I am thankful for my nation and the opportunities that it provides. My pride however is in need of repair. After hearing similar sentiments from others, I have written some thoughts about how we might build pride and trust.

Nations succeed as long as the great majority of people willingly support their government. The truth of that can be seen across the span of history and it is visible today from undemocratic China to democratic socialist Scandinavian nations and capitalist democracies like those in North America and Western Europe. National and cultural pride contributed to the success of each of them. Another reason why people unite as a nation is to respond to a natural disaster or some other crisis or threat. This positive part of human nature can quickly become apparent when it is needed and it serves to make national trust and pride even stronger. Examples of these positive qualities abound in American history.

Those same positive qualities can be manipulated to unite people in vilifying and attacking others. In Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, and the Japanese Empire of WWII nationalism and pride were turned toward dominance and exclusion of others. Nazis, for example, united most Germans by blaming Jews and communists for economic problems. Similar techniques have sometimes been used in the US to unite a political majority by vilifying ethnic and religious minorities. One of mankind’s great attributes, our desire to unite in times of crisis, can also divide us into warring clans that threaten our very survival. When the people of a nation mistrust and mistreat each other, national trust and pride are quickly eroded.

Once we define ‘other’ citizens within our nation as enemies, it is only one additional step to conclude that, “The end justifies the means.” Dishonesty becomes a way of getting people to support what a leader perceives to be “right”. Subterfuge and deception become acceptable means of defense against imagined and ambiguous and threats. Mistrust grows. The divisions within a nation become more sharply defined. Somewhere along the way, the goal shifts from building the nation to destroying the opposition. That seems to describe the USA today and it is rapidly eroding our pride and trust.

When President Kennedy proposed that we land on the moon by the end of the 1960’s the nation took up that challenge and succeeded ahead of schedule. We were proud and we trusted our government to manage the work. The same could be said of great successes such as Social Security, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway system. Today the sense of pride, optimism and confidence to do great things has waned; and instead our national energy is directed toward internal conflict.

Some steps toward building national pride would be to replace deception, partial truth, and manipulation of government processes that are the current norm with integrity, openness and equal application of laws and standards to all of us. Integrity requires much more than not telling lies. It requires intentionally communicating the whole truth; a task that is difficult when the subjects are laden with emotion. Integrity also requires listening to learn what we do not know and to understand the perspectives of others. In our discussions of social and political issues we must hold ourselves to those standards. Only then will we be able to hold our leaders to them too.

The list of reasons why people mistrust government seems unending. Elected leaders manipulated information to the extent that voters don’t know what or who to believe about Social Security, taxes, health care, bank bailouts, and climate change. They misled us into the Vietnam War and the second Iraq War; used the FBI to spy on political opponents; and deceived us about spying on both Americans and foreign governments. Because of these experiences, many Americans mistrust our government regardless of which party is in power. Misleading the public with statistics and facts that have been twisted to make a point is like pouring acid on our national pride. It destroys trust. No matter how strongly one believes his cause is right, the end does not justify the means.

In the USA that most of us want to believe in and support, laws and standards will be applied equally and fairly to all of us. But most priests who molested children did not go to jail or register as sex offenders. The FBI Director who illegally spied on union and civil rights leaders was not prosecuted. Demonstrators who went to the North Carolina Capitol to peacefully protest new voting rules and failure to expand Medicaid were arrested and jailed. Shortly thereafter, a North Carolina judge visited Washington DC to protest the closing of war memorials during the government shutdown. He physically removed barricades that blocked entrances (destruction of government property) and bragged about it. He was not arrested or disciplined in any way. That inequity damaged confidence and pride for other Americans.

We can and should build our national pride and confidence; beginning by expecting truth, integrity, and the same standards for all of us as we continue creating a more perfect union. Our pride does not arise from already being perfect. It comes from working together to make what is good in our nation even better. We can do that if we will.