May 06, 2006
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/jbell_20060506.html
Will America Stop Its Own Decay?
Joe Bell
Nations, unlike a dead animal along the side of a road, do not decompose quickly. It takes time for the elements to have an impact but once the process begins it is difficult to stop. America is in the process of decomposing and it is a terrible sight. There is time to reverse the process but the work required is difficult and forces are laboring to ensure that the corrosion from within continues uninterrupted.
When a nation loses respect for itself no one else, especially those who delight in the anticipation of its passing, will offer respect or comfort. America’s decay has been largely self-inflicted and the inventory of missteps is long.
Due to the embrace of a myth called ‘separation of church and state’ God has been expelled from school. Liberals defend a student’s right to wear a prohibited tee shirt while opposing a school’s right to initiate the saying of a prayer at the beginning of the school day.
America is struggling to find the will to control its borders. Behaving as though it doubts its right to be a sovereign nation, America appears incapable of even distinguishing between those who enter legally and those who enter illegally, further blurring the line between right and wrong and impairing the capacity to make judgments about important issues.
Despite the public demand for increases in spending on health care, obesity has become a national epidemic, demonstrating that many Americans believe the government is responsible for their health and welfare. It costs no money to push the plate away.
The people want, and so the federal government spends, millions of dollars on frivolities like bike paths and other items that have nothing to do with the constitutional obligation to “provide for the common defense … and secure the blessings of liberty.”
Many Americans are engaged in self-loathing. They ignore that war was brought to the nation by a ruthless enemy who is dedicated to victory. A nation that is as concerned with the ‘rights’ of its enemies as it is with its own survival has placed itself on a collision course with its own demise.
America will likely exist 50 years from now, but on its present course it will not be the nation that was molded by the vision, sweat and blood of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and their colleagues. Neither will it be the nation Lincoln said was the “last best hope of earth” nor the nation that President Kennedy said would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Given its present course America will be a nation that has rejected its past, which was a monument to freedom and justice, in favor of a future in which it doubts its right to defend itself against a foe dedicated to its downfall.
Today many are asking questions that have long been answered: “Who can say what is right and what is wrong?” “Who can honestly tell the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter?” “Who is to say American history is about freedom and justice and not about tyranny and oppression?”
Those who ask such questions either know the answers and feign ignorance for political reasons, or are incapable of understanding the answers due to some innate incapacity to comprehend reality. When the good and bad in America’s archives are assessed there can be no denial that America is far more a bastion of righteousness and justice than evil and contempt. To deny such truth is to deny the force of gravity. America’s critics speak with reverence about the truth but they are immune to it and, consequently, are unable to engage in a meaningful dialogue.
Enemies from abroad attempt to assassinate America by using force and deception, but America is being wrecked by those who burden the national psyche with guilt and misgivings. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it was often said that “the nation that defeated Hitler’s Germany will defeat international terrorism.” Sadly, this is not the America that defeated the Nazi war machine nor is it the America that engineered the downfall of communism. That America was confident in its mission, certain that it opposed evil and convinced, despite who else may have been claiming God was on their side, that He continued to shed His grace on America from sea to shining sea.
It is the despair of America, and all people who treasure justice and freedom, that the nation is in the grasp of a spiritual and personal crisis from which it may never recover. As in Vietnam, America is again engaged in a war against a lethal enemy. As in Vietnam, it is a war America has the power to win. But the U.S. is fighting in Iraq in such a way that, even though the enemy lacks the power to achieve victory, America will not use the power needed to defeat the adversary. Shelby Steele, of the Hoover Institution, recently wrote this is because America, and the West, are consumed with white guilt and today conduct “war as the Great Society.”
Steele observed, “White guilt makes our Third World enemies into colored victims, people whose problems … were created by the historical disruptions and injustices of the white West. We must ‘understand’ and pity our enemy even as we fight him.”
Steele said it makes no difference that “there are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today.” America’s enemies have cast the nation in an unwholesome light and continue to use its genuine goodness to bludgeon its conscience about past sins. Although America’s enemies, at home and abroad, have not been able to wither America’s power they have effectively hobbled its use.
The continued preeminence of America is not assured. Like any great civilization, the United States is capable of collapsing from lack of faith and will. Those nations that endure are those where the people have confidence in their principles and traditions. They love their nation, believe it is worth defending and engage in the hard and sometimes dangerous work necessary to make certain the next generation will receive its inheritance.
Detractors and enemies laugh at America’s inability to recognize its greatness and at its seeming impotence to halt its decline and advance freedom and justice around the world with the vigor that those great principles deserve.
###
Joseph Bell has hosted a radio talk show and is a former editorial writer/columnist for several Connecticut newspapers. A former liberal Democrat, Bell has not been on the conservative side of the aisle for very long. He voted for Clinton/Gore in 1992. Abandoning the convictions that he had held and defended through adolescence and into adulthood was not easy. Sincere soul-searching and a commitment to distinguish fact from fiction compelled him to accept that liberal ideology was bankrupt.
