The Right Thing To Do

How to operate in a moral vacuum

Even though I was born at the very end of it, I’m still a child of World War Two…

I’ve read a lot of books, and listened to a lot of oral histories, about the horrors American soldiers endured fighting the Nazis. They were in that war for the duration and they knew what they were fighting and dying for; to defeat a bunch of insane murderers who hated democracy and wanted to destroy it. Yes, this is simplistic; yes, the freedoms our soldiers were fighting for in Europe were/are far from being shared equally in this country, but still, the basic principle, the life-and-death bottom-line reality, is the same; it was Democracy and life against Dictatorship and death.
I would never describe myself as a simple-minding patriot, but when I read about—and see documentaries of—what Americans experienced in that war, and why they were doing it, I do feel proud.

As the decades have gone by, I’ve been sometimes proud and sometimes ashamed of what my country has done in my name. I’m not writing a comprehensive history here, and I can’t list all the USA, for good and ill, has done in the world—but I can remember the first time I was really ashamed to be an American in the world.
It was during the years my country was in Vietnam, killing innocent people and, incidentally, trying to destroy a revolutionary movement that wasn’t so different than the revolutionary movement that gave birth to this country.

The second time I was so ashamed of my country in the world was this past Friday morning when I witnessed two amoral, sadistic adolescents, who happen to be the President and Vice President of my country, deliberately insult and attack a genuine hero, Volodymir Zelensky—a man who is risking his life to preserve democracy against a mass-murdering tyrant.
I wonder—how did my country wind up in a moral position that is 180 degrees opposite from the place it started out, and180 degrees opposite from the place it was when it rescued democracy. The United States was always—still is—a capitalist country. But we didn’t sacrifice so much during World War Two to make money. We did it because it was the Right Thing To Do. Yes, this country needs the minerals Ukraine has and yes, it’s in our strategic interest to stop Russia from taking back Eastern Europe, but the far greater reason—the reason we had our own revolution and the reason we fought in World War Two—is a MORAL reason. It was the right thing to do before and it’s the right thing to do now; not to do it would make America an accomplice to murder—of the Ukrainians and of democracy itself.