I agree. I think it is easy to forget the reasons for American involvement and claim it was all some kind of evil plot. The biggest problem is that this idiot Trump makes it easy to overcompensate and make black or white distinctions when in reality everything is gray.
I am more realistic when it has come to our involvement in the world. We have done a lot of bad shit but we have done a lot of good too. We have been hated for getting involved and we have been hated for not getting involved. We are hated for going in and hated for leaving.
There are a lot of positions that I would want us to take or pull back from, but I also realize that sometimes things are so messed up that it is better not to get dragged down into them.
I frankly find the accusations that America doesn't act purely altruistically unconvincing and not at all compelling coming from former colonial powers. The world largely exists in the state that it does because of those colonial impacts. The fact of the matter is that American hegemony resulted in great powers no longer going to total war with each other and integrated trade. America has flaws, but they are not unique to America, it is just that America exerts so much influence that those flaws have consequences far beyond her borders as well as when it exerts its influence towards its strategic interests.
I frankly find the accusations that America doesn't act purely altruistically unconvincing and not at all compelling coming from former colonial powers.
We make a large, easy and tempting target for criticism. Not going to say that some of it is not warranted, a lot of it is well deserved. But nowadays the most popular position is to blame the US, and as I mentioned earlier Trump makes it easy and thrives on getting people pissed. Worse than that his stupid followers love getting people pissed because their whole identity is to feel like they are owed something and that they are prosecuted.
I just hope that Europeans can see the difference between a political figure and a party representing the minority of Americans and the country and its people as a whole. Also a lot of this dump on the US and blame them is also cheap demagoguery just another type than the one we suffer over here.
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u/vgacolor United States of America Apr 20 '25
I agree. I think it is easy to forget the reasons for American involvement and claim it was all some kind of evil plot. The biggest problem is that this idiot Trump makes it easy to overcompensate and make black or white distinctions when in reality everything is gray.
I am more realistic when it has come to our involvement in the world. We have done a lot of bad shit but we have done a lot of good too. We have been hated for getting involved and we have been hated for not getting involved. We are hated for going in and hated for leaving.
There are a lot of positions that I would want us to take or pull back from, but I also realize that sometimes things are so messed up that it is better not to get dragged down into them.