I’m no fan of Reagan, but this simply isn’t true. The US has been bullying other, smaller nations as long as it has existed. The Spanish-American War, the Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the United Fruit Company, etc-need I go on? Durin the Eisenhower administration, the CIA went into Guatemala and overthrew the government…all for the sake of a fruit company.
I’m not trying to start another “US IS BAD!” argument, just pointing out that Reagan didn’t start this. It’s always been done, and we’re not the only nation to act this way, either.
No question, America has. Next thing you know, America’s going to go on vacation to Hawaii, have a “Christmas Carol” episode, have a very special episode about drug use or child abuse, and then our wacky cousin is going to move in.
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That’s what I’m saying too. I mean, when China gets a per/capita GDP like ours, we won’t really have any reason to be considered a hegemon anymore. I say our hegemony runs out around 2020.
Don’t forget the episode where America accidentally makes a date with the retarded country and has to find a way out of it, but learns in the end that all countries are important in their own way.
In global, non-US surveys, there was around 81% opposition to Bush. This is roughly 4,657,500,000 people; in the US there was 49% opposition to Bush. This is roughly 122,500,000 people. So we have a global split of ~ 4,780,000,000 people vs 1,220,000,000, or ~80% of the world vs 20%.
You may not like this, but I think it would be a good idea for Bush voters to acknowledge that it is in fact the US electorate that has lurched to the right, not the rest of the world to the left.
That may be true, but when I think how many people hate my government, how many people hate may country, and how many people hate the fact that I still draw breath… well, I realize that numbers like that don’t mean shit. Life is not a popularity contest.
I was merely responding to the assertion that it was the rest of the world that had “jumped the shark”. It is the US that has changed - in recent decades US politics have moved way to the right of nearly all of the rest of the democratic world. The Republicans have won 7 of the past 10 presidential elections, and the Republicans are very strongly to the right of most significant conservative parties around the world. Without wishing to hijack this thread into a discussion of the Israel/Palestine problem, I’m sure in a similar poll, despite the horrific intentions of some of your near neighbours, you’d find the vast majority of the world didn’t hate your country, but perhaps merely opposed the current government’s policies in the Occupied Territories. Britain used to face similar international oppobrium for its policies in Northern Ireland, and justifiably so, in my opinion.
