U.S. Olympic cyclists are being criticized for wearing protective air filters on their faces upon arriving to the pollution-choked city of Beijing for supposedly "insulting" their Chinese hosts. They now have released an official and formal apologize for the very understandable crime of protecting their valuable lungs from airborne toxins and carcinogens.
This is representative of an ongoing and unbecoming hesitancy to say or do anything that may reflect poorly upon the communist People's Republic of China. Although most members of the "free world" have tacit reservations and silent condemnations of the nation's contemptible human rights record, I have seen too few who are willing to publicly express these reasonable criticisms. So afraid are people in political positions (elected or otherwise) to admit the moral repulsiveness of China's Maoist regime that they will now apologize for protecting their own health. Politicians, corporate sponsors, and olympians alike have turned a blind eye to China's well-documented and continuing infringement of citizens' life, liberty, and property.
Whether this widespread reticence in the matter is based in fears of economic disaster from an irrational and authoritarian retaliation is irrelevant. Economic clout does not change moral realities. Denial, even tacit denial, of China's human rights abuses is an egregious rejection of reality -- which, as author/philosopher Ayn Rand put it, is "anti-life". If lying is immoral, then surely such self-deception is just as condemnable. Integrity is the admirable quality of being resolutely firm in one's moral principles. No one with integrity would turn their back on crimes against humanity. No one with integrity would hold their tongue in the presence of such evil.
Those with integrity are often respected but rarely emulated. The moralist is burdened with the onerous task of integrity. But it is integrity that keeps human societies stable and (potentially) more rational. For the individual, rigid adherence to rational values and principles increases survival and enjoyment of life. Rejection of reality leads naturally to misery. Integrity may not always be the safe choice or the comfortable choice, but it is always the right choice.
