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Politics: Heroic or Arrogant?
Tue, 05 Jul 2005

Open mouth, insert foot :) But the perfect thing to say right after Independence Day in the US perhaps ...

Over lunch, within the sphere of people I know, we tend to get into a lot of debates -- bickering over culture or history or politics or movies or operating systems or philosophy or whoknowswhat .. but once in awhile a debate will come up that eventually meanders around to being a discussion about inter-country intrigue. (For the record I'm two kilos liberal, half a pound old fashioned, and a bucket of mixed altruism, pragmatism and intelligism. Clear as mud-pie? :)

Now this is a delicate topic to bring up in a public forum without the whole context of a discussion and without knowing my views more carefully, but let me come right out and say it -- when people come right down to it and bring up US foreign policy, I think Americans tend to fall in the misunderstood hero group. OKay okay, I know right off some people will say Americans are arrogant or paranoid or controlling or corrupt or whatever, and of course any generalization is ugly (and it applies to every government in the world!).. but sure, maybe the US Army and government are arrogant - tough not to be when you're the most powerful country in the world. Here in Canada we're very close to the US and share television/music/culture, trade, many ideals, etc etc, and are proud of our liberal and understanding approach to problems. We don't fly off the handle, but we're a tough bunch who like to figure out what needs to be done and do it. We're also lucky to have such strong allies IMHO, since we've disarmed so much...

Why did I get into this post-that-cannot-come-out-right? A post guaranteed to make me sound like an apologist or hater or hippy? Oh yeah -- I just wanted to say that here we're quite multicultural and I've heard it all -- one group of friends is upset the Americans didn't help them enough during their homeland's conflicts. Another group of friends is annoyed they helped at all or too much, while still another group is annoyed the US helped someone else .. so people will be angry with the American governments stance of doing nothing, doing something, or going all the way. The US foreign policy cannot please everyone and so someone is always upset .. whats a country to do when they're raised to try and help, but get fed every possible permutation of action?

But heres what I wanted to say, fool that I am -- I'm glad the Americans are willing to try. They'll screw up once in awhile, sure (and don't go bringing up the cost of mistakes or World War 2), but I'm glad they don't back down when cornered, that they do follow through on what they say, and at least stand up for something. And they've sure done some good in the past, regardless of what you think of the mess in the world today..

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