Posted on 08/03/2007 6:25:27 AM PDT by Tolik
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
83% of high school students hate the valedictorian. But when they need a job from his company in a few years, they will be all smiles. ;)
If we want the Europeans to like us I guess we have to let them vote in socialist dictators to run their countries for a few years.
You know, I have never understood this all consuming need by liberals for America to be liked and well-regarded by rest of the world. Who cares? I certainly don’t! We know who our real friends are (GB, Australia, Japan, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Israel, and somtimes Canada), and if the rest of the world don’t like us, then tough!
Seems Liberals are most concerned why our worst enemies ( followers of pervert Mohhammed) hate us.
We will eventually have to wipe them off face of this planet, just as we defeated fascism half a century ago.
Where is Australia on the list?
They are #1 in my book.
I am not surprised to see India as a country which has a high number of their population favorable to this country. I have a very favorable view of their country as well although I have never traveled there. I have had the good fortune to become acquainted with many Indian professionals, most of whom have become citizens of this country. I consider a couple among my most valued friends. Their cultural background is different than mine, but we share the core American values that were instilled by my family and community. I find them more American and assimilated than so much of this Hate America crowd which is a product of a rotten liberal public school system as well as a product of the MSM and popular culture which is self-hating.
I've read a few things suggesting that with the Russian population shrinking and the growth of both the Chinese population and their new found wealth (which some say is an illusion) that there will be trouble on the China/Russia border, among the more than a dozen territorial disputes China is involved in.
Mine too. But they were not in the survey:
Countries and regions included in the survey:
The Americas: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, United States, Venezuela
Western Europe: Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden
Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine
Middle East: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian territories, Turkey
Asia: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Korea
Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda
I read that there is already a good number of illegal Chinese in the Russian Far East territories. The population density in the Russian regions right above China is very-very low. I am sure China would pounce on it if it could.
Another observation from the Pew data. South Koreans put a concern about spreading of nuclear weapons very low on their priority list. Pollution and “growing gap between the rich and poor” rate quite higher. I think this partially explains why North Korea was allowed to play so much with nukes. South Koreans don’t believe that they would be used against them and in a case of unification, they’d get nuclear status right away. Cynical, and I think misguided on their part. I would not trust crazed dictators. Japan rightfully disagrees as well: it has 3 times bigger concern about nukes than S.Korea.
Interesting times, my good man.
"..Envy is such an important but generally ignored concept, probably because people don't want to consider the sinister ways it operates in their own lives. But it is a key that unlocks many mysteries, particularly in politics. So strong and pervasive is envy, that you cannot have a political system that doesn't accommodate or find some way to manage envy. You might say that one party will generally represent the envied, the other the envious. Guess which ones.
More generally, the international left does not attack the United States because they hate us. Rather, they hate the United States because they envy us. Precisely because they cannot tolerate our unparalleled goodness and success, they attack it and turn America into a uniquely bad, greedy and envious object. It is pure projection. In engaging in this projection of their own greed and envy, they damage what is good and conflate good and evil, but at least it helps to temporarily diminish the pain of their own envy. They do the same thing with Israel.
But "...to use one of Freud's most famous phrases, when it comes to the projection of envy and greed, "the one who smelt it, dealt it." bttt
The anti-American sentiment expressed in the Pew polls would probably be even higher if foreigners were to read Victor Davis Hanson on a regular basis.
No doubt when the Bush administration leaves office, and should a Democratic one replace it, our approval ratings will rise with our present detractors.
Unlikely. When Clinton left the office here is how the Europeans said of him behind you Americans backs:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1597970/posts
He will go down as the man who made America vain and egocentric and not willing to deal with the outside world. He encouraged the US to use its financial muscle to dictate to the world how it should live and any difference of opinion is not to be tolerated. Wake up America and get a president with compassion not just passion.
Mark Lisle, Germany
---------------------------------------------------------
For merciless bombing campaigns to distract attention from him NOT 'having sexual relations with that woman'. For supporting Israel as they broke numerous UN Resolutions in order to gain the political support of the New York Jewish Vote. For his love for a fine Cuban Cigar!
Wayne Brannan, UK
---------------------------------------------------------
Clinton clearly has done a good job on the domestic front creating jobs and improving the already high American quality of life. However he still pursued the bully-boy foreign policy of the United States which did not help his popularity outside of the US. Inside the US I believe he will be remembered as the President who was there when petrol prices peaked.
Nicholas Bradley, UK
---------------------------------------------------------
Another point that American liberals conveniently overlook is that while PR China is given a pass on a glance in polite diplomatic language, in practice the Western European countries are extremely negative towards individual mainland Chinese and PRC practices. For instance, ask individual French what they think of people in France who are from mainland China, and you will hear tales of mainland Chinese spitting on the streets, behaving immodestly on Parisian streets, nouvelle riche faces, etc, and they will gladly take the “where’s the McDonalds” American stereotyped tourists over these “daiquans” any day. Anyone who holds PRC passports are given additional scrutiny at CDG because so many Chinese arrive there and then overstay to become illegal immigrants.
Even among the “We are friends with you” Southeast Asia, PRC passport holders are looked down upon by the local Chinese.
Of course, this may not yet necessarily translate towards attitudes to national policy of PRC as a country, but given time I don’t think the European countries will really be that buddy-buddy with the PRC in the future.
A number of British diplomats have expressed weariness over the old special relationship with America. Likewise, the British public now barely expresses a favorable impression of the United States (51 percent). But given the emerging world landscape, such a change in attitude would be suicidal for the United Kingdom. History would instead counsel the British people that Europe has nearly destroyed them twice in the twentieth century, while America sought to save them — and would again in the twentieth-first.
Britain should tread carefully, since it is even more likely that a growing number of Americans is turned off by Europe, British anti-Americanism, NATO, and the Middle East. And in the long history of this country, isolationism, not intervention, has been the more natural American sentiment.
If the British think their Tony Blair was George Bush’s poodle, they may soon see a British prime minister reduced to a Chinese, Iranian, or Russian hamster — as we already have witnessed with the Russian assassination scandal and the even more embarrassing Iranian hijacking of a British boat.
Unfortunately, Russia and China will only grow wealthier from oil and trade surpluses, while the chances improve of a petrol-rich dictatorship in the Middle East gaining nuclear weapons within missile range of Europe. What will keep the U.S. engaged as a powerful ally of a Britain and Europe in their coming hour of need will not be brilliant statesmen or Atlantic-minded Presidents, but only American public opinion and goodwill that are predicated on some notion of reciprocal friendship.
Do you think Britons will listen to this?
Hi NZ,
I think that a 51% approval rating from the British people is actually quite good. That will be far higher than Britain’s approval rating for Europe. Britain’s the most Euro-skeptic country in Europe (including Poland). The British people are naturally cynical and if you ally that with our losses in Iraq and Afghanistan you may have expected far worse. I think the author overplays his argument with regards to Britain though. I really don’t see a weariness with the special relationship here and Brown has ruled out putting an artificial timetable on Britain’s withdrawal from Iraq. The UK is also increasing still further it’s committment to Afghanistan. I think it’s a bit insulting to suggest that the UK PM might be reduced to a ‘Chinese, Iranian, or Russian hamster’. The author also suggests that the assassination of the Russian dissident in the UK was a British failure. I thought Britain’s response was robust. The UK was the first country in the West to actually fully stand up to Putin in ths way. How the author calls this an embarrassment for Britain I don’t know.
With regards to the US: You have to remember in all this, of course, that dominant world powers have always been resented around the world.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.