U.S., Britain Changed Too
No two modern nations have changed so drastically in national character and ideals in recent years as have the British and American peoples.
In his new book, Decline and Fall? — Britain's Crisis in the Sixties, author Paul Einzig clearly explains the real cause for the decline of Britain as a world power:
"Britain's most valuable asset had always been the character of her people . . . They are, or were until recently, as public-spirited as any nation and more so than most nations . . .
"What has been the main cause of Britain's decline? . . . The answer is, the author regrets to say, the deterioration of some of those qualities of British character which had been responsible for the achievement of British greatness . . .
"The {British} Empire was built up and maintained by the devotion of the British people to the cause of their country. That devotion seems to have declined to the vanishing point. Everybody, or at any rate the overwhelming majority, is now for himself and himself alone" (pp. 16, 28, 29).
How true. "Do your own thing" is the hue and cry of our age.
"When the author . . .reads books or sees films on the Battle of Britain period, he finds it somewhat difficult to believe that the people he encounters or reads about today can possibly belong to the same race as the people who gave such a magnificent account of themselves in 1940 (p. 6).
"Over and above all, recent years have witnessed a progressive debasement of the British character. Selfishness and impatient greed demanding the advent of a millennium immediately have gained ground and 'growth-hysteria' has become a national disease.
"Hard-faced trade unionists quite frankly admit that the only thing in which they are interested is to get the maximum of exclusive advantage for their members, and seldom worry about the effect of their selfishness on the rest of the community" (pp. 10, 11).
Author Einzig then asks "what has happened to the 'Spirit of Dunkirk'?"
"If it had not been for that spirit," he says, "Britain could not have survived as an independent nation. Had the men engaged in aircraft production slowed down for the sake of earning more overtime pay, or had they embarked on wildcat strikes at the slightest excuse, or had they been resisting measures aimed at increasing output or saving manpower, the R.A.F. could not possibly have been provided with the additional Spitfires that enabled them to win the Battle of Britain with a narrow margin.
"Unfortunately today the behavior that was the exception in 1940 has become the rule, while the attitude that was the rule in 1940 has now become the rare exception. Almost all sections of the community are now much more interested in securing for themselves immunity from the sacrifices demanded by the situation . . .
"Everybody, or almost everybody, is trying to get as much as possible out of the community and to give the community as little as possible in return . . . If the debasement of the British character is allowed to continue too long, the point of no return might be passed at some stage" (pp. 6, 7, 11).
One even wonders if the point of no return has not already been passed.
Downfall of American Character
What about the United States — her national character?
It is an undeniable fact that we are a nation of worsening bad character, a nation leading the world in many evils, a nation that has lost its way, having no transcendental goal or purpose beyond hanging onto what we have.
America leads the world in wretched examples of family life. We lead the world in divorce, broken homes, and juvenile lawlessness.
We lead the world in fostering a disenchanted, turned-off, rebellious, thoroughly disgusted, isolated, futility-ridden generation of young people.
We lead the Western world in crime. We're far and away Number One, no contest, when it comes to a crime-ridden country. We lead them all. No one is our peer.
Years ago, F.B.I. Chief J. Edgar Hoover said we face the twin enemies of crime and Communism. Crime and moral decay are eating out America from within. And Communism stands ready to pick up the pieces.
Most people haven't thought of it this way, but Communism — except during periods of war or the aftermath of warfare — has never been able to subvert a society where there was little or no corruption or moral decay.
Communism is a political force that feeds on decaying social systems. It is like a political cancer. It subverts governments, infiltrates and agitates all potentially dissident groups and even hoodwinks members of the news media.
Our "Vietnam Moratoriums" should have taught us a valuable lesson.
If America persists on its path of self-destruction, no huge army, no $80 billion-a-year defense budget can save us.
Becoming Our Own Enemies
America — once a peaceful land within its borders — has become a world leader in civil disorders. We largely ignore the cause and treat the effect.
Since August 1965, National Guard troops have been called out 268 times to quell civil disturbances.
This shocking figure was given to us recently by Major General Glen C. Ames, commanding general of the National Guard in the State of California.
Interviewed on The WORLD TOMORROW television program, General Ames further stated that if full figures were known, it is quite possible that as many troops have been involved in quelling civil disturbances within the United States in the past four years as have been directly confronting the enemy in Vietnam at any one time.
Americans, paradoxically, are becoming their own enemies. The same thing happened in Rome. Writes political science analyst Dr. Robert Strausz-Hupe: "By the beginning of the third century, Rome's towns and cities had become unsafe places . . . The annals of Rome record the increase of riots, some culminating in conflagrations which destroyed whole towns." (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, February 9, 1969)
Other Firsts
America leads or is among the world leaders in the production of pornography, in the manufacture of patently raw, twisted, unbelievably perverted pornographic material. Our movie moguls are striving, it seems, for world supremacy in the production of films with rotten, twisted, perverted sex themes. These are sent abroad as a hideous example of American art form. The latest Hollywood sex "kick" is a spate of movies about wife-swapping.
We lead the world in a maddened search for every type of pleasure and excitement.
Our people have become mentally and physically soft.
Our nation is divided, frustrated and confused. The furor over the recent Vietnam Moratorium vividly shows this.
We no longer have a strong, clearly defined national character.
What Good Character Is
Good character manifests itself in ways that not only benefit an individual but benefit other people and the nation as a whole.
Good character is based on self-sacrifice, on construction and building, on dedication to high national goals and purposes. It's not selfish. It's not self-seeking. It's not introspective and inward looking.
It is first an outgoing concern for others. But instead we're a nation saying, "Do your own thing," isolate yourself, drift away from the crowd, adopt the philosophy of sitting around, picking a weed, watching the tide go out. As one recent song has it, "sittin' on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away."
We are a nation without transcendental, national goals. We're unsure of where we're heading or where we ought to be heading. There's no national purpose to which, all people are dedicated and unified as if we were one.
Even the remarkable achievement of planting an American flag on the alien surface of the moon fails to excite us for any length of time.
It wasn't always this way.
We recently glanced at an old American popular magazine published in 1906, 63 years ago. The name of the magazine was Everybody's Magazine, long since defunct.
We had the same impression Paul Einzig had when he compared Britain of today with the British people when they were backed against the wall in 1940.
In the pages of that magazine was depicted a nation radically different from the America of today.
It was a nation of purpose and direction. Its foreign policy was vigorous. At the helm of the land was one of the proudest political figures in U.S. history, Teddy Roosevelt.
The lead article in the magazine dealt with the construction of the Panama Canal. The author on an inspection trip to the canal site assured his readers back home that all was going well, that the engineers and other personnel on the project were fired up with ambition to complete the awesome project despite the rigors of the tropics.
The author just knew America would succeed where the French, in an earlier attempt, had failed.
As an aside, the author reported that not only the morale, but the morals of the American contingent was good — except for a notorious few in a certain department whose lives he complained were "a scandal."
Today a scandalous life — if one can believe the polls taken about life on America's college campuses — is considered normal. To be chaste, pure, clean is the exception to the rule.
The author pardoned the excesses of the few scandalous individuals by saying there were loose-living individuals "even in such sanctified communities as San Francisco and New York."
Don't blink. You read that correctly. The author wasn't speaking tongue-in-cheek. San Francisco and New York, at the turn of the century, were considered "sanctified communities" — the center of culture, refinement, the arts, even morality.
How times have changed!