Today's Term of the Day: "Moral High Ground"

HAIC of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams takes a dim view of this country’s foreign policy as revealed in an interview with Emil, a Muslim lifestyle magazine…… man, we want to take the ball and run with that but we’ll let it go for now. Never know who may be checking in.

Anyway, Williams employs the usual language of “imperialism” and “exploitation” but one section of the article stood out as it re-affirmed a concept held by many both here and abroad regarding how this nation was perceived before and after 9/11… that would be 9/11/2001 in case the significance of that date happens to be fading. (We want to apologize for not providing a direct quote. There was a link displayed but it did not direct to the text of the interview as promised but what the article paraphrases Rowan as saying below is consistent with the other quotes in the interview):

“Williams went beyond his previous critique of the conduct of the war on terror, saying the United States had lost the moral high ground since September 11.”

"Moral high ground" has nearly become a term of obsession among people who normally wouldn't concern themselves with the concept of morality except that which concerns this country's alleged treatment of others.

You see, as long as we are the “victim” and we have the world’s sympathy and do nothing but lay around the house whining about how horribly we’ve been treated then its all good because we have, you know, the "moral high ground". "Moral high ground" is an end-state for these people and not a position from which to take action to affect any real positive change in the world. As if “moral high ground” of itself ended slavery, defeated fascism or confronted and ultimately beat communism.

One gets the sense that this nation could’ve built 20 more hospital ships like the USNS COMFORT and USNS MERCY, which is berthed here in San Diego and which routinely embark on humanitarian missions the world over and these same people would complain of a “soft imperialism” that is insinuating Western Christendom upon peoples of the world via vaccine shots, dental check-ups and Elmo dolls.

Later, Williams makes a possible fatal error by suggesting to the Muslim world that it’s “political solutions were not the most impressive”. He appears to recover by complimenting them on that rug, facing eastward and praying oh, 5-6 times a day thing. What a buffoon.

(Late add-on: Read some thoughts here on Mr. Williams from the incomparable Victor Davis Hansen from National Review Online's "the corner")