Neal Boortz on Obama:
“Remember that “citizen of the world” stuff he spewed in Berlin? And this is a good thing? I don’t need a president who can “unify” the world or identifies as a “citizen of the world.” I want a president whose absolute number one priority is protecting this country and promoting American, not world values. I want a president who is tuned in to the American voter, not a the wishes and desires of the man-on-the street in Berlin. I want a president who is willing to make the hard choices for his country. America does not need a transnational president, it needs an American president.”
Tags: America, Neal Boortz, Obama
The Moratorium Site 
July 30, 2008 at 3:52 am |
I though we were done with this “citizen of the world” nonsense when we got rid of that nutjob one-worlder Reagan.
July 30, 2008 at 8:12 am |
Kolby, you really need to get yourself a history book sometime. I don’t have time to correct every mistaken impression you spew out there.
Reagan won the cold war, recovered the economy from the failed Carter era, and rebuilt this country. You can call him a nutjob if you like, but it only really serves to show how miserably you understand recent history. (You probably think Lincoln knew what he was doing, too.) His view of the one world was pretty simple: there is America, and then there is everywhere else.
Reagan may well have been one of our greatest presidents. Certainly he was the greatest of the 20th century. No other president accomplished what he did.
I think the reason leftists still hate him is that he might be dead, but he’s still right. That seems to piss them off for some reason.
Angry D.
July 30, 2008 at 11:25 am |
AD,
I think you missed Sarcastic K’s meaning. I’m pretty sure wasn’t actually trying to malign Reagan. Instead, he was reminding us that Reagan called himself a “citizen of the world” (link) and, therefore, those that love Reagan aren’t really being consistent while hating on Obama for using that phrase.
July 30, 2008 at 11:44 am |
Good point Jonathan although there is a bit of difference. I don’t recall Reagan going around trashing the US and apologizing for the US as Obama and many Democrats do. When they do that and then talk about being a citizen of the world, it just doesn’t come off well.
Also, that was over 20 years ago. Times change and the world we live in is much different than that of the 1980’s.
July 30, 2008 at 1:45 pm |
Very perceptive Jonathan. Maybe Angry D is right. I’m still not sure how I ended up with a degree in 20th century history without ever reading a book! In his rush to something between political fellatio and hagiography, he may have missed my point. I think Reagan did some good things (restructuring the tax code), but he hardly “won the cold war” or “rebuilt this country”. He deserves significant credit for communism’s fall, but so do many presidents and policy makers who came before him. Also, if you think I’m a “leftist” it seems you are the one who’s in need of a history book.
Roland, how exactly have times changed? Of course the world is different, but I don’t quite understand what that means or why there is any difference.
July 30, 2008 at 3:20 pm |
Terrorism, more sympathy for terrorists, more anti-US sentiment than ever to name a few things.
Concerning the cold war, do you honestly believe that if Carter or Mondale was running things that it would have ended?
July 30, 2008 at 3:49 pm |
Roland,
We have much to be proud of and some to apologize for too. I see Obama and “many Democrats” as having a reasonable balance between those two (though, admittedly, probably a different balance than yours) and not fairly characterized as “going around trashing the US.” If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend having a look at this article which was, to me at least, insightful in contrasting and sympathetically describing the two stereotypical viewpoints and making the points that neither side (Rep/Dem, conservative/liberal) has got it completely right and that both sides need each other for our country to continue to realize its potential: The War Over Patriotism
July 30, 2008 at 4:57 pm |
I don’t know…when Democrats are going over to foreign soil and ripping our President..that is not really a “reasonable balance”.
July 30, 2008 at 4:59 pm |
If we want to address anti-American sentiment, do we really want to present an unrepentant face to the rest of the world? Obama did nothing even remotely like “trashing” the United States. He admitted our imperfection (something that shouldn’t be much topic for debate). A touch of humility has to be in order if we are going to try and reach out to Europe. Europe, to be sure, has its problems.
Sympathy for terrorists? Really? Unless you’re talking about the odd affinity of the European retrograde left for the shadier elements of the Palestinian cause, then I think we’re being a little hyperbolic here.
Cold War-wise, I do believe that the Cold War would have ended eventually. I’m not a Carter fan, but the Soviet experiment was doomed to fail by its economic and social contradictions. It may have ended a bit sooner because of things done by the Reagan administration, but a conflict that lasted as long as the Cold War was won by more than one man (Truman, Marshall, Eisenhower, and Nixon to name a few).
July 30, 2008 at 8:48 pm |
My mistake, Kolby. I did miss your sarcasm. Your statements about public transportation, energy development, and the appeasement of other countries indicated a penchant for dipping into the government dime rather than standing on your own independent pedal extremities, so I naturally assumed you were batting from the other side of the plate. Perhaps I was mistaken.
As for “anti-American sentiment” frankly, who gives a shit?
Do you know what the literal translation of “thank you” is in Japanese? “I am sorry that I am in your debt.” That’s the primary reason why most of Europe hates America. They love to call us “warmongers,” but, hey, I forgot, how many people were killed in the world wars that they started and perpetuated? If you look at the number of people Euros snuffed in twenty years and compare it to the number of people American’s killed over the entire course of our country, we look pretty damn good.
But I post a message in a computer forum requesting assistance with a Linux problem for my classroom and some dumbass Brit thinks it’s funny to reply, “Stick to teaching the next generation of warmongers…” Yeah. Whatever, Limey. You’re welcome.
I am sick and tired of the rest of the world claiming to hate America and then diving behind us when the bullets start to fly, or coming to us with their hands out and then laughing when our economy takes an economic downturn.
And I am SICKER and TIREDER of our citizens thinking it’s their moral duty to “admit our imperfection” as a country. In the first place, you don’t do that shit out of doors to the citizens of another nation. Anyone watching the Dixie Chicks should have been able to figure that out relatively swiftly. My wife pierced her nose once and I thought it looked truly asinine. I don’t bitch to you about it. It’s MY laundry and it stays in MY house.
As I’ve mentioned before in my blog, Greece NEVER abolished slavery. America did it in less than a century. Rome took 400 years to establish a republic, America did it in 120.
No, we’re not perfect, but we’re way the hell out in front of EVERYONE else. THAT is why so many people from other countries hate America. It’s the same reason so many people rooted for the Patriots to lose the Super Bowl: people naturally love the underdog and assume that the overdog only got to where he is by lying, cheating, and stealing.
The only way we will EVER appease the American haters is to reduce our strength as a country or give them power over us in some other manner. Are you willing to do that, because I’m certainly not.
Oh, and if you think there is no such thing as “sympathy for terrorists” abroad or within our country, then perhaps you could explain the recent Supreme Court insanity that military combatants captured during combat are now granted rights and privileges in accordance with citizenship of our country– whether they are citizens or not.
Angry D.
July 30, 2008 at 11:50 pm |
Roland,
What you call “ripping our president” I would call being critical of the policies of our current administration. None of this is in the area of my expertise, but it seems to me that contrary to Angry D’s nose-piercing and laundry analogies, there is a lot less in these modern times that is truly OUR laundry and that doesn’t significantly affect anyone else. I think criticism of a substantive and non-petty nature is healthy and that there is little substantial significance in the physical location of a speech like that given our modern means of global communication. There certainly was no moratorium on criticizing the prez when it was Clinton.
Except for that slim minority who thinks that 1) the war in Iraq has gone well and been worth the cost in $, lives, and international goodwill (which skyrocketed after 9/11) and 2) the Iraq war is all that matters, most people these days agree that the decisions and policies of the current administration have been disastrous in many ways…regardless of whether you’re a lefty liberal, moderate, or traditional conservative. As Kolby said, that the current administration has quite a few imperfections hardly seems debatable.
Also, I think that a difference between Reagan’s times and our times is that the USSR was a much bigger threat to us than the terrorists are now…unless we play into their narrative, exaggerate their threat, and through our unwise actions and policies fail to entice those remaining regimes that do have power but are teetering between the past and modernity to join the rest of the world in the modern, interdependent global society.
Angry D,
I agree that the US of A is a special place, but I don’t see it as quite as exceptional as you do…especially going forward (The End of Exceptionalsim). So what.
About the unlawful combatants, the original swindle there was when played the game of giving them that label in an attempt to skirt the standards of decent conduct towards all humans and ceded the moral high ground.
Did either of you read The War Over Patriotism? If so, did you find it helpful at all?
July 31, 2008 at 11:16 pm |
Jonathan;
Unfortunately, I have a ridiculous reading list right now. I’m working on finishing my teaching certificate and going to school double time, in addition to setting up my classroom for the fall. I haven’t had the chance to read it, but it is on my reading list. Thank you for recommending it. (I’d like you to read, Misinformation: 22 Media Myths That Are Undermining the War on Terror.)
I’ll be blunt. If you don’t think America is the greatest country on earth then your number one right is the right to leave it. Go elsewhere. I’d rather you didn’t because I sort of like talking to you, but I can’t understand the mentality that says, “I don’t like my country– but I’m not going to move somewhere where if I say that I could be executed, hell no! That’s stupid. I’d rather stay here and bitch!”
I’ll be blunter: if you pick up a gun and point it at an American soldier than you are a combatant. Period. Case closed and story over. You don’t get to complain about your rights as a citizen when you engaged in combat operations against our troops. Citizenship revoked.
You mention decent conduct towards humans. Have you ever been in combat? Have you ever watched the Paul Johnson or Daniel Pearl videos? In my lengthy list of things that I’m sick and tired of, one of them is people who insist that we need to treat terrorists with gentleness and love. These people are killers.
The last war we officially won, as in, “Forced the enemy to surrender unconditionally” was World War II. We did not treat the Japanese OR the Germans with kid gloves. We fought that war to win, and we got in, got out, and went on our merry way. There have been no further problems.
I’ve read two military analyst treatments this year that the war in Iraq has been extended (one said 18 months, one said 23) because of the insistence of the left on patronizing, defending, and emboldening our enemies. Part of that is the ridiculous notion that all an enemy soldier has to do is cry on television and instead of being treated as a POW he’ll be treated as a scared kid who just “lost his way.”
Obviously the Supreme Court disagrees with me. Fine. They have the authority to do so, but I refuse to accept their interpretation as justified, and I in fact submit that their ridiculous decision did nothing but further embolden our nation’s enemies.
We live in a country where our way of life is predicated on the ability to cast a vote and make a change. Somewhere our citizenry got the idea that it’s not good enough. We need to carry banners and shout slogans and go on marches. Do these useful idiots not understand that our enemies have satellite television, too? Do they not comprehend that every protest sends a message, not to Washington, but to Al-Qaeda that if they can just hang on a little bit longer, eventually the national will is going to falter and they’ll be home free?
I’ve felt that this entire war has been against the clock. We have to accomplish our objectives before our Starbucks population says, “Look at the bunny” and the ADD causes them to lose focus on the objective: winning the war.
July 31, 2008 at 11:56 pm |
Angry,
If I wanted to live somewhere else I would, but I don’t. Furthermore, you’re love it or leave it condemnation of dissent is un-American. Sure, some who don’t think America is perfect may leave, but most stay and try to improve it. I think that’s the better option. And conservatives criticize America all the time, just not for the same things.
About human rights…it’s not about them, it’s about us. Our values do not allow us to torture or otherwise deny basic human rights to anyone, be he Nazi, terrorist, whomever