Knowing what you are fighting for

Lee Wishing:

"Based upon our observations of American soldiers and their officers captured in this war, the following facts are evidenced," a foreign intelligence officer wrote. "There is little knowledge or understanding, even among United States university graduates, of American political history and philosophy ... of safeguards to freedom; and of how these things supposedly operate within their own system."

Believe it or not, those words weren't written by an al Qaeda operative. They were written during the Korean War (1950-53) by the chief intelligence officer of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army in North Korea. In a 1957 response to those remarks, political theorist and historian Russell Kirk wrote, "Many Americans are badly prepared for their task of defending their own convictions ... against the grim threat of armed ideology. ... And in our age, good-natured ignorance is a luxury none of us can afford."

As we pause this Memorial Day to honor those who died to preserve our freedom, it's a good time to take stock of the threats to our nation. I believe the greatest threat is internal decay caused by a lack of knowledge of those things that make America great.

The Chinese officer's gloating inspired Mr. Kirk to write a primer on American political, economic and civil principles titled "The American Cause." Mr. Kirk defined the American cause as "the defense of the principles of a true civilization. This defense is conducted by renewing people's consciousness of true moral and political and economic principle." He continued, "The American cause is not to stamp out of existence all rivals, but simply to keep alive the principles and institutions which have made the American nation great."

America's modern enemies might have rejoiced in data released last fall by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute demonstrating that 71 percent of Americans in its survey failed a basic civic-literacy test with an average score of 49 percent. Incredibly, the average elected official in the sample scored just 44 percent.

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Mr. Kirk's book was written as an intellectual bulwark against the foreign threat of Soviet communism. He was concerned that we could not defend ourselves from foreign enemies unless we understood what we were defending. "Our danger at home is that a great part of the American people may forget that enduring principles exist," he said, foreshadowing today's striking civic illiteracy. "Our danger abroad is that the false principles of revolutionary fanaticism may gain such an influence as to wound us terribly."

I wonder where Mr. Kirk would think the greatest immediate threat to America lies today. Is it al Qaeda or is it a domestic menace in the form of elected officials and bureaucrats whose actions demonstrate they know and care very little about the American cause? I think it is the latter. A country that has lost touch with its core principles is threatened more by constitutional decay than by foreign radicals flying airplanes into skyscrapers. Unfortunately, the domestic threat of civic illiteracy makes foreign threats more potent.

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I blame the MoveOn attitude of the left that only wants to fight Republicans and not our foreign enemies. They are the political descendants of the Henry Wallace Democrats of the 1940s who did not want to resist Soviet expansion. They are the same Democrats who screwed up the Vietnam war and have done everything they can to thwart our war efforts against the Islamic religious bigots who are at war with us today. It is a sickness that infects too many Democrats today to trust them with national security.

BTW, I don't think the Chinese leader was talking about the Marines that destroyed a Chinese army with their break out from the Chosen Reservoir.