White Hats and Black Hats

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When we mamas take a peek into the America that the media portrays, we can get pretty discouraged. “That’s not the kind of country we want for our children and grandchildren!” we moan.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and the early 1960s, the people I listened to were upbeat about America. They were scared that the Cold War with the U.S.S.R. might turn hot, but they were positive about America itself. I turned ten years old a few days after an assassin killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Things started going downhill after that. The war in Vietnam grew deadlier, students rioted on campuses and in the streets, and Americans watched the violence on the nightly television news. I imagine many American mamas moaned, “That’s not the kind of country we want for our children and grandchildren!”

While we were in California a couple of weeks ago, Ray and I visited the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace. I had looked forward very much to our visit, but I had mixed feelings. I wondered how the library would tell the good, the bad, and the ugly of his story. I also pondered how I should feel about this flawed human being who served as the 37th President of the United States and then resigned in disgrace.

After all, the first vote I ever cast in a presidential election went to Richard Nixon when he was reelected in a giant landslide in 1972. I was not alone. Nixon won 520 electoral votes. Only two presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, have ever gotten more.

The museum confirmed what I already knew. President Richard Nixon was a human being. As such, he did really good things some of the time and he did bad things some of the time, just like the rest of humanity. I’m not excusing him. I am glad he resigned. He did not deserve to continue as President.

Americans need to know the Nixon story. The wise person learns from the mistakes of others, the little mistakes and the great big ones like the ones President Nixon made. The Nixon Library does its job well. It honestly tells what Nixon did right and what he did wrong. He lied, he covered up, he obstructed justice. That story has been told again and again, as it should be. However, Nixon did right things, too. He helped America through some tough years.

President Nixon took office in 1969, the year after the infamous 1968. During 1968, North Korea captured an American ship; Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee; Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles; and, as I said, already Americans were sitting in front of their television sets every night watching college students and various other groups protesting and sometimes rioting in the streets. Nixon’s job was tough, and he did much good.

The following efforts which Nixon supported continue to affect Americans today:

• A $100 million war on cancer.
• Peaceful desegregation of Southern schools.
• The end of the military draft.
• Establishment of an all-volunteer armed force.
• Increase in the rights and privileges of Native Americans and return of tribal lands to tribes.
• Promotion of minority-owned businesses.
• Withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam.
• Establishment of diplomatic relations with China.

My purpose is not to praise President Nixon. My purpose is to remind us that people are a mixed combination of right decisions and wrong ones. Not one human being wears a white hat all the time, and every human being wears a black one some of the time. That’s why Jesus had to die.

I am saddened by the good guy/bad guy labeling in our country. I am also saddened by polarization. Richard Nixon said something profound about that:

“In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words . . . We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another.”

We should lay aside the idea of black hats and white hats, while we remember:

. . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 
being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption 
which is in Christ Jesus . . .
Romans 3:23-24

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
But a harsh word stirs up anger.
Proverbs 15:1

 

 

 

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