Moral authority is gathered by action, not by claiming credit for action.

Mr. Steele's commentary is interesting to me because he puts his finger on something very important: even though we don't think this way anymore, the effects of the past are still abroad in the land. Pardon the world if they don't trust us yet.

Do we resent having to prove that we have abandoned colonialism? Too bad. We will have to suck it up and do what it takes. The oppression of the colonial period was real, and has not yet been repaired. Just saying "Oops! Sorry!", leaving the premises and throwing money doesn't repair a nation's character. The US is heir to this damage, even if our participation was confined to our own indigenous peoples, because the center of Western power has shifted to America from Europe.

More recently, and specific to us, it took 50 years of kissing up to despots the world over (as long as they weren't Communists) to trash the national reputation that the Marshall Plan established, and we are still puckering up in some places. It will take some time to convince people that we were callow rather than corrupt. As the saying goes, talk is cheap. Telling people how wonderful we are will earn us rolled eyes and cynicism.

So 80% of the destructive behavior patterns are lies? Leaving aside where that number comes from, what about the other 20%? Shall we puff ourselves up and claim we are better than others, and therefore free from the responsibility for self-improvement? Shall we boast and preen, or shall we let our actions speak our principles 100% of the time?

Mr. Steele also mentions that, for the West, might no longer makes right. He is only partially correct: might has not made right in core Western values for a long time. One of our seminal legends, that of King Arthur, has maintained that right makes might for over a thousand years. Another of them, Robin Hood, maintains that authority derives from acts of justice and charity, not acts of force or accidents of birth. The reason the West is capable of feeling guilt over past behavior is the cognitive dissonance between what we know about our ideals and what we know we have been up to, combined with another core Western value: individual responsibility. The guilt is not useful, as it's merely a form of self-loathing that leads to paralysis; the self-awareness that comes with it is invaluable, because we can't improve the way we act without it. The left embraces guilt as contrition. The right rejects self-awareness as guilt. Neither one of these is useful.

I realize that humility as a condition of leadership and power is not part of the American template. It's a relatively new idea for us, but then, we are a relatively young nation. However, there is a much older tradition, one claimed by many many Americans who are eager as well to claim superiority for their country, that understands and values humility. I look to the people who claim that Christianity is their guiding philosophy to act like it.