Sunday, February 7, 2010. Recently, I was corresponding with one of our ONE.SIX readers, Bret Holbert, concerning the massive problems Japanese automaker Toyota has suffered in recent weeks. It seems everything from hesitant brakes to poorly-designed ashtrays has plagued the world’s top car manufacturer. Holbert suggested perhaps Toyota’s problems were more the result of retributive politics from auto unions and politicians friendly to the unions than to poor quality control on the part of Toyota itself.
Troubles revealed in just the past few days for Toyota’s highly-popular hybrid, the Prius, demonstrate that perhaps there is justification in the U.S. Government’s demands for the $2 Billion recall of Toyota cars. Holbert insinuated that Uncle Sam is being picky with the Tokyo company because they choose right-to-work states for their U.S. manufacturing, or maybe even that they are not American.
He may be right—if so, it would demonstrate just how far Americans have fallen, and just how petty and even vindictive we now are, a 180 twist from what the United States should represent to the world.
Before I got married, I was an English teacher in a picturesque, idyllic town on the Sea of Japan called Tsuruga. I found the Pacific Pearl to be the most accommodating of countries, with fabulous salt-of-the-earth people. When I left the poorly-run American company for which I taught and decided to start my own English teaching business, I met a very kindly doctor in town who had hordes of money, and yet was incredibly humble. When he found out that I had been forced to leave my apartment by my former employer and consequently needed a new place to live, Dr. Tadao Ishikawa gave me everything. He and his wife spent an entire weekend cleaning out a house they owned that had been vacant for ten years, and let me inhabit it rent-free. In fact, the doctor would not even let me pay utilities, even though I was able. All I had to do was teach English to his young son, Yugi, for 30 minutes a day, Monday through Friday.
The doctor had me over with his family for sushi and other goodies regularly. He took me with his family on the bullet train to Tokyo and spent money on me like it was going out of style.
He was not only great to me, but to any other Americans in town (it was a small town–there were maybe five or six of us). There were other rich people in town, and all seemingly the same towards Americans. In fact, rich or not, all the Japanese people treated me like royalty.
Finally one day, I asked him, “Dr. Ishikawa, why are you so nice to me?”
He looked down for a few seconds to collect his thoughts.
He began, “When we bombed Pearl Harbor without any good reason, we, the Japanese people, were ashamed. It was the Emperor’s war, not ours. You, the Americans, then fought for 4 long years against us and lost many lives. It was a difficult war. The Emperor would not give up, even though America was, by 1945, dominating the war. Finally, you had to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Note: Estimates are that the U.S. would have lost another 60,000 troops had the war continued .) Then the war was over.”
He paused, fighting back tears. I was mesmerized.
“When that terrible war which we had started war was over, the U.S. could have just packed up and gone home. Carl, I and most of Japan know that any other country in the world would have done just that, and would have been completely justified. Instead of abandoning our broken nation—you built us back up. You gave us millions of dollars in aid and millions of man hours to help us rebuild our infrastructure. No other nation on earth would have done that! Japan is now very prosperous, and it would not have happened without America.”
At this point, I was in tears myself, because I had never been so proud to be American as I was at that very moment. What he didn’t say in words, but his eyes and spirit clearly conveyed, is that America, as one nation under God, does what Christ would do.
Of course we helped Japan, and Germany, too. Those countries have become among our strongest allies. If we have fallen to become a nation that would try to squelch out non-American companies, then we have fallen a long way.
Many isolationists claim that America should worry about itself and get out of Afghanistan and Iraq and other nations where we maintain some sort of relief or military presence. Their arguments make logical sense, what with all the problems we have stateside, especially our spiraling national debt.
But America is a nation built on Christian virtues of love, hope, compassion, and charity. That same spirit that caused the pilgrims to seek a land in which they were free to worship as they desired, which emboldened the founding patriots to fight for independence from England, which prodded the Union to rebuild the South after a bitter civil war, which harkened the President and Congress to enter world wars fought principally far away from American shores, and helped rebuilt defeated foes in their aftermaths, which elicited action in Korea and Vietnam to thwart Communistic tyranny, and which obligated American intervention in the Middle East, is the same spirit without which America could have not become a great nation. Without that quintessence, America would never have become what it has become.
Although America has sacrificed greatly for the independence it declared 234 years ago, it has proven the most altruistic nation on earth, contributing more to the world community than any nation in history.
Most Americans never turn their backs because America never turns its back. America is not a selfish nation, but rather, a country that knows a better world is better for America, and for every other nation.
–CB
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