![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The Guardian tells us which candidate Americans should elect so the world will like them.
At least they're not calling voters in Ohio to lecture us about why we should vote for their choice, but there's still time before the election.
I get why the world is concerned about who's in charge of America. America does a lot in the world. We send aid to places hit by typhoons, and we have the biggest available military. We are (still) willing to use it from time to time.
But the elites in Europe don't seem to understand that, for most Americans, American elections are not about the world. They're about our own country. We have domestic issues, too. And maybe, just maybe, we'd like to have a President who thinks about our country and what's good for it first before other nations.
Let's get this clear: America began as a nation of immigrants, and still has more than most countries. In other words, the US is made of people and descendants of people who wanted to get away from Europe (and other places), for one reason or another. Many of them were still fond of the country they left, but they had good reasons for leaving.
Europeans who can't bring themselves to care about people who die in heat waves because they're on vacation or who measure their own people's garbage and fine them for it shouldn't wonder why Americans might not want their input. We're not just a bunch of serfs to be ordered about. We're a free people. Treat with us as free people, and we can be the nicest folks you've ever met. Treat us like peasants, and you'll get the finger. That's why our ancestors left in the first place.
Our government begins with the axiom that all humans have an intrinsic value and dignity to them that no government is allowed to take away. Our rights don't come from some contract or the good grace of the State. They are part of us, of how God made us. You can't take that away; you can only try to make people forget it.
At least they're not calling voters in Ohio to lecture us about why we should vote for their choice, but there's still time before the election.
I get why the world is concerned about who's in charge of America. America does a lot in the world. We send aid to places hit by typhoons, and we have the biggest available military. We are (still) willing to use it from time to time.
But the elites in Europe don't seem to understand that, for most Americans, American elections are not about the world. They're about our own country. We have domestic issues, too. And maybe, just maybe, we'd like to have a President who thinks about our country and what's good for it first before other nations.
Let's get this clear: America began as a nation of immigrants, and still has more than most countries. In other words, the US is made of people and descendants of people who wanted to get away from Europe (and other places), for one reason or another. Many of them were still fond of the country they left, but they had good reasons for leaving.
Europeans who can't bring themselves to care about people who die in heat waves because they're on vacation or who measure their own people's garbage and fine them for it shouldn't wonder why Americans might not want their input. We're not just a bunch of serfs to be ordered about. We're a free people. Treat with us as free people, and we can be the nicest folks you've ever met. Treat us like peasants, and you'll get the finger. That's why our ancestors left in the first place.
Our government begins with the axiom that all humans have an intrinsic value and dignity to them that no government is allowed to take away. Our rights don't come from some contract or the good grace of the State. They are part of us, of how God made us. You can't take that away; you can only try to make people forget it.