Anything wrong with criticizing your own country/government while abroad?

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
What should you do when you’re talking to a foreign audience and they bring up US politics?
[/QUOTE]

One should give an answer to the best of one’s abilities, one that is as non-partisan and truthful as possible (no one can be completely unbiased). As a private citizen traveling abroad, thats always been my own policy when I get into various discussions about the US and its foreign or domestic policies. I don’t pull any punches and present the facts to the best of my knowledge. As long as you aren’t intentionally trying to play up to your foreign audience (by telling them what they want to hear about bad ole America), then I think you are being a good ‘informal ambassador’…good term that.

If you were a famous person though, you have a much greater access to a wider stage, so your words are going to have more consequences and impacts. I still say that someone in that position shouldn’t feel constrained…if they want to rant and rave at the President, the country, the government, whatever, then they should…they should just realize that there are consequences to their actions. Consequences you didn’t have to encounter, not being widely known (at least, I assume thts the case :))…but that someone like the DC’s have to factor in before opening their mouth.

FWIW, I think you should have layed out the reasons as you saw them, instead of mouthing what the Administration was saying…but cavioted them by saying these were your impressions. And you should have kept as much heat out of your words as possible, not ranting at Bush et al but calmly saying what you thought, your impressions, and the facts as you understood them at the time. You would have felt better about the speech and the listeners would have felt they were really getting YOUR impressions and thoughts.

-XT

62

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
So, why was the CW fanbase so damn mad at the DC?
[/QUOTE]

Despite all the grandstanding by their critics, the Dixie Chicks still sell millions of CDs, and some of their shows are sold out. Their new CD is doing well, with absolutely no airplay.

As Loopydude said, it is a patriot’s duty to speak up if he disagrees with the government, whether he’s at home or in another land. Freedom of speech gets rusty if you never use it.

When politicians act to restrict freedom of speech, that’s mighty close to treason. When a man is arrested for criticizing the vice president to his face, and another is wrestled to the ground for asking pointed questions of a US senator, there are cracks in the foundation.

That’s my opinion.

63

[QUOTE=xtisme]
As long as you aren’t intentionally trying to play up to your foreign audience (by telling them what they want to hear about bad ole America)
[/QUOTE]

This is just classic, the idea that if those abroad expresses their true sentiments of disgust with their own government, it may somehow not be sincere, but instead simply a means of ingratiating themselves to foreigners. What an utter distortion. And I’ve frankly never known anyone abroad to express a desire to see something bad in America. What they do see in America that bothers them seems to cause them genuine disturbance, even fear, and they’d much rather have a more positive view of America than they do. American foreign policy tends to have that kind of impact, The U.S. being the most powerful and influential nation on the planet, after all.

I also strongly disagree that one must be somehow “non-partisan” in their communications abroad. If the facts as I understand them are in direct opposition to, say, Republican rhetoric, I will feel no shame or reservation in expressing my opinion that the Republicans are wrong and being misleading. If the “facts have a liberal bias”, that’s not my fault, and I’m not going to apologise for it. No one should. You’ll look more like a fool if you try, because it’s actually rather rare in politics that a “balanced” representation of an issue is an accurate one. I, and doubtless most people, when asked an honest question wish to give what they feel to be an honest answer, and if that answer is one the questioner would like to hear, the answer need have been no less honestly rendered for it.

64

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Nor were they insulted by the Dixie Chicks. What is your point?
[/QUOTE]
Your response makes no sense. The Dixie Chicks lost concert dates and record sales because their fans were pissed off. Last time I checked they had to cancel 14 cities. At $100 a ticket times 5,000 seats thats $500,000 per city or $7 million.

65

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
InvisibleWombat insists it does make a big difference that she made this statement while abroad rather than at home. Does it?
[/QUOTE]
I said it made a big difference to me. I suspect that other people agree with that P.O.V., especially after reading this thread, but I wasn’t speaking for those people. What she did was legal–I just didn’t like it.

