Americans are raised with a sense of their own innate goodness.  We are regaled from birth with stories of revolution and idealism and “Give me liberty or give me death!” These tales solidify an idea that America is a special place, and Americans are a special people.  For the most part, this is entirely warranted.  America is indeed a special place, and as someone who has lived all over the world, I think there is definitely something special and unique about being American.

The downside of this is that many Americans believe that if something is American it is then, by extrapolation, the “right” thing.  This is a serious logical flaw, and I see it quite often in people of all political persuasions.  For example, while it is true that in today’s world virtually all terrorist are Muslims, this does not mean that all Muslims are terrorists.  While Bush may be wrong about a great many things, not everything Bush does is wrong.  And while America is a truly great and wonderful country, not everything we do is right.

This is the main thrust of item number one.  It assumes that America is inherently good, and that our deeds are good as an extrapolation of that inherent goodness.  In other words, an act is “good” by virtue of the fact that it is being done by Americans.  If the exact same act were being done by someone else—think Iran—then it would be an indication of their immorality.  This was the essence of the following question, which I asked yesterday.

If a US soldier was captured by Islamists, tied to a bed for 40 hours, chained to a floor and made to stand awake for two days, waterboarded, smacked around, would you say that he had been tortured?

I think he would have been.  This is an objective judgment call based on the acts themselves, not the person perpetrating them.  It is the actions which are the “proof” of goodness, in the sense that a good person will tend to engage in good acts, and a bad person will usually do the opposite.  This idea can manifest itself in the case of a minster who belts out the gospels and preaches traditional morality, all the while banging his married secretary on the church altar.  He talks a good game, but do his actions really indicate an inherent goodness of character?  I don’t think so.

Now, consider item number two, “America is good because we do the right thing.” This, to me, makes perfect sense.  Consider some of the awful things America has done in its history:  slavery, decimation of the Indians, Jim Crow, that sort of thing.  When you look at it objectively, America has done some absolutely despicable things in its past.  The thing that provides redemption from these past bad activities is the fact that we recognize how evil they were, and have taken steps to make sure that they never happen again in the future.  In other words, America’s inherent goodness is primarily in America’s actions, rather than America’s rhetoric. 

Saudi Arabia could adopt American rhetoric tomorrow, but unless they back it up with America’s actions they’re still Saudi Arabia.

Consider the example from earlier, of the adulterous minister.  Now consider an atheist who leads an exemplary life; kind to others, virtuous, loves his wife and children, faithful, that sort of thing.  Who is a better person, the guy who talks the good game and does the opposite, or the guy whose actions indicate an inherent goodness of spirit?  You may disagree, but I prefer inherent goodness which manifests itself in deeds rather than the false moralizing and preaching that has lately the hallmark of the United States government.

This is why this torture issue has me so bothered.  It’s not that I have sympathy for terrorists or any of that other nonsense.  It’s that for 58 years America and the rest of the civilized world have spoken clearly with one voice as far as what is acceptable.  Whether or not you happen to agree with the specifics of this agreement is immaterial.  The important aspect is that the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Torture, the UN Declaraton on Human Rights, and other similar treaties and agreements establish a common baseline, a standard agreement among civilized people, on how everyone should act.  This is leading by example.

When you lead by example, does this guarantee that people will follow you?  Of course not.  You can’t make anyone follow you, all you can do is ask them to.  The important thing to understand is that while leading by example provides no assurance that anyone will follow you, when you refuse to lead by example it guarantees that they will not.  By refraining from stealing you do not guarantee that others will not steal, but you will still have the moral right to demand that others not do the same.  By stealing yourself you lose the right to demand that others follow your example.

Think back through history for a moment.  Who are the modern world’s greatest leaders?  Gandhi, MLK, and so on.  Both of these men stood up to violence and bigotry and hatred and defeated it by refusing to stoop to the level of their enemies.  This is a powerful message, and the effect that their idealism had on their effectiveness cannot be discounted.  How would it look if Gandhi had launched a program of guerilla warfare against the British?  How about if MLK had gone out lynching random white people?  How would history regard these men and their cause?

Consider Jesus.  Matthew 5:38-39 states:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.  But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

This is an explicit repudiation of the “eye for an eye” mentality of the Old Testament.  You do not lower yourself to the level of your enemies.  Jesus did not say, “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, strike him on his cheek.  For it is wrong for him to strike you, but it is perfectly acceptable for you to seek vengeance and retribution.”

Now, nothing I have said here should be construed to imply any sort of belief that self defense is not warranted.  I’m not a religious person, and thus I have no inherent problem with responding to an offense committed against me.  That being said, simply because an offense was committed against me does not give me carte blanche to respond in any manner I see fit.  If my neighbor steals my garden gnome, this does not give me just cause to burn his house down or steal his car.  It doesn’t even give me the right to steal his garden gnome.

It is vitally important that the United States lead by example.  Let’s assume for a second that it is true that “coercive interrogation” will result in more intelligence than through other methods.  On the balance, what have we lost by no longer leading by example?  Clearly we have become the global equivalent of the preacher who sleeps with his secretary.  We talk of the vital importance of recognizing human rights while employing legalese and loopholes to enable us to violate the very standards we claim to uphold.  Our president encourages other nations to abide by the Geneva Conventions while simultaneously his staff works tirelessly to figure out a way for us to ignore then.  Rather than setting an example for the world on how to act, we have set the example on how to weasel out of our obligations.

During the debates over the past week or two, so many people have stated this maxim:  “Hey, they cut off heads and burn the bodies.  All we do is waterboard people.” My response is, so what?  For the United States of America, the shining beacon of freedom for the oppressed people of the world, this is absolutely pathetic.  America’s motto used to be “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” People from all over the world came here knowing that we stood by our idealism, that no matter what else happened, America was a place where honesty and fairness were the rules of the day.  What example are we setting today?  “Come to America!  We’ll torture you less than the shithole you’re in now.”

Don’t you think we can do better than the lowest common denominator?  I certainly do.

My vote is for item number two.