Very well done essay from the Times Online

While I don't agree with everything in this article, I think it is an exceptionally well-done piece from an outsider (non-US writer) looking in at America:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 083026.ece

(It may not exactly fit this forum, so blast it out if not, Robin)

[Robin Garr]

While I don't agree with everything in this article, I think it is an exceptionally well-done piece from an outsider (non-US writer) looking in at America:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 083026.ece

(It may not exactly fit this forum, so blast it out if not, Robin)

Good post, TP. No worries. This forum is really for people from Louisville to talk about anything that interests us. Normally it's city/region related, but it sure doesn't have to be!

Let me get off a deadline here, I'm eager to read this one myself.

Thanks, Robin. I share my political views only sparingly, and this is a forum of friends where I'm comfortable doing so (in small part, anyway).

Look forward to your critique of the piece.

Todd

Nice, TP. Regardless of anyone's partisan leanings and my own policy wish list, I'd have to say my current political priority at the local, federal, and international levels is for the US to collectively stop being so blatantly hypocritical, myself included at times.

Along those lines, I still occasionally refer to a poster of Frederick Douglass I had hanging on my wall many years ago while a newbie undergraduate. It had a quote that read, "There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether or not the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution."

While Douglass was obviously referencing a very specific problem, the principle expressed is no doubt more universally applicable to situations both foreign and domestic. How we best live up to our own rhetoric is certainly debatable. It'd just be nice if the debates were more keenly focused on actually trying to do so every once in a while.

[Robin Garr]

While I don't agree with everything in this article, I think it is an exceptionally well-done piece from an outsider (non-US writer) looking in at America:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 083026.ece

(It may not exactly fit this forum, so blast it out if not, Robin)

Good piece. Based on fairly frequent travels to Europe and friends there who feel close enough to give me their honest opinions, I think he is correct about how a lot of Europe feels about us. He may not fully understand how deeply a large number of Americans feel the same way, and are counting down the days toward Election 2008 and Election 2009.

I do not agree with him so much about the nobility of one of the candidates, but let's not go there: The point, I think, is that the nation is on the point of one of those periodic big changes that came in 1932 with FDR, in 1960 with JFK, and in 1980 with Reagan. Things have gone very far in a very bad direction, for our nation and for the world, and I think an awful lot of us agree that it's time for a change more comprehensive than merely switching between Republicans and Democrats.

A leader with charisma and the capability to inspire is important. Most of the rest is committee work.

Very nice piece. I long for the type of Country that is written about in the Constitution, and what the Founding Fathers were intending for America. The type of Country that people from the times of the Revolutionary war to the present have died for. It truly is the idea of what America is, and not the reality of what America has become that I want to see. Sorry, I don't like to be political, but this is more about my love of America, not necessarily for what she does, but what she stands for. I am proud to be an American, even though no one else likes us right now. Because even they know we can be great, if we try.

A very well thought out and written brief...

Everything I have feared about the perception of our place in the world has now been reaffirmed...