[email protected]
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/jbell_20060506.html
Will America Stop Its Own Decay?
Joe Bell
Nations, unlike a dead animal along the side of a road, do not decompose quickly. It takes time for the elements to have an impact but once the process begins it is difficult to stop. America is in the process of decomposing and it is a terrible sight. There is time to reverse the process but the work required is difficult and forces are laboring to ensure that the corrosion from within continues uninterrupted.
When a nation loses respect for itself no one else, especially those who delight in the anticipation of its passing, will offer respect or comfort. America’s decay has been largely self-inflicted and the inventory of missteps is long.
Due to the embrace of a myth called ‘separation of church and state’ God has been expelled from school. Liberals defend a student’s right to wear a prohibited tee shirt while opposing a school’s right to initiate the saying of a prayer at the beginning of the school day.
America is struggling to find the will to control its borders. Behaving as though it doubts its right to be a sovereign nation, America appears incapable of even distinguishing between those who enter legally and those who enter illegally, further blurring the line between right and wrong and impairing the capacity to make judgments about important issues.
Despite the public demand for increases in spending on health care, obesity has become a national epidemic, demonstrating that many Americans believe the government is responsible for their health and welfare. It costs no money to push the plate away.
The people want, and so the federal government spends, millions of dollars on frivolities like bike paths and other items that have nothing to do with the constitutional obligation to “provide for the common defense … and secure the blessings of liberty.”
Many Americans are engaged in self-loathing. They ignore that war was brought to the nation by a ruthless enemy who is dedicated to victory. A nation that is as concerned with the ‘rights’ of its enemies as it is with its own survival has placed itself on a collision course with its own demise.
America will likely exist 50 years from now, but on its present course it will not be the nation that was molded by the vision, sweat and blood of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and their colleagues. Neither will it be the nation Lincoln said was the “last best hope of earth” nor the nation that President Kennedy said would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Given its present course America will be a nation that has rejected its past, which was a monument to freedom and justice, in favor of a future in which it doubts its right to defend itself against a foe dedicated to its downfall.
Today many are asking questions that have long been answered: “Who can say what is right and what is wrong?” “Who can honestly tell the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter?” “Who is to say American history is about freedom and justice and not about tyranny and oppression?”
Those who ask such questions either know the answers and feign ignorance for political reasons, or are incapable of understanding the answers due to some innate incapacity to comprehend reality. When the good and bad in America’s archives are assessed there can be no denial that America is far more a bastion of righteousness and justice than evil and contempt. To deny such truth is to deny the force of gravity. America’s critics speak with reverence about the truth but they are immune to it and, consequently, are unable to engage in a meaningful dialogue.
Enemies from abroad attempt to assassinate America by using force and deception, but America is being wrecked by those who burden the national psyche with guilt and misgivings. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it was often said that “the nation that defeated Hitler’s Germany will defeat international terrorism.” Sadly, this is not the America that defeated the Nazi war machine nor is it the America that engineered the downfall of communism. That America was confident in its mission, certain that it opposed evil and convinced, despite who else may have been claiming God was on their side, that He continued to shed His grace on America from sea to shining sea.
It is the despair of America, and all people who treasure justice and freedom, that the nation is in the grasp of a spiritual and personal crisis from which it may never recover. As in Vietnam, America is again engaged in a war against a lethal enemy. As in Vietnam, it is a war America has the power to win. But the U.S. is fighting in Iraq in such a way that, even though the enemy lacks the power to achieve victory, America will not use the power needed to defeat the adversary. Shelby Steele, of the Hoover Institution, recently wrote this is because America, and the West, are consumed with white guilt and today conduct “war as the Great Society.”
Steele observed, “White guilt makes our Third World enemies into colored victims, people whose problems … were created by the historical disruptions and injustices of the white West. We must ‘understand’ and pity our enemy even as we fight him.”
Steele said it makes no difference that “there are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today.” America’s enemies have cast the nation in an unwholesome light and continue to use its genuine goodness to bludgeon its conscience about past sins. Although America’s enemies, at home and abroad, have not been able to wither America’s power they have effectively hobbled its use.
The continued preeminence of America is not assured. Like any great civilization, the United States is capable of collapsing from lack of faith and will. Those nations that endure are those where the people have confidence in their principles and traditions. They love their nation, believe it is worth defending and engage in the hard and sometimes dangerous work necessary to make certain the next generation will receive its inheritance.
Detractors and enemies laugh at America’s inability to recognize its greatness and at its seeming impotence to halt its decline and advance freedom and justice around the world with the vigor that those great principles deserve.
###
Joseph Bell has hosted a radio talk show and is a former editorial writer/columnist for several Connecticut newspapers. A former liberal Democrat, Bell has not been on the conservative side of the aisle for very long. He voted for Clinton/Gore in 1992. Abandoning the convictions that he had held and defended through adolescence and into adulthood was not easy. Sincere soul-searching and a commitment to distinguish fact from fiction compelled him to accept that liberal ideology was bankrupt.
[email protected]