Apologizing

This man in the street wants to know!
What is the barrier, hurdle, or difficulty that governments have in apologizing for big and obvious internal or foreign policy mistakes? And I’m not just talking about the little stuff, but what about the worst of the worst WW2 crimes of Imperial Japan? Or for that matter, any misgivings about the course of action taken my Mao in idealism of revolution come to life disaster of the Great Leap Forward (according to the reading he went off to lick his wounds and was later sorry for having been at all contrite). I don't get it, would he not have been a greater leader to have admitted to being truly one of the people, a mortal, just like them, and far less than infallible and unassailable? I don’t understand that stuff. Truly.
I remember in college a polysci professor with obvious scorn setting me straight, straightly wrong, when I stated, with deference and graciousness respect, that Abe Lincoln had not been the Republican's first person to run as a national candidate in the newly formed party, but in fact that it was actually John C. Ferment in 1856. Knowing that wasn’t a victory for me, but for this ensconced sinecurist is was the voice of apostate upstartedness. How dumb.
Revealing moment:
I know where my anger about this issue comes from concerning the subject of contrition as explored by the above discussion; my older brother was an imperious bully who expected complete fealty. What a jerk.
Individuals, national leaders, national collective will (if it ever really exists); the mea culpa, the admission of being less than; the positively ideal view of the potential of the human spirit unbridled by Locke’s vision; or Niethche’s and Zappa’s, as is what is, you are what you is indifference; and though Nitche viewed us as diseased, Zappa was the libertarian, we’re all just a bag of s**t, behave yourself and enjoy yourself, Zappa was another that never admitted mistakes. It’s kind of a dilemma.
Among the ranks that side with the Civil War’s Confederacy in the U.S., you’ll often hear from the South side’s fans that...”Slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War”. I know their argument; states rights, economics, blah, blah, blah. It’s the same thing again, how tiresome.
Kelly
[Edit by="khoover on Aug 26, 11:29:59 PM"][/Edit]