The Galveston County Daily News

Something tells me I’m suffering from a disorder well known but never named, so, without further ado, I’m labeling it Shining Armor Syndrome.

It’s something like Münchausen syndrome by proxy, except that I have no desire to be thought of as ill and given tea and sympathy — I’d far rather be a hailed a hero and feted with champagne.

As evidence for my self-diagnosis, allow me to present the symptoms of my case.

About 10 days ago, I was thrown into confusion by a cruel dilemma — whether to place on our opinion page one particular submission for a guest column.

It wasn’t that I disagreed with the writer — in fact, I love nothing more than to treat y’all to something I find objectionable and see if you write in to voice similar objections while I sit back and enjoy the debate.

Indeed, this particular submission was one I thought needed to see the light of day sooner rather than later. However, I feared the writer would be misunderstood by a certain faction and felt a latent urge to protect her from the inevitable backlash.

Now, Dear Reader, you should be able to see the reason for my disorder’s new name — Whitey wanted to save a damsel from undue distress but he had it in his power to prevent her ever reaching that perilous point.

You could counsel me that publication was nothing less than is demanded by the right of free speech, but my condition is chronic — I can’t shrug off the pangs of guilt I feel for presenting to certain of your countrymen a brave exhortation by Ivana Atkins. To make amends, I must now ride to her rescue.

Miss Atkins wrote on this page last Saturday that the Americans who are calling President Barack Obama a communist can have no idea what it means to live under either the shackles or ideals of real communism. A Macedonian by birth, she counts herself lucky to live now in a nation whose leader is an “open-minded” force for “capitalistic” progress who will lead this country to greatness “again, but not as a socialist country.”

That anyone can accuse the president of being a communist is bewildering to her. She called upon those who are doing so to stop.

Her one weakness was her naïvety in boldly describing herself as “an expert in languages.” Her writing proves undoubtedly she has mastered American words (something on which I’m still working), but expertise in a language requires an instinct bordering on the innate for the way of life that fashions it. Miss Atkins was about to reap the whirlwind of daring to question one vital aspect of her new way of life — a deep-seated jingoism that brooks no dissent.

Many readers wrote to our letters page to advise her to “go back to your own country if you don’t like it here.”

I earnestly admonish those folks to reread Miss Atkins’ comments. She is not angry at America — only at those Americans trying to scare the rest of us into believing we’re bound only for goulash and gulags under the present administration.

We’re not. America’s sociopolitical system is far too sophisticated to permit its takeover by dictators of either left or right extremity.

Let the Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks and other entertainers masquerading as deep thinkers do whatever they must to maintain their ratings, but never let them persuade you we’re all in a handbasket bound for hell. That’s how ogres like Stalin started.

Englishman and former Fleet Street journalist Ian White is editor of Applause. Contact him by e-mail at ian.white(at)galvnews.com.