[QUOTE=BwanaBob]
People are not seeing the distinction between can’t and shouldn’t.

Of course Natalie Maines has the right to criticize the government anywhere she wants.

And I have the right to embarass my child in front of his friends. This doesn’t mean I should.

It’s just bad form.
[/QUOTE]
You understood perfectly what I was saying.

[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
It is not a violation of law. It is not a breech of etiquette. It does not fly in the face of tradition, morality or common sense.
[/QUOTE]
It is not a violation of the law. True. Nor does it fly in the face of tradition–there are a lot of rude people in the world. But it does fly in the face of etiquette.

If I’m having a private one-on-one discussion with someone in another country and they ask what I think of a particular American politician, I’ll tell them. Sure. But I won’t plant myself in front of an audience of thousands of people who did not come to hear my political opinions and blast my country or its government. In my opinion, it’s tacky.

[QUOTE=Ravenman]
Question for those who believe Americans shouldn’t criticize their government while abroad: During the Clinton impeachment, I lived in China. People would ask me what I thought of the whole issue. I said that the Republican-led Congress was engaging in a shameful partisan witchhunt driven by an irrational hatred of Clinton and that the effort was a shameful subordination of the Constitution to bitter partisanship.
[/QUOTE]
I was asked about it, too. I was in Mexico at the time. I said “He perjured himself. In America, people go to jail for that. He also had sex with someone in his chain of command. A school chancellor or corporate manager would lose his job for that. Clinton kept his job, didn’t go to jail, and got a $10 million book deal. In America, the law doesn’t apply the same to everyone.” (As a side note, why is it that Bush-haters always seem to support Clinton and Clinton-haters always seem to support Bush? They both should have been forced to resign!)

[QUOTE=Ravenman]
So, basically, I criticized Congress and defended the President. My questions are: Is it okay to criticize Congress while abroad? Or does the no-criticism rule only apply to the President? Or should I have pretended that I didn’t have an opinion on the matter?
[/QUOTE]
To reiterate my feeling, you can say whatever you want in private (legally, you can say whatever you want anywhere). That’s entirely different from shouting it to a crowd in a foreign country.

[QUOTE=TokyoPlayer]
It’s not a cheap shot at the President. He’s a war criminal and I’m ashamed of him.
[/QUOTE]
You’re ashamed of him. That would be a fact. “He’s a war criminal” is not. In this country, one isn’t a criminal until one is convicted of a crime.

[QUOTE=Loopydude]
Hell, no, it’s an obligation. Just imagine what the rest of the world might think if they interpreted our universal silence in their lands as tacit support of our government’s wantoness and idiocy.
[/QUOTE]
Last time I checked, CNN was beamed worldwide. I don’t think it’s any secret than many Americans disagree with the actions of the government in general and the president in specific. But I’ll repeat my point one more time: there’s a difference between one-on-one communication and standing in front of a crowd in another country and dissing our president.

66

Sure there’s a difference. For one thing, more people hear you. So what? I suppose it might be “rude” to stand in front of a crowd and shout out anything that wasn’t generally entertaining, and I suppose unsolicited politicizing might be off-putting, but I think that’s quite independent of the subject being discussed. I simply do not understand why, if there is an interested audience, be they one, a few, or thousands, one should feel obliged to refrain from criticizing one’s own leaders. Other than creating some special catagory of offense to stifle dissent, I see no good motivation for such a standard of “etiquette”. As an American, I should be able to speak well or ill of my leaders no matter where I am, and to whoever I like, free of any and all restrictions. This “etiquette” looks like little more than political censorship to me. Fortunately there aren’t any thought police (yet) out there to enforce it.

67

Well, that’s what I had been planning to do, if my audience hadn’t erupted in laughter right at the start over our pathetic, ludicrous, asinine, absurd excuse for an official foreign policy rationale.

His response made perfect sense. The Dixie Chicks did not insult their fans by saying “we’re ashamed that the President is from Texas”. They may have pissed off some of their fans by dissing the President, but that’s not the same thing as insulting the fans themselves. If you happen to love pineapple pizza and I happen to say “Pineapple pizza is gross and disgusting”, you might be pissed off at me because I insulted your favorite food, but you can’t claim that I insulted you.

68

I honestly cannot comprehend the attitude of InvisibleWombat and those like him. You’re not my family. You’re not my friends. You’re not even my allies, necessarily. You’re my countrymen, which implies a very limited form of loyalty that applies in very narrow circumstances. Expressing my opinion on internal politics to an international audience isn’t one of them. I want people in other nations to know I don’t like Bush. I want them to know that I’m not the only one. My opposition to Bush and the policies he advocates trumps any concept of not putting out “bad PR” for the nation. I am not a public relations agent for the United States, for one, but that aside, telling the world that there are a lot of Americans who hate George Bush is the best possible thing one could do for our international image, short of impeaching the son of a bitch. Hell, I spent the evening of September 11th, 2001 telling foreigners how much of an incompetent fuck-up I thought George Bush to be. I’d gladly do it again today. The only difference being, I’ve got a lot more to complain about now than I did back then.

69

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
His response made perfect sense. The Dixie Chicks did not insult their fans by saying “we’re ashamed that the President is from Texas”. They may have pissed off some of their fans by dissing the President, but that’s not the same thing as insulting the fans themselves. If you happen to love pineapple pizza and I happen to say “Pineapple pizza is gross and disgusting”, you might be pissed off at me because I insulted your favorite food, but you can’t claim that I insulted you.
[/QUOTE]
No, that’s not true. Insulting someone’s choice in president is an insult by association. Voting is an intellectual choice and not a culinary preference. For your analogy to make sense the choice of pineapple pizza would have to include a criteria such as nutrition or caloric intake. Otherwise it’s just personal preference.

70

:confused: “Insult by association”? Doesn’t that seem a little hypersensitive? And where do you draw the line between “intellectual choice” and “personal preference”? Would opinions about, say, books count as “intellectual choice”? If you happen to love Hemingway and I say Hemingway can’t write for shit, have I insulted you “by association”?

Anyway, if you really believe that insulting a politician actually also counts as a direct insult to all his/her supporters, then I guess you need to do some apologizing yourself for insulting all the Dopers who chose to vote for Kerry:

And for insulting Dopers who chose to vote for Gore:

And for insulting Dopers who chose to vote for Clinton:

I await your apologies for having insulted me “by association” by expressing negative opinions about politicians I voted for.

71

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
:confused: “Insult by association”? Doesn’t that seem a little hypersensitive? And where do you draw the line between “intellectual choice” and “personal preference”? Would opinions about, say, books count as “intellectual choice”? If you happen to love Hemingway and I say Hemingway can’t write for shit, have I insulted you “by association”?

Anyway, if you really believe that insulting a politician actually also counts as a direct insult to all his/her supporters, then I guess you need to do some apologizing yourself for insulting all the Dopers who chose to vote for Kerry:

And for insulting Dopers who chose to vote for Gore:

And for insulting Dopers who chose to vote for Clinton:

I await your apologies for having insulted me “by association” by expressing negative opinions about politicians I voted for.
[/QUOTE]
Do you feel insulted?

72

[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
No, it’s what you think the CW fanbase calls patriotism. Don’t put straw men up so you can knock them down. Willie alone can blow your argument down.
[/QUOTE]

What did Willie say, exactly? Cite? I’d like to compare the two.

73

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
I don’t especially care if an American criticizes U.S. government policy while abroad. Making huge sweeping generalizations about the presumed stupidity/religiosity/naivete/general objectionableness of the American people is both ignorant and poor form.
[/QUOTE]

But the Dixie Chicks did nothing of the kind.

74

“He’s not from Texas, and he ain’t a cowboy, so let’s stop trashin’ Texans and cowboys.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1220511,00.html
He thinks it being overseas and onstage has something to do with it. I could stand to agree.
Thing is, more I think about it, I don’t think the Dixie Chicks’ fanbase is the hardcore CW crowd.

75

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0101-01.htm
Willie wrote a song about the war, come to think of it.
The point being that Willie’s been a hippie for a long time. He’s still right at the heart of C&W, right there with Waylon Jennings. So, whatever you’re saying, it’s more complicated than ‘ugh, C&W fans are neanderthals. Ugh.’

76

[QUOTE=Magiver]
Your response makes no sense. The Dixie Chicks lost concert dates and record sales because their fans were pissed off. Last time I checked they had to cancel 14 cities. At $100 a ticket times 5,000 seats thats $500,000 per city or $7 million.
[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes: “Pissed off” != “insulted.” The DC said nothing to disparage their fan base or CW fans in general. What they’re apparently reacting to is the political content of Maine’s statement.

77

[QUOTE=Loopydude]
This is just classic, the idea that if those abroad expresses their true sentiments of disgust with their own government, it may somehow not be sincere, but instead simply a means of ingratiating themselves to foreigners. What an utter distortion. And I’ve frankly never known anyone abroad to express a desire to see something bad in America. What they do see in America that bothers them seems to cause them genuine disturbance, even fear, and they’d much rather have a more positive view of America than they do. American foreign policy tends to have that kind of impact, The U.S. being the most powerful and influential nation on the planet, after all.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t think you read what I said as I intended it Loopy…or maybe you are deliberately reading more in that what I said. If you really believe that the government is wrong (as I assume Kimstu did at that time, and still does), then stating that is fine…its the right thing for her(?) to have done IMHO. Not a rant, but a calm laying out of the facts and impressions of why the US/Bush was wrong, or the real reasons (from Kimstu’s perspective) of why we invaded (since that was the question asked).

And I’ve seen PLENTY of folks who, when they are talking to folks in outer countries, who like to play to their audience on all manner of subjects…including trashing the US because they know this will get a better reception. If you haven’t seen that (i.e. folks who will say what they know their audience wants to hear)…well, either the folks you meet are from a different species or you travel in some rather odd circles. :stuck_out_tongue:

Please don’t try and paint me into some preconceived notion of what you THINK my position is…m’kay? And try not to read one line of what I write and then form your whole impression from that alone…I did go on to expand on my thoughts in the rest of that paragraph (which I note you didn’t quote). Thanks in advance! :wink:

-XT

78

Very well! Many apologies, and please forgive me! I mean that sincerely, and completely admit I am in the wrong in my misinterpretation.

79

No worries Loopy…you know I like you. :slight_smile: Just wanted to set the record staight…besides, my opinions are hardly ‘classic’ neo-con philosophy, and didn’t want to piss those guys off by implying I was speaking for them. Dey are scary…

-XT

80

[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
“He’s not from Texas, and he ain’t a cowboy, so let’s stop trashin’ Texans and cowboys.”

He thinks it being overseas and onstage has something to do with it. I could stand to agree.
Thing is, more I think about it, I don’t think the Dixie Chicks’ fanbase is the hardcore CW crowd.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, and that’s a lot different than getting up before a foriegn audience and saying that you’re ashamed that GWB is from Texas. Saying he’s not a cowboy isn’t much of an insult. Here’s the whole cite:“They got a raw deal. I think the fact that they were overseas and onstage had a little bit to do with it because you’re speaking to other people about our business. I’m surprised I didn’t get in trouble a year before that when I was at a press conference overseas and they were asking me about our wild Texas cowboy President. I said, “He’s not from Texas, and he ain’t a cowboy, so let’s stop trashin’ Texans and cowboys.” It got a little chuckle, but I didn’t get run out of the country.”

So, even Willie seems to think that the DC went a little overboard in “speaking to other people about our business”. And, I also think that was the big issue- not that they critizied the President, but where, how and the choice of words.