Britons debate whether America should ever have existed

[FMJeff]

http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ==

The author of the article provided a transcript of his argument which pretty much encapsulates what I would say in response to such a proposition.

[Midkiff]

wow. good reading.

[Bob Impact]

http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ==

The author of the article provided a transcript of his argument which pretty much encapsulates what I would say in response to such a proposition.

I'm sure they all asked this question around 1945.

[AgnosticJihad]

Did anyone else click this link and get sent to an article about medicating dogs?

[El Mudo]

I did too....


Try this link (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTc2NTFmYTI0MGVlYzU5ZTJkNjZhM2E2OGI5NGVjZjk=)

[AgnosticJihad]

Thanks.

I see no real point in commenting since the entire article is the long-winded retelling of events from the point of view of a some douchebag pundit.

Also, I read the article twice, but don't recall seeing any mention of what this proposition said exactly, though I may have just missed it; after all, I did find myself dozing off at least three different times. But then, even if he did describe the proposition, I don't think I could trust him to speak of it without interjecting his own opinion into it.

I did feel the writer showed his own ignorance by trying to link the British Communist to the Soviets. Maybe I'm wrong, but the way I understand it all the existing Communist parties in Western Europe are and have been for quite some time free from links to Moscow, even before the fall of Communism. The way I understand it, modern day Communist parties, though each is different, generally call for state-directed economies and extensive social services, but not the political and social oppression employed by the Soviets; they are just hard-core socialists, not Bolsheviks. If they were Soviet-style Communists, these parties would be illegal, but they still exist to this day.

[RogerPodacter]

for this debate to even be happening is sad. the global view of america is surely not good right now. i think the global view of the american people is good, just not the of the government. and thats only happened in the last 20-40 years really.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

Nah. They hate the people too.

[JPMNICK]

I'm sure they all asked this question around 1945.

i was thinking the same exact thing. how quickly they forget what could have been. people only try to knock you down a peg when you are at the top and the best.

[keithy_19]

Eh, fuck Britain.

[weekapaugjz]

britain had two chances to squash america. its called the revolutionary war and the war of 1812. they lost. they suck.

[CaptClown]

Time to go out of the country and perpetuate the Ugly American myth again.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

britain had two chances to squash america. its called the revolutionary war and the war of 1812. they lost. they suck.

Eh, they didn't exactly lose the war of 1812. Might want to brush up on your history books there.

[Yerdaddy]

Nah. They hate the people too.

That's not true, but it's becomming more and more true over the last couple of years. I saw a trend line on this site somewhere (http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/) - I just can't remember where. (Good site though.) I've also seen it in my travels.

On the up-side though, approval ratings for Bin Laden are going way down too. That's the one positive trend.

[RogerPodacter]

yeah most things i've heard from folks from other countries say that they like the american people and think they are generally good people. just that our government makes bad decisions.

[TheMojoPin]

Eh, they didn't exactly lose the war of 1812. Might want to brush up on your history books there.

Yeah, no kidding. We had one major "victory" that occured technically once the war was already over (the battle of New Orleans), and that was about it.

[Yerdaddy]

yeah most things i've heard from folks from other countries say that they like the american people and think they are generally good people. just that our government makes bad decisions.

Funny thing is, in the Middle East anyway they just assume that we don't really have democracy so our politicians just steal elections and do what they want and the people have no real say in it. That's the way it works over there so they can't really relate to the concept that we choose our leaders to do our bidding - to the extent that they do anyway. So, in a way, it's the lack of democracy over there that keeps some of the anger - at the American people - at what we do in check.

But the general principle that we tend to overlook is that Middle Easterners and people everywhere are rational human beings who don't instinctively hate us out of jealousy or endless propaganda. When people live in a system informed exclusively by propaganda they generally understand it for what it is. (Regimes that are really actively repressive of information like China and North Korea notwithstanding.) So when explaining why they don't like us most people can cite a list of things our country has done that have effected them personally or their country as a whole. What we do as a nation actually matters.