Advice From Friends: America Needs to Clean Up Its Act

By 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.

The foregoing article is another reader submission.