Nail on the Head
Advice from friends: America needs to clean up its act
Thad Box
Salt Lake Tribune
America is in moral decline. Most of the world knows it. A recent British Broadcasting Company survey shows that only Iran ranks below us in being trustworthy and honest. Countries most like us, our “natural family,” tell us why.
Great Britain is our mother. Our founding fathers came from there. Our traditions and our culture originated there. Our rule of law came from English common law. We speak, sort of, the same language.From that mother, four siblings developed: the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. All brought English values, abused their aboriginal people and ransacked their natural resources. All added non-British people, with varying degrees of success. All are strong economies with high standards of living. Each developed different personalities, but we are family.
This past year I visited Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I met people in pubs, their homes and public libraries. I read their local newspapers and bulletin boards, listened to what they say, observed their reaction when they heard my accent.
During January, Jenny and I were the only Americans among a group in New Zealand: eight from Britain, four from Canada, eight from Australia, two from New Zealand and one each from Iran, Finland and Austria. All were conservative, middle class, educated people.
Early on, our new friends said little about America. The term “immoral” was first applied to us when a Canadian couple mentioned that for many years they spent winters in Arizona. The woman developed a serious illness. Her Canadian health plan was not accepted in America. Hospital costs of her initial visit were so great they lost their Tucson house. America’s health service, said her husband, was immoral.
Every country represented, except ours, had a national health plan. All provided better longevity, infant survival, immunization, affordable medications and other objective health standards.
The Iraq war, our torture of prisoners, secret prisons, holding people without charges and snooping on citizens without court warrants were seen as immoral acts. They saw Americans as no longer free, trading freedom for a false security. America has immoral leadership and people unwilling to hold leaders accountable. Skillful politicians keep voters focused on private actions that the far right see as objectionable. The poor and needy suffer while wedge issues keep religious zealots happy.
James Pilkington of Maraubra, Australia, (Sydney Morning Herald, Feb. 4), writing in response to the Anglican Archbishop Dr. Peter Jensen’s condemnation of homosexual conduct, described what many see as the irrationality of the religious right in America.
Pilkington said the church is obsessed with cultural things that Christ did not address: homosexual behavior, sex before marriage, alcohol, sanctity of the family.
Pilkington argued that Christ taught brotherhood of man, not family unity. Jesus said he came to turn father against son. He said little about homosexuals, drinking or sex. Instead, he had a crazy obsession about helping the poor, the sick and the hungry. He taught that what people do to the least of humanity they do to him.
America claims to be a country based on Christian morals. Yet our policies are based on individual wealth, personal safety and cultural behavior. The richest country in the world does not adequately address human need. As we fail to take care of the poor, load debt on future generations and bully the rest of the world we turn friends into enemies. Even our siblings think we are hypocrites.
To become again an effective world leader, we must clean up our morals. We must become obsessed with helping people less fortunate, in our country and overseas. This opinion comes from people who care most deeply about us - our family.
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Thad Box is a former dean of the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University.
February 26th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
I think its time we as a nation take a good hard look at oursleves in the mirror. Glen has is right “if you were stuck in a burning house, would you whisper”?
Our self righteous ways will land us back in the line.
We need some humility here people!
February 27th, 2006 at 9:02 am
While you think of Britain as our “mother” , I view IT, as our abusive parent. Any real study of American history will reveal that our Founding Fathers derived the “Natural Rights of Man” from the French Philosophs of the 1750’s. Voltaire, Rousseau, you know. Read up. Locke the Englishman had his part, he mostly defined property rights.
To review what Britain was ,when non tories (i.e. PATRIOTS) fought tooth and nail to free of her hulking abuse, let us begin. Let me say it is this misconception that you have written about where the better nature of our origins as a nation comes from, that is a pernicious problem in deciding which direction we should now go.
Most colonists with capital were disgusted that with their skills, they were required by law to ship raw materials to england where they were finished into goods by wage slaves and their CHILDREN. Then the finished goods were shipped back to the colony to be sold at a profit. This, more than anything, drove the cry for rebellion.
The whole thing was a monopoly, and worse, a total moral crime, given the conditions in england (think Oliver). This economic crime very much has the look of our current situation in china and everywhere else we have sweatshops. Those who have their industries in these sorry places are the new tories, and by rights as Americans we should TAR and FEATHER them, and cut them loose naked. Illegal aliens are the new slaves, those who hire them the new slavers.
As the battle for America was joined the english displayed their customary cruelty, killing surrending troops, burning their farms and homes, in short, tyrants. (review what is going on in Iraq). This is the nature of the empire we are currently building. For shame, oh America, you are fallen!
When you are rebuked or shunned by friends what do you do? Get new ones? Or try to figure out what your asshole story is? britain is NOT OUR FRIEND! It would be smart to observe who stands with us in our current debacle in Iraq and hang your head in shame that tory corporatism has taken over our leadership. I find it ironic that our own founding fathers were described by the english as “cowardly” and in the common parlance of the day “insurgents”.
This is a bit from “Confessions of an economic hitman”, it is from diaries of british troops fighting in the colonies. Our founding patriots, for all their faults, were men of EXTREME COURAGE!
“In reading the diaries of British Revolutionary War soldiers, I discovered that they were impressed by the affluence of America. the land was bountiful. Farms prospered. The cities seemed like paradise compared to European cities in the 18th century. These soldiers were shocked that people that lived such good lives would risk all by defying a government and army that appeared invincible-and in fact was their own government and army.”
Look at us now AND WEEP! worried about whether children have the right to have sexual orientation clubs in public school. IDIOTS! You know not what you have inherited, nor have the ability to keep it. That much is obvious to anyone looking in.
If britain is our mother she is one horrid abusive bitch, and I wouldn’t claim her.
I’m not EVEN mad yet. glenn
March 11th, 2006 at 11:58 am
How sorry am I that a couple from Canada lost their second home in a foreign country? Not Very. I imagine that with 2 homes and the free time to utilize them, it might have been a prudent idea to get whatever healthcare extensions they needed to at least get her back to Canada and cover the initial expenses, or just get the US healthcare package.
If I get sick in Canada, healthcare is also provided at fee for service, and if you have US insurance you pay for, you are covered. In fact even though married to a Canadian I did not have access to healthcare in Canada for any other than fee for service for 2 years, as a newcomer.