The world prefers Obama
Wednesday, 10 September 2008 | 64 readers so far
As a legally naturalized citizen of these United States, and a trained disciple of the cult of big government, my first thought upon reading an article stating that the world would prefer a President Obama was why the hell should I care what choice the rest of the world would make if they got to cast a ballot.
The answer is simple. The U.S. government makes a habit of forcing itself and its policies on the world. Democrats have done it. Republicans certainly do it. The world is quite aware of it. Whether you were born in Kosovo, Mogadishu or Baghdad, you might feel you have a stake in who becomes the next U.S. president. After all, the decision may determine whether or not your family gets bombed in the middle of the night. Americans don’t have to worry about that (yet).
The longer I study U.S. history the more clear it becomes that the United States government has acted as an agression machine far longer than I have been alive. As a part of that factory of forced policy (a national guardsman) I would much prefer that the federal behemoth shrink to the point where I don’t have to worry about which war I’ll be fighting next. Make no mistake, some wars are probably unavoidable. I am not a fan of rushing headlong into as many as possible. That’s something only a complete idiot would embrace.
Yet there seems to be no shortage of complete idiots. We also seem to have an overabdundance of men and women willing to use force to make others comply with ideas that start off well intentioned and almost always turn into unmitigated and poorly managed disasters.
If the world prefers Obama, who am I to tell them they have no say? It seems to me that they do.
1 September 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
kitansi says:
I understand what your saying Trevor..
But personally I could care a rats tail in hades what the world thinks about election results in this country. The election is just that.. a poll of votes of the population that come and select between the candidates. If we submit to popular opinion on the world stage.. we are at the mercy of public opinion in our own election affairs.
2 September 11th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Coralie Solange says:
Not related to your blog but I wanted to let you know I just emailed your gmail with some information. IDK if you have a better email to reach you at. Also, Mark from FTL tells me to tell you that I know THE Mark Edge and if you’d like to meet him when you’re in town it can arranged
3 September 11th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Trevor says:
Yes, I’d like to meet. My trip has moved to the first or second week in October though…I’ll follow up with you privately.
4 September 11th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Trevor says:
Kitanis my friend,
Let’s extrapolate what you are saying a little -
Here’s where I have a problem. I was playing devil’s advocate in my blog entry of course. But let’s think about this some more. Who should have a say in how the nation-state called America by most runs its affairs.
I don’t support running things based on popular opinion. We’re already at the mercy of public whims in this country. Are you suggesting that the public whims of people born inside our geographic boundaries are more palatable to you than the whims of the French, for instance?
5 September 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Stan says:
I think it comes down to who is paying the bills. As an American taxpayer, I am paying for my government (more of it than I want of course). That gives me the moral right to have a say so in who runs it, much like the stockholder of a corporation has.
This is not true of the French citizen. They may be stakeholders of sorts, but they are not stockholders. Thus, he/she is quite free to state their opinion as to who they want me to vote for, but not to cast a vote of their own.
I have been reading quite a bit of American history as well. My take on it; though not perfect, this country has been far more of a positive force in the world than a negative one, militarily or otherwise. God help us if the Soviet Union or China held claim to being the world’s only superpower.
Stan