CSotD: Attack of the crowlin ferlies
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Matt Davies notes the irony of American criticism of Egyptian attempts at free elections.
Now, from the start, it's important to note that you don't have to be perfect in order to criticize someone else. It is possible, for instance, to say, "For god's sake, you don't want to wind up like us!"
But I haven't discerned that point-of-view in American discussions of Egyptian democracy, and quite the opposite: There is a strong political viewpoint abroad in the land that not only does not shrink from the "Manifest Destiny" implications of "American Exceptionalism" but proudly embraces the notion that we are appointed by God to rule over the other nations, to dominate them in a cultural and economic sense, or, failing that, in a military sense.
In other words, that we are, indeed, "The Cops of the World."
We cannot entirely blame this on the nutball right wing, however comforting it might be to dismiss them as an extreme minority and to simultaneously wash our hands of responsibility for their idiot notions. As noted earlier this month, intelligent discussion of our use of drones (for instance) is crippled by the American media's failure to pass along the reports of unintended consequences that are freely circulated in the rest of the world.
That is, the real threat is not the blatant lies of Sean Hannity and his ilk over at Fox, though their purposeful deceptions are a cancer on our democracy.
Traitorous falsehoods aside, there is plenty of wrong and incomplete information circulating based not on a conscious desire to overthrow the democracy, but simply on foolishness, laziness and blind nationalism.
Coupled with and abetted by our childish, self-centered vanity and our utter ignorance of how we appear to others.
Like the woman in Burns' poem, we proudly primp and smile, confident that we are the envy of the congregation, while the onlookers, far from being overawed by our stylish fashions and great beauty, are fascinated, amused and repelled by the revelation that we are infested with lice.
Which, consequently, makes our prideful posing a dozen times more ludicrous and pathetic.
For instance, the fact that we don't bother to teach our children any languages but English can be explained by the size of our country and the fact that English has nearly universal penetration. I don't know how many languages the average Aussie speaks, but I doubt they need more than English to get through the day, either, as opposed to, say, a Belgian or a Dane who might well run into any number of languages in the course of things.
Fair enough.
But Australia isn't running around the globe playing "Cops of the World." And, for all I know, they may have strong foreign language instruction in their schools anyway.
In any case, the point remains that we once expressed our pride, not by trying to run the rest of the world, but by ignoring it.
Whatever happened to isolationism? It may have been tacky to sit by for as long as we did while everyone else was fighting Tojo and Hitler, but staying out of wars — even necessary ones — is better than instigating them — especially unnecessary ones.
Given our insistence on interfering in everyone else's business, given our insistence that, while it's all well and good for Slobodan Milosevic or Charles Taylor to face international law, that stuff certainly doesn't apply to us, given the fact that, even when we join a UN Peacekeeping Mission, we refuse to wear UN patches on our uniforms … well … come on, man.
God's will, whatever else you may choose to believe, certainly does not involve arrogance.
Nor does it involve ignorance, and, if a well-funded segment of our political spectrum is going to intentionally feed us lies, it doesn't help that, thanks in large part to our inbred, navel-gazing, self-censoring media, we have no frame of reference with which to recognize those lies, and that we lack the perspective to understand how we are seen, not just by the people we presume to conquer and improve, but by our allies, by the people who are supposed to like us and to be like us.
And who would sit giggling and aghast over the way we put on airs while lice run up our bonnets, were it not that our unjustified display of ignorant vanity includes military aggression and economic parasitism.
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!
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