America Is The Moral Leader In The World

[randall]

Shalom Sarasara,

And good evening to all, randall here.

I was about to log off when I saw your entry about America - I assume you mean the United States of America because, to me, America is a very, very large country indeed. This was brought home to me in Kobe in Japan in 1955 when your tough shore patrols threw out two Canadian soldiers from the "American Club".

"We are American also - we all live on the same continent." They complained.

"Smart ass. If we see you try to get in again you'll really feel this baton next time."

I was in my early twenties but the scene has never left me."

I was put to the local Baptist Church when I was young. As my sister says, "We were always put to church - never taken."

She went to The Church of Christ Sunday School on Sunday morning, the Salvation Army Sunday School and the Baptist Sunday school in the afternoon.(all in one day!)

As the weakling of the family, healthwise ( as you would put in the USA) I only went to the Baptist Sunday School and my Sunday School Teacher is still alive at 96!

My parents would say they were Baptists but never went very much to church and never got baptised of joined the church - or any church. BUT they always called themselves Baptists. I had the courage of my convictions to both get baptised and join the church.

My maternal grandmother had the same courage of conviction and was a "Salvation Army Lassie wearing the bonnet" as they put it here. However, she had the courage to challenge her beliefs several times. Travel a long distance so she could get Baptised in Dundee and then joined the Church of Christ.

I found religion fascinating but I read too much. I asked too many questions, and I gave too many honest answers that the listeners did not want to hear.

I shocked my sister by telling her - she was about a decade older than I - that the Book of Revelations only got into the Bible by one vote.

She had never thought of where the books came from - I couldn't wait to see where they came from.

So, morally, we were brought up very strictly indeed as a town. We were not allowed to go to the pictures (movies) My sister got beat for going to a dance. (at 16!) We could not use our bicycles on a Sunday (no one owned cars) We were expected only to read the bible on a Sunday.

At seventeen my sister joined the WRENS ( Royal Navy for Women) at 21 I went away to sea in the mercantile marine.

The psychological shock for the pair us must be obvious.

In our home town you could walk around the harbour and here Christian Hymns being sung in harmony from an engineering shop or ship yard any time of the day.

I went out to the far east and looked for the nearest Baptist church and it turned out to be a Southern Baptist Church and that was another shock.

Their morals were not our morals My wife and I were astounded at some of the things these other Baptists would do that we would never ever dream of doing.

After many years we returned home - me against my will - but were surprised to find groups of US Baptists coming over - including Billy Grahams Crusades - to teach us how to be good christians.

It was those from the USA that got the biggest shock. Many of them had been divorced once or twice and the ex husbands and wifes were married to other people in the same group.

What did they find here.

Couples that had been married for fifty and sixty years were common. There was no one in the church divorced - we believed our vows when we took them seriously - and yet these divorced people were coming to teach us how to live our lives.

They had come into a community where death walked hand in hand with their daily work, as most went to the sea. It was neither expected nor unexpected and when it came they could not understand how we could accept it the way we did because they certainly could never emulate us.

Jock Troup went from a drunken cooper in the gutter in Scotland to preach to thousands in Chicago - there is a brass plate there for you to see if you have a mind to.

Peter Marshall went from a very poor Scottish background to be the minister, padre or preacher to your senate and was a great loss when he died so suddenly and so young.

I travelled the globe just after the war to the places that still had United States of American forces patrolling the streets and could see no better examples of morality than I had been brought up with at home.

Living in the far east I made many friends of many faiths some of which have had a lasting impact on me such as Parsee's, the Indian Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and many others who had far higher moral standards than myself and decided it was not the possession of one country, religion, race, or creed.

I certainly would never try to convert them to my faith because sometimes the vastness of theirs shamed the shortcomings of my own.

When doctor told my wife that I would be dead in a matter of forty minutes or so they ALL telephoned each other and prayed in their own ways for my recovery.

And such a miraculous recovery it was that the head doctor apologised for not having our faith in a higher being - he had been brought up in the Hindu religion but had left it behind. So perhaps my illness helped him too. One never nows.

All in all with all my US friends - including blood relatives - I find that you can kill anyone with kindness which is almost embarrassing but you do not like us to be different from you in almost everything.

My own opinion is that you cannot understand why the whole world does not love you.

As Sir Winston S. Churchill said of De Gaulle, "He will never be able to forgive us for saving the honour of France which he carried across the channel in a suitcase."

In my own experience I have lost friends by helping them because they appear to be embarrassed that that they cannot pay me back in kind.

Whether you like it or not, an to me all of you have always denied it, you have been building an empire from the day of your independence from Great Britain whilst continually denying it.

You literally stole the Hawaiian Islands from Britain who was governing it loosely through their own monarchy, You threatened to go to war with Canada unless they gave you Oregon and straightened out the 39 th parallel. Mexico, Arizona and California were all taken in the same way. Santa Anna was only trying to suppress a regional rebellion which would seem to be the right of any ruler of any nation.

You spout the Monroe declaration whilst retaining the right to interfere anywhere in the whole wide world and the world does not like it or trust you for it.

You even invaded the British Territory of Grenada much to grievance of our Queen who is also the Queen of Grenada.

All great powers are distrusted by lesser powers and Britain accepted that when she was building her empire but you seem incapable of doing so.

So don't say that you are able to be the world's moral leader as well - that you certainly will never be able to do because you are loyal only unto yourself.

Much as my heart goes out to the thousands of unfortunate people in New Orleans (my own daughter lives in Florida) I do really think that they expected too much of Washington and it seems to have surprised them more than it surprised the rest of the world.

Having lived so long and seen and experienced so much - my first experience in the USA was the McCarthy Trials - I learned the hard way that almost all US citizens will never be able to see eye to eye with anyone from abroad.

God bless you all.

randall

[ghost ship in a storm]

I think that Randall has said it all - speaking as a non American I have to say that, without wishing to cause offence, I found the top post here naive, patronising and borderline offensive in itself; the type of naked jingoism that fortunately we in Britain (and it has to be said most people in the US, a country I have visited several times and where two good friends of mine are from) have for the most part moved on from.

I truly apologise if that comes over as a flame, I deleted my initial response and took a few deep breaths before replying. I'd be interested if sarasara would respond to some of the points that Randall so eloquently made!

[Accountable]

I find it amusing that Randall uses examples of the US stealing from the British empire to illustrate how they care so little for other countries. I guess the other countries voted and invited the British in?



Don't get me wrong, even as a little kid when I learned of the Monroe Doctrine, it didn't fit my mushy little brain as my definition of "right." I believe Scrat and I are of one mind, for the most part. Our political system has been bastardized so that only muscle-flexers can get into the really influencial positions. I don't like it an exercise my puny vote & letters where I can.





I believe every government is jingoistic. The only difference is that the US is the new kid on the block & the other equally jingoistic but weaker nations don't like being run over roughshod.





Am I the only one that reads these threads and sees people pointing shaky fingers and saying "Shame on you! You're just like us!"?