Posted on 10/21/2004 11:21:13 PM PDT by quidnunc
Why is America disliked so intensely and widely, with special emphasis in the Middle East? Here is one explanation: "No people are so disliked out of their own country … They assume superiority, and this manner is far from pleasant to other people … I have never seen among any people such rudeness and violation of good breeding … As a nation they are intensely selfish and arrogant." A furious indictment, to be sure — but not of the United States. For the words are those of an American, Robert Laird Collier, writing of the Britain he toured at its imperial zenith in the 1880s.
Over the past half-century, in one part of the world after another, U.S. influence has moved into the vacuum left by the British and other departing powers, often with reluctance (the Middle East), not always with success (Vietnam) but in any case as the pre-eminent force among several, even where the commitment has been a U.N.-endorsed multilateralist's dream (Korea, Kuwait).
What America shares with an earlier Britain is that insufferable sense of mission, the conviction that it a force for good in world affairs. Any force for change, good or bad, presents a challenge to an existing order, and resentment comes with it.
That would be enough to raise hackles. But America, more so than even Britain, represents a special type of challenge to the world.…
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It is not easy for established, traditional nations, whether in Europe, the Middle East or elsewhere, to see a new society, pioneered by the huddled masses of their teeming shores, aggregate the energies of its mixed population and outperform all others in virtually every branch of modern human endeavor.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Poor foreigners must have encountered Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Concerning Cruelty And Clemency, And Whether It Is Better To Be Loved Than Feared
.....Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Correction: I meant to say it is safer to be feared than loved.
bttt
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