*Originally posted by tschild *
<Bunch of nice and perceptive stuff snipped>
What tempers this admiration is IMO four things:
- the unavoidable one: some resentment bred by envy.
Well, we do work a gazillion hours more than everybody else for it. You want these hours, less job security, and no free health care, etc., you can have SUVs and steak and more movies with explosions too!
- the eminently avoidable one: US politicians gratuitously kicking the rest of the world in its collective teeth, and the US population not noticing or not caring.
Hmmmm…*
That last one can be further divided ito:
4 a) substance: The American people thinking they only elect an US president and associated domestic policies but not noticing they also elect a de facto World Emperor and not much caring about the interests of the people who don’t get to vote in that emperor’s election.
*This is true, but two quick things: Bush was elected in basically a different world. Nobody had any idea 9/11 would happen and the whole Administration would mobilize like this. Honestly, foreign policy was rarely brought up in the election, and Dubya’s ignorance rankled me a bit but nobody knew how important it would be. Besides, he was “surrounded by experts”. The world was at peace and many many people viscerally disliked Clinton, Gore ran a tepid campaign, so…Really, you can’t underestimate how much 9/11 changed our mindset.
Also, when you say “the rest of the world”, which part of it are you thinking of? What does a German want from America? It might be vastly different than what a Nigerian wants, a Japanese wants, a Mexican wants. Hey, there’s a good ex. right there: a western European would be happier, I suppose, with a candidate who emphasized mandatory universal health care paid for by employers, but how about a typical Mexican who thinks that their relatives will get laid off, etc. when this cost is incurred? What sort of policy could we possibly have with Israel that would make EVERYBODY happy?
I do agree that we might want to listen more to our friends, but believe me, they all seem to talk at once.*
b) style: American politicians thinking that they address a domestic audience but not noticing that they are speaking to the world. “Plain-spoken” to a local audience translates to “gratuitously insulting” to a foreign audience’s perception. “Patriotic” to an audience used to rhetoric flag-waving translates to “barking mad, whom will he attack?” to a foreign audience’s perception.
…uh…yeah…unlike those smooth operators like Berlusconi, hmmm? Surely people can decipher rhetoric by now, and know that every President has ended speeches with a pro forma “God Bless America” for twenty years now. If I walked into a public school classroom in Germany and saw the cross on the wall, should I be worried that there’s no freedom of religion in the country?