. I couldn’t help reviewing, in my own mind, the effect the “Chinese Water Treatment” has gradually made on me. I remember when I loved the expression “My country right or wrong.” Now, I’m ashamed to say, I’m reluctant to use the phrase in public for fear someone will brand me as an uptight patriot. In my quieter moments I wonder what’s wrong with being a patriot. But one dare not repeat maudlin sayings in public without being bludgeoned by someone. Remember how Barry Goldwater was chastised for his line, “Extremism for the sake of liberty is no vice?”

I’m not sure when the downward slide began. I know self-criticism was alive and well in December 1964 when Mario Salvio led the Free Speech movement in Sproul Plaza at the University of California, Berkeley. I was there at the time on a recruiting mission for my company. The language used to describe almost everything I held dear, including my country, was either crude or searing to the ears. It was likely not the first time those bad actors belched their vitriol at nearly everything our society viewed with pride. But Salvio participated in the creation of a movement that has gained momentum and now seems unstoppable. As I suggest, he was not alone, of course. Some of my best liberal friends were adamant about our complicity in the assassination of Chile’s Communist president Salvador Allende in 1973, even though the facts are still unknown. We were prima facie, the evil doers.

As we look around and listen to some of the chatter that peppers us these days we can’t help realize that the chasm in our society is even more troublesome than before. If we appear to be conservative in our views we are portrayed by some of the liberal talkers as the haves who now want to prevent the have-nots from enjoying the fruits of their labors, even though the opportunities for them to labor at all are there because of our investments and entrepreneurship. There is such strong criticism toward those who believe in the sanctity of our borders they are frequently dubbed vigilantes, while at the same time illegal aliens are free from being branded as lawbreakers. When we speak about requiring non-citizens to abide by the rules in order to become citizens, we are accused of creating unrealistic barriers to prevent the continuing influx of people of color.

But it’s not just about patriotism and immigration, we are chastised with the claim our nation has gone to war to gain oil and exploit the resources of weaker nations that cannot defend themselves against our overwhelming power. We are told we are the neocolonialists who would subjugate the world and hammer it into our evil, immoral mold. Even our weak-kneed European friends have come to look upon us with suspicion, because our cause is only seen to be self-serving.

We are the squanders of the earth’s resources who consume one quarter of the world’s energy just to support our desire for the life of luxury. Never mind that we are, in truth, the feeders of the starving and the protectors of the downtrodden. While we are hated for our strength, we are expected to be the ones that step forward where others fear to insert even a toe. But we’re still accused of being racists who hate people of color and would rather kill their babies than to see them prosper.

It’s true, there are deficits on our ledger sheet, but the balance sheet shows America to be what it is. Despite the criticism and blame, it represents stability, compassion, generosity and the willingness to rescue the unsalvageable in ways the world has never known. We don’t make empty promises. This nation has given more of its wealth to others than all the nations combined. And yet even some of our own do nothing but find fault. Like Mario Salvio, they choke if pressed to say something good about America. In their negative pit they see little but darkness. How sad!