Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?

Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?

I think we talk about this topic a lot or least it’s bubbling near the surface in many topics here.

I’m surprised no one brought this up. I know we’ve got a few NYT readers here.

Maybe what some people think is worth freedom.

On Way to Life in Britain, With a Year’s Airport Layover

[quote]NAIROBI, Kenya, June 29 - After nearly 13 months at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Sanjai L. Shah can safely drop his protest and leave. He is not about to, though.

Before receiving his good news on Wednesday, Mr. Shah said he had the resolve to continue his airport sit-in for six more months, or even another year, however long it would take. That does not appear necessary now.

“It’s been so long,” he said Wednesday, as airport workers congratulated him. “But it’s been worth it.”
[/quote]

Key passage:

[quote]Consider America’s neighbor to the north. Canadians look south and ask themselves why access to health care remains a privilege of income in the United States and not a right of citizenship. They like hunting and shooting, but can’t understand why anyone would regard a right to bear arms as a constitutional right. They can’t understand why the American love of limited government does not extend to a ban on the government’s ultimate power – capital punishment. The Canadian government seems poised to extend full marriage rights to gays.

Some American liberals wistfully wish their own country were more like Canada, while for American conservatives, ‘‘Soviet Canuckistan’’ – as Pat Buchanan calls it – is the liberal hell they are seeking to avoid. But if American liberals can’t persuade their own society to be more like other democracies and American conservatives don’t want to, both of them are acknowledging, the first with sorrow, the other with joy, that America is an exception.

This is not how it used to be. From the era of F.D.R. to the era of John Kennedy, liberal and progressive foreigners used to look to America for inspiration. For conservatives like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan was a lodestar. The grand boulevards in foreign capitals were once named after these large figures of American legend. For a complex set of reasons, American democracy has ceased to be the inspiration it was. This is partly because of the religious turn in American conservatism, which awakens incomprehension in the largely secular politics of America’s democratic allies. It is partly because of the chaos of the contested presidential election in 2000, which left the impression, worldwide, that closure had been achieved at the expense of justice. And partly because of the phenomenal influence of money on American elections.

But the differences between America and its democratic allies run deeper than that. When American policy makers occasionally muse out loud about creating a ‘‘community of democracies’’ to become a kind of alternative to the United Nations, they forget that America and its democratic friends continue to disagree about what fundamental rights a democracy should protect and the limits to power government should observe. As Europeans and Canadians head leftward on issues like gay marriage, capital punishment and abortion, and as American politics head rightward, the possibility of America leading in the promotion of a common core of beliefs recedes ever further. Hence the paradox of Jefferson’s dream: American liberty as a moral universal seems less and less recognizable to the very democracies once inspired by that dream. In the cold war, America was accepted as the leader of ‘‘the free world.’’ The free world – the West – has fractured, leaving a fierce and growing argument about democracy in its place. [/quote]

Very astute. The “West” has never been a monolithic entity, though perhaps we were closer to being on the same page during the Cold War when it came to defining a “common core of beliefs.” Very generally speaking, of course.

france and germany can go spread freedom if they want to. i think they’re too busy trying to sell arms to china, though.

[color=blue]Spreading freedom one bullet at a time:[/color]

"Iraq’s ambassador to the UN has demanded an inquiry into what he said was the “cold-blooded murder” of his young unarmed relative by US marines.

Samir Sumaidaie said his 21-year-old cousin was shot as he helped marines who were carrying out searches at his village in the restive Anbar province. . .

He said Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time.

He opened the door to them and was “happy to exercise some of his English”, said the ambassador.

When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition.

It was the last the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside.

As the marines left “smiling at each other” an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie.

"In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck."

The phrasing of the topic question sort of gives me the creeps.

Before dumping all of us Americans into one basket and then accusing us of our universal arrogance, please consider that close to 50% of us fundamentally do NOT support the actions of the rogue George W. Bush administration.

I shaved my beard down into a ‘sensitive goatee.’

I did it to help spread peace.

Tainin Cowboy wrote:

[quote]I shaved my beard down into a ‘sensitive goatee.’

I did it to help spread peace.[/quote]

LOL! :laughing:

Kind of in an awkward position, defending G.W. Bush, but…
wrt the initial posting:

Bush never said that freedom was America’s to spread. On the contrary, he is fond of saying (http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/3667):

…which, in retrospect, is maybe a little bit scarier (an elected leader’s open declaration that he is “doing the work of God”). Sheesh!

[color=blue]

[quote=“Peter-Paul”]Bush never said that freedom was America’s to spread. On the contrary, he is fond of saying (http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/3667):

…which, in retrospect, is maybe a little bit scarier (an elected leader’s open declaration that he is “doing the work of God”). Sheesh![/quote]It is quite apparent, thanks to your own presented quotes, that you are misquoting, via attributing words to President Bush that he has not said, and trying to change President Bushs’ statements to fit your anti-Bush agenda.
Do you really think nobody can see your spinn?

Is your concern for the spread of freedom to those not having it…or merely another flimsy non-supported attack on the current US Administration?

I’m just not feeling the love here…

[quote=“spook”][color=blue]

Tainan Cowboy wrote:

[quote]It is quite apparent, thanks to your own presented quotes, that you are misquoting, via attributing words to President Bush that he has not said, and trying to change President Bushs’ statements to fit your anti-Bush agenda.
Do you really think nobody can see your spinn?

Is your concern for the spread of freedom to those not having it…or merely another flimsy non-supported attack on the current US Administration?

I’m just not feeling the love here…[/quote]

WTF??

Dude, I haven’t misquoted anything. Those words that Bush has uttered are very well documented.

Here they are again, and their reference site, if you still don’t believe me:

[quote]On the contrary, he is fond of saying (quotedb.com/quotes/3667):
Quote:
Freedom is not America’s gift to the world, it is the Almighty God’s gift to every man and woman in this world"[/quote]

So you’re not “feeling the love?” Maybe using an avatar with Madonna shooting the finger isn’t best way to invite love, Cowboy? (Or will you consider that a misquote too, because of the question mark?)

Leave it to an idealogue to call a direct quotation “spin.” (oops, was that a misquote? – you spelled it with 2 n’s) :wink:

Yet, I note in my Lonely Planet Travel Guide to the Middle East that the Iraq chapter discusses in detail the massive destruction of the city which it attributes to the Iran-Iraq war. So if it was already destroyed BEFORE the last invasion, why are we being blamed for the sewage in the streets now? My guide was written in 2002 with most of the information current to 2001. Just a point.

it should.

in a democratic republic the responsibilty for our leaders’ actions lies with the public.

frankly, i put everyone who voted for Kerry in the exact same basket as people who voted for Bush, ie. they voted for a guy who supports the actions (eg. USA PATRIOT Act, invasion of Iraq) of “rogue George W. Bush.” Tthat would suggest that upwards of 99% of voting Americans support, or are at least willing to turn a blind eye towards, these actions.

If only that were true but I do believe that Bush essentially has the support or more than 50 percent of Americans and given that he has done nothing to take away the rights of any of the other 50 percent, I can live with that.

Pepsi vs Coke.

the US elections are a joke.

People think they have a choice when the same people are backing both candidates.

They believe they are making a difference, when nothing will change.

Whoever won would still be a john wayne character, that many americans for some reason can relate to.

Politians don’t serve the people, they serve business.

American History 101:
When the Massachusetts Bay colonists sailed for America on March 22, 1630, Winthrop and his fellow Puritans left behind their patriarchal homes and financial security for an unknown American wilderness. In “A Model of Christian Charity,” a sermon Winthrop preached during the voyage to America, the Massachusetts governor emphasized that the purpose of their going to America was to increase the body of Christ and to preserve themselves and their children from the corruption of this evil world. The colonists had made a covenant together to obey the commandments of God in their enterprise, and the Lord would surely bless them in their new land if they continued to follow Him. If they maintained Christian unity, Winthrop was certain the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us as his own people…when he shall make us a praise and a glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations: the Lord make it like that of New England: for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.
Winthrop’s imagery of the model Christian society as a city on a hill, taken from Matthew 5:14, became a motif that has inspired American literary and political thought into the twentieth century. From Winthrop and the Puritans, America inherited the idea that in some way this land was to be an example and beacon of light to the rest of the world.
The above info was lifted from the following Link (no I don’t frequent this site, just used google to find it): chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSEF/Glimp … s022.shtml

This is where Americans get the idea that it is their duty/burden to take freedom to the rest of the world. It is rooted in the founding of our country, and has taken on several different incarnations since then. For example, it is echoed in John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address:

[i]"we observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom

[quote=“s.b.”]
frankly, i put everyone who voted for Kerry in the exact same basket as people who voted for Bush, ie. they voted for a guy who supports the actions (eg. USA PATRIOT Act, invasion of Iraq) of “rogue George W. Bush.” That would suggest that upwards of 99% of voting Americans support, or are at least willing to turn a blind eye towards, these actions.[/quote]
I am in that camp of folks who did not vote for Bush (not a big surprise, I’m sure), and I take issue with what you’ve said here. What other options do I have to voice my dissent with the present administration’s policies other than to vote for the other guy (the less evil twin)? Do you suggest I give up my citizenship, and go to Canada or France? WTF!!??><@{#)#%(* :unamused:

Bodo