A notion about nations: Do efficiency and...

A notion about nations: Do efficiency and freedom really go land in land?

In writing about the recent series of events that had brought help to our door in the form of firemen, paramedics and water and power linemen, I expressed my gratitude to those “competent men and women who did something for a living that was hard to do and that served others.”

“The streets might be full of muggers and rapists and burglars and psychos holding up restaurants and shooting the customers,” I said, “but there were still men out there making things work . . . . They were not only out there, they were in the majority; and they did it because they were free.”

I didn’t mean to suggest, of course, that the workers in a free country were the only ones who did good work, or could be relied upon; but only that there was something special about the work of a man or woman who did it out of choice, because he was free to choose.

That bit of euphoria has brought a cynical rejoinder from Alton L. Safford of Wrightwood, who writes, “Aw, come on, Jack, who are you kidding?

“In the first place, your implication that only people in a ‘free’ nation work effectively and caringly, and in a responsible manner, simply is not true. You should know better than to say things like that.

“Remember: It was Mussolini who made the trains of Italy run on time; it was the French Foreign Legion who always came through in a pinch; it was Hitler who developed a terribly efficient industrial nation and the greatest army in modern history; it was Hirohito’s brutally effective army which conquered Manchuria and took over ‘our’ Pacific Ocean.

“And it was the ‘unfree’ Russian armies who finally stopped Hitler.”

Safford suggests that doctors, nurses, orderlies, firemen, linemen and workers of all kinds do just as good a job in the Soviet Union, Cuba, the Warsaw Pact nations, Nicaragua, Pakistan, North Korea and Vietnam as they do here.

He calls my thinking a kind of chauvinistic nationalism. “While certainly on the increase here, and, sadly, encouraged by Reagan--it makes me uncomfortable. Hitler used similar tactics to unify and control his ‘free’ people in Germany in the 1930s.

“I find such beliefs intellectually offensive. Attitudes of that nature are associated with the simplistic thinking, displaced feelings, and value structures of lower-class, poorly educated, blue-collar workers in America. This is the the kind of sentimental, macho talk you hear in bars and bowling alleys . . . . “

I can’t deny that I have picked up a lot of my philosophy in bars over the years, though none of it has come from bowling alleys.

Indeed, I have rubbed elbows with a lot of blue-collar workers in many bars, and I suppose I do tend to share their thoughts on some things.

For example, I’m sure that none of my old bar companions, if he’d had a heart attack of the kind I had recently, would have cared to have had it in the Soviet Union, Cuba, Nicaragua, Pakistan, North Korea, or any number of other countries I could name.

He’d want to have had it right where I did--at home in Los Angeles, a few steps from his telephone, and only three miles from the County-USC Medical Center.

I wonder if Safford has tried to make a long-distance call in Nicaragua lately?

It is odd that he should cite the armies of totalitarian states as examples of efficiency. No armies are democratic, including the Army of the United States, despite its recent recognition of the principles of equal opportunity.

Besides, what’s the French Foreign Legion doing in there? Wasn’t France, theoretically, at least, a democracy when the Legion enjoyed its glory days? Truly the Legion was the least democratic of French institutions, being made up partly of refugees from criminal justice in other countries; in any case, it wasn’t very efficient. Maybe Safford has seen too many movies. All the Legion did was subdue and repress some backward people in Africa with superior weapons and the economic support of a modern industrialized nation.

As for Mussolini making the trains run on time, while you could get from Rome to Naples on time the fascist Italian army was disgracing Italy’s ancient heritage by blundering all over northern Africa and conquering nomad Libyans and neolithic Ethiopians in a series of ill-conceived and ineptly executed “modern” campaigns.

I can’t see that Safford has proved anything by pointing out that Germany had “the greatest army in modern history” and it was finally stopped by the “unfree” Russians.

There were some “unfree” Americans in Europe at the time, too, remember.

And what about the Royal Air Force, Churchill’s indomitable few, who in Britain’s “finest hour” stopped the Luftwaffe, which Safford would no doubt concede was the greatest military air force ever seen on Earth up to that time.

As for Hirohito’s “brutally effective army,” I assume Safford knows how the war in the Pacific turned out.

In his peroration, Safford says: “People behave decently, act in a reliable manner, keep their promises and are reliable and caring and do a good job, because they are trained and expected to do so, because such behaviors are a part of their cultural heritage, because of high standards and tight supervision, and because of good esprit de corps and pride in their work. That’s all . . . . “

True enough. And I can’t imagine a better description of the nation of Americans who awakened to the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

I believe we won that war, Safford, because we were free.