VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 14:35:14 09/11/02 Wed
Author: FawnDoo
Subject: European credibilty and what that says about the US
In reply to: Perceptor II 's message, "Why Europe lacks credibility within the U.S." on 17:22:31 09/10/02 Tue

"That is the problem, part of the reason people in the United States tend not to listen to European criticism. The European press expended a whole lot of energy and vitriol for what, by your admission, is something that is only "semi-questionable"."

I would disagree with Icon's assessment of treatment of prisoners as semi-questionable - it is a human rights issue, after all, and there is the question of legality - are these people classified as prisoners of war with all the legal rights that come with that classification? Has there been a legal declaration of war at any point along the way? I don't know what the legal position is in the US, but I certainly think that in this day and age there would have to be a legal declaration of war at one point, what with international law and all that.

With these questions, criticism is bound to arise - and if there is energy and vitriol, uncaring as it sounds, everyone has to deal with vocal critics, the United States included. I mean absolutely no disrespect in saying this, but though the US was dealt an underhanded, cowardly and devastating blow last year, that does not make it immune to criticism from other parts of the world, nor does it set it above international law - in fact these things (freedom to crticize one another and adherence to a common set of principles dedicated to equal treatment in the eyes of the law) are what set us aside from the people we are fighting.

"Combined with the anti-American sentiment that came out during the Salt Lake City Games,"

At sports events you get every kind of "anti" feeling in the world, PII: sporting events do tend to attract those people to whom the term "lowest common denominator" would represent a promotion (again note, I know perfectly reasonable people attend sports events, but they can, like any other field of interest, attract the idiots and the deep feelings aroused by sporting competition can sometimes arouse these morons to angry words). To relate grousing at a sports event to legitimate criticism of treatment of prisoners is a bit of a stretch.

"the moaning and wailing over our most recent Presidential election (which, for some reason, led to a lot of calls in Europe for the U.S. to change to a parliamentary style democracy, surprise, surprise),"

Not entirely sure what you mean here. Okay, there may have been calls like that (never heard any myself, but there you go, just shows I should read more newspapers) but your statement above - especially with the "surprise, surprise" part - seems to indicate that there was some ulterior motive to these calls. Did you think these calls for governmental reform were precursors for re-colonisation? ;-) Establishment of US Dominion status? :-) (notice the profusion of smileys in the previous sentences!) There have been calls over here for UK Parliamentary leaders to adopt the US style debates in the run-up to elections. That doesn't mean that I am about to say "Well, surprise surprise, they want us to adopt that." With the undertone of "They have something in mind here that they're not telling us!"

Nah, the only thing I would suggest the US adopts for its next election is a slightly clearer voting form (which seemed to be the problem, from what I remember on the news): perhaps along the lines of "Here is a list of all candidates - tick the box next to the one you want to vote for." As I recall much of the talk after the US election, aside from the worries about whether it was Gore who actually won, was good-natured ribbing about something going wrong - again, something the US will need to stand from time to time. I'm sure there were those in the international community who smiled (though it was a smaller event) when the United "had a navy for hundreds of years" Kingdom managed to run one of its destroyers into a well-marked rock off the coast of Australia.

"and just seeing that anti-American bigotry finds itself in major newspapers without any sort of denunciation, except from American pundits."

There may have been anti-American feeling in newspapers. That does not mean that they speak with one voice for every European citizen, however. Bear in mind that though there has been criticism about the US from Europe, there has also been an unceasing flow of moral support, money and resources, with some governments (and I am thinking of the UK one especially at this point) standing by the US in thick and thin, even sending our own men and women in to crisis situations alongside their US counterparts.

"It's the whole "boy who cried wolf" thing."

I agree, but I suspect we have different things in mind.

"With so much of the criticism being nonsense or worse, when you actually do call us on something that deserves criticism, our natural response is to dismiss it as more B.S. and just not listen."

That says something bad about the US, not Europe. Any power in the world today has a responsibility to listen and respond to its critics. The US derives a great deal of power, money and prestige from its position as the sole superpower worth its salt, and an unfortunate side-effect of that position is the fact that people will tend to resent and in some cases hate the US for its success. This will also mean that as the largest player on the world's stage, the US will attract the lion's share of criticism. The British had it when we had an Empire and were the big player, as did the Spanish, French and Russian Empires.

What the US cannot do is have the prestige, money, unrivalled economic and military might, world influence and power and not have the payoff of people lining up to criticize - it's part of the world we live in. Besides, at the risk of sounding inflammatory, if something happens that the US does not like, it is not renowned the world over for being quiet about it....I dare say the US capacity for biting criticism is just as comprehensive as its European counterpart.

My entire point is this: the US does attract more criticism, at times, than it deserves and despite what people in the press say, I think it means well. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be criticized - a sign of maturity is the ability to listen to everything someone has to say and respond to what you feel is reasonable, not come back with "What you said before was unfounded, therefore I will dismiss everything you say as B.S."

I don't intend this post to start an argument - I prefer discussion - and I am aware that the date means that people may take this a little more personally than it was meant. It is not intended as an attack on the US and the way of life over there, just a reminder that we're all supposed to be big boys and girls on the world's stage and part of the gig is, unfortunately, putting up with people saying unkind things.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT+0
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.