Ah, More Lovely Polls
I've always been a bit of an Anglophile. I like the Brits in general and have known several over the years. So it distresses me a bit when I see a poll like this from the Telegraph. Especially when it contains words like this:
Most Britons see America as a cruel, vulgar, arrogant society, riven by class and racism, crime-ridden, obsessed with money and led by an incompetent hypocrite.
On the other hand, the accompanying editorial is quite different in tone:
Americans find themselves damned either way. If they remain within their own borders, they are isolationist hicks who are shirking their responsibilities. If they intervene, they are rapacious imperialists.
Indeed, many of their detractors manage to hold these two ideas in their heads simultaneously. Yet a moment's thought should reveal that they are both unfair. In Yugoslavia, America did everything it could to encourage Europe to act.
Only when European passivity was leading to mass slaughter did Washington intervene - benignly and decisively. (Even the most virulent anti-Americans struggle to explain what possible strategic interest there was in Kosovo.) It is a similar story when it comes to Iran.
For a decade, American policy-makers left it to the EU to defuse the nuclear threat from the ayatollahs. Now, with their tactic of constructive engagement in ruins, the Europeans instinctively look to Washington for protection. But you can bet that they will howl with protest if it becomes clear that such protection is best afforded through the deployment of force.
To dislike a country as diverse as America is misanthropic: America, more than any other state, contains the full range of humanity between its coasts. What binds its people together is an ideal encoded in America's DNA.
But really, we also need to keep in mind that the Telegraph has also given us other news of note about British society. This for example.
London: One of the British Army's most senior officers has warned that it is in danger of losing its reputation as a "highly respected British institution" because it is being forced to recruit soldiers from a "morally corrupt and dysfunctional" society, where young men idolise foul-mouthed footballers.
Major-General Graeme Lamb branded many recruits as "cocky and arrogant and brought up on a diet of football brats and binge drinking … who are not educated in and able to recognise self-discipline".
So I really don't have to get too worked up about this poll. Nor does anyone else, I think.
Civilization, World news | Gaius Monday, 3 July , 2006
Other Links to this Post
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Liberty and Justice — Monday, 3 July , 2006 @ 12:10 pm
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PartisanTimes.com — Monday, 3 July , 2006 @ 2:45 pm
By Donna, Monday, 3 July , 2006 @ 9:06 pm
I guess I’m going to pick up on the couple of paragraphs about British Army senior officers worried about recruiting those ‘who are not educated in and able to recognize self-discipline”, whom they are being forced to recruit and whom may endanger the reputation [of the British Army].
Gauis, do you have any thoughts that our military may have been ‘forced to recruit’ from less than ideal candidates to meet quotas? This question occurred to me as I read with heavy heart the court filing on PFC Green [the rape-murder case].
By Gaius, Monday, 3 July , 2006 @ 9:27 pm
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First, I do not know anything at all about the person they arrested, so I can't - and don't think it's proper to - speculate about that. In general terms, it is a statistical certainty that there will be some percentage of bad people in any army. Also in general, the US Army (actually the entire mlitary) is the best, most ethical and least ill-behaved army in history, I think. That was true even when there was a draft, even more so now that it is all volunteer. Donna, the process of basic training weeds out the worst, least capable recruits. There are still men who did very well in basic who freeze in actual combat. Nothing is perfect. Is that a surprise?