WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED This is the true memoir of one US Air Force navigator’s journey from the schoolhouses of Air Training Command to the nuclear alerts of the Cold War to combat in a 35-year-old anachronism called the B-52. It is a first-hand account of life during the last days of Strategic Air Command, the early days of Air Combat Command and the ensuing military drawdown of the 1990s. From peacetime training exercises across the globe to combat operations in Desert Storm, Jim Clonts takes the reader inside the cockpit where life and death are seconds apart. Often comical, sometimes heart-pounding, other times tragic, WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED takes you into the world of military aviation, a crucible where warriors learn the true nature of character, conscience and mortality.

Friends of Liberty VOL 54
by Jim Clonts, 2010

05/25/2010

Dan from Idaho had an excellent answer to my question from last week concerning whether capitalism as we know it in this country can be salvaged. He said the problem is not with our systems of economics and government. The problem is the people in these systems. He believes the loss of our values, the diminishment of religion and the advent of moral relativism are to blame. If we're going to change the way this country works, we have to change the people.

On the surface that seems like a daunting task. Although our tools have changed, human nature hasn't since the beginning of time. Humans are capable of great and terrible things. We are capable of great charity, mercy, fidelity and creativity. We are equally capable of great greed, sloth, lust, and destruction. A small percentage of humans are driven to control others, for good or bad, whether as managers in the workplace, corporate CEOs, military officers, elected officials, kings or emperors. We call it ambition. The majority does not feel the need to lead, and most often are not equipped with the personality traits required. Unfortunately, those with ambition, while well-equipped to influence other men, are not necessarily well-equipped with wisdom, ethics and morality.

Our Founding Fathers, both political and economic, faced the same human weaknesses, the same temptations, the same motivations. Most of them experienced some form of private human failure, but their personal morality, ethics, honor and belief in God prevented them from lauding their failures as anything but failures. They did not make excuses. They did not expect a compliant media to cover for them while they trampled on the moral standards of their communities. They had no illusions that their misdeeds would be looked upon by the citizenry as badges of honor, as is quite often the case today.

Once upon a time, honor and character were king. A man's word was his bond. It wasn't that most men were not tempted to take bribes, cheat on their wives, or engage in illegal economic activities. Most men were tempted, but their sense of personal honor, their ethics, their relationship with their God, and most of all, their understanding that society would not accept their actions, made the actual committing of these crimes unthinkable to most men.

Today, we have the same temptations, but society has been conditioned to be more accepting of previously unthinkable actions. Moral relativism has replaced morality. We rationalize unethical behaviors, make excuses for them, demonize their critics and even bend laws to accomodate them. This mainstreaming of moral relativism will be President Clinton's legacy. The Lewinsky Affair really did have a major impact on what behavior society tolerates in a president. The Mainstream Media made excuses for Clinton, shielding him as best they could and creating an opinion in mainstream society that the President was being persecuted, even that his actions were acceptable, just human nature. Even when he lied under oath about the affair and was caught red-handed with DNA evidence, it did not matter. The public was willing to forgive him and, even worse, rationalize and accept his behavior as the new norm.

In case you are wondering why this did not work for John Edwards or any of the myriad of Republicans having affairs---remember, Edwards wife was dying of cancer during the affair, placing him on an ethical plane well below a simply philandering Clinton. Republicans? Remember---in the case of any breach of ethics or morality (not involving dying wives, I guess), Democrats circle the wagons around the accused---Republicans chew up their own and spit them out.

Character does not seem to count any more and the notion of judging a man's character or his actions is politically incorrect.

I was speaking with a colleague at work one day and the topic of someone's questionable behavior arose.

"Well, we can't judge him," she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know. Who are we to judge, right?"

At this point I think I surprised the hell out of her.

"I judge all the time," I said. "In fact, I'm judging you right now. I judge everyone I meet and continue to judge them. With every word they say, every action they take, I judge them. I judge a book by its cover and that's okay as long as I open it up and read what's inside. Sure I don't have the power to send people to jail or damn them to hell, but my opinion of them is shaped by my judgment of their character. How do you know who to trust if you don't judge? How do you know which friends will have your back in a crisis? How do you decide who to vote for?"

Friends of Liberty, I am a judge and you need to be, too. If we're going to fix this nation we have got to project the correct ethical expectations to those around us. When an elected official or corporate CEO is caught in a scandal, we need to step up and show the proper level of outrage. When excuses are made we need to come down hard on their defenders with the simple message, "Your elected officials are not children. Congress is not Montessori School and there are no do-overs." Our leaders need to know they are being judged. We do not need to change human nature. We need to change societal expectations and once again make the wrong, the illegal and the unethical unthinkable temptations that remain in the back of our leaders' minds.

"Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid."

-John Wayne

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