Posted on 07/03/2006 9:26:03 PM PDT by familyop
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, when Americans celebrate Independence Day. But a YouGov survey for The Daily Telegraph suggests that the Stars and Stripes will be flying at half mast in the eyes of most Britons. There has probably never been a time when America was held in such low esteem on this side of the Atlantic.
A majority of Britons think American culture and the actions of the present American administration are making the world a worse place to live in, and almost no one believes America is now, if it ever was, a beacon to the world. Well over half of those interviewed regard the US as an imperial power bent on dominating the world by one means or another.
President George W Bush's standing in this country could scarcely be lower. More than three quarters of Britons believe the current president is a "poor" or even "terrible" world leader and almost as many believe that his rhetoric about promoting the cause of democracy in the world is merely a cover for his promotion of American national interests.
Americans as individuals are still held in high regard in Britain, but America's role in the world is not. The so-called "special relationship" may still thrive in Downing Street and at Camp David but it has obviously atrophied among the British public.
As the figures in the chart show, a large majority of Britons like Americans as people either "a little" (49 per cent) or "a lot" (21 per cent) and more than half, 54 per cent, are inclined to feel positively about the US in general. There are certainly few signs in YouGov's findings of an across-the-board anti-American prejudice.
The core problem is with America's relations with the rest of the world. George W Bush is no Franklin D Roosevelt, Dwight D Eisenhower or John F Kennedy. All of those American presidents inspired respect. Mr Bush appears to inspire nothing but contempt. Fully 69 per cent of Britons say their overall opinion of the US has gone down in recent years.
YouGov also asked respondents to assess the Bush administration's impact on the world beyond America's shores. Their assessment is overwhelmingly negative. Fewer than one quarter, 22 per cent, believe that the present American government's policies and actions make the world a better place to live in. Three times that proportion, 65 per cent, regard America's influence in the world today as predominantly malign.
The reputation of American culture - fast-food restaurants, popular music, Hollywood movies - stands somewhat higher, with more than a third of YouGov's respondents approving of America's worldwide cultural impact. Even so, more than half of those interviewed, 52 per cent, clearly regard America's impact as, on balance, pernicious.
The figures in the section of the chart headed "America, Bush and the world" paint an even bleaker picture. Many Americans like to think of the US as a beacon to the world - as its "last, best hope". That view is not shared in this country. Only one in nine Britons, 11 per cent, accepts that view. A massive 77 per cent appear positively startled by the idea that the US may currently be setting the rest of the world a good example.
As the figures in the chart also show, confidence in America's ability to handle problems outside its own borders has plummeted over the past three decades. The Gallup Poll in 1975 found that roughly a quarter of Britons, 27 per cent, had considerable confidence in American leadership. That figure has now fallen by more than half to a mere 12 per cent.
President Bush's personal ratings in this country are horrendous. Almost no one holds him in high regard as a world leader. Fully 34 per cent think he is a "pretty poor" leader and even more, 43 per cent, reckon he is "terrible" in that role.
Opinion polls rarely produce figures quite as negative as these. Moreover, a majority of Britons regard the US President as not only incompetent but also as a complete hypocrite. As the findings in the chart indicate, 72 per cent of YouGov's respondents reckon Mr Bush cares little for democracy and is merely using his pro-democracy rhetoric as a pretext for pursuing selfish American interests.
Even more of YouGov's respondents, 76 per cent, think that, even if the president really does want to promote the cause of freedom and democracy in the world, he is not going about it in the right way. Hardly anyone - a mere nine per cent - thinks Mr Bush is performing well, even in his own terms.
The view that America aspires to ultimate world domination is only a little less widespread. Despite America's anti-imperial past, well over half of YouGov's respondents, 58 per cent, reckon it is now fair to describe the US as "an essentially imperial power, one that wants to dominate the world by one means or another". Only 28 per cent dismiss such a view as unwarranted.
The section of the chart headed "How the US looks to us" will also make grim reading for America's many admirers. Respondents were offered pairs of contrasted words and phrases and asked to say which of each pair they thought best described the US today.
The figures turn much of America's self-image on its head. From this side of the Atlantic, America appears to be a class-divided and racially divided society and one that fails to offer its citizens equality of opportunity. Nearly three quarters of Britons, 72 per cent, believe American society is essentially "unequal".
More predictably, most Britons believe America is dominated by big business and preoccupied with money. Large majorities of Britons look down on America as "vulgar" (65 per cent) and "uncultured" (56 per cent).
Perhaps most worrying in political terms is the almost universal sense in this country that the US is determined to go its own way in the world, with an almost casual disregard for everybody else. Roughly three quarters of Britons think the US is "badly led" (73 per cent), "ignorant of the outside world" (73 per cent) and "doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks" (83 per cent).
Still, some individual Americans and US institutions do strike a chord on this side of the pond. As the figures in the chart indicate, YouGov's respondents take a positive view of such diverse American phenomena as Microsoft,
Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, the Disney theme parks and television comedies such as Friends and The Simpsons.
They take a much dimmer view - or so they say - of 4x4 recreation vehicles, McDonald's, the two Hilton sisters Paris and Nicky and, unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson. YouGov's very last question was also the bluntest: "If you could, would you like to go and live in the United States?" A considerable minority, 19 per cent, replied that they would but more than three times that proportion, 67 per cent, indicated that they would prefer to stay put or go to some other country.
YouGov elicited the views of 1,962 adults across Great Britain online between June 26 and 28. The data have been weighted to conform to the demographic profile of British adults as a whole. YouGov abides by the rules of the British Polling Council.
Badly led? Yeah lets get more socialists in power so we can be like Europe.
Ignorant? How's this big picture? With the exception of US,Isreal and possibly Australia, secular socialists run the parts of the world that Muslim's don't, and that of course recognizes the wholesale surrendering that the secularists are currently undertaking.
"doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks" (83 per cent)
At least they got something right.
Almost everybody calls us an empire. Then by God let's be one. Take over the Middle East, Canada, and Mexico. Slam their dix in the dirt. Then when we get settled with that take over another country.
F*CK 'EM. A PzLdr poll finds that if the U.S hadn't intervened in two World Wars, the House of Windsor would still be known by its German name. Brits have a short memory, and apparently project their imperial guilt on us. Tough. And as I've posted before [for all the posturing pipsqueaks of Europe}, ROME DOES NOT ASK GAUL [or Brittania] FOR PERMISSION TO MAKE WAR ON PARTHIA.
The Telegraph as changed over the past two years. I guess it was the barclay brothers influence after they bought it but it really has changed. It's now a center (uk), run of the mill paper. Really no reason to go there anymore. They even fired Mark Steyn!
You are joking, aren't you? What's your take on good manners, honesty and decency? Damn proud of those attributes, also, I hope.
Ditto, but oh, how defensive we can get!
You're not very familiar with American history.
And we keep military forces overseas in order to stop attacks from coming to us on our own soil (and while we're at it, to defend allies). Every conservative American knows that.
I don't know what you mean by a 'conservative American', but I know what an empire is. When you have over quarter million men under arms propping up 'friendly' governments around the world you're running an empire. Don't be squeamish about it. Playing kingmaker over the lines drawn by the last gasps of the French and British empires in the Middle East has us embroiled in a war today.
You can make the argument that we should have an empire instead of a neutral, free republic, but don't pretend it's what our Founders set out to create. Not on this day.
We already tried and failed more than once to take Canada. We have already taken huge portions of Mexico (and ironically they're moving back in). We have our hands full in the Middle East today, and if you didn't notice the generals coming back say we need more manpower to accomplish our goals. One more thing you might take note of, the American public is getting tired of the burdens of empire...
You're confusing the intentions of Republican Americans with those of centralized governments of old Europe. Take your anti-defense, anti-American propaganda elsewhere.
When we manage the level of influence we've had for the last 100 years for several more centuries you can compare us to Rome. Of course we're debasing the currency a lot faster, and you know how that turned out for the Romans, right?
Do you hold the truth itself as anti-American? Or do you deny we have a quarter million soldiers stationed around the world propping up foreign governments and embroiling us in their wars?
You'd damn Washington himself as anti-defense, anti-American for opposing your world view of a globe dominated by the U.S. military.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities."
Today on 'Free Republic' Washington's good sense would get a 'barf alert' in the headline...
Ever been abroad?
You want to say that to Mad Ivan?
What do you think of Margaret Thatcher, or Winston Churchill? Have you ever been to Britain?
bugger you and bugger the brits...
Their IQ is slipping.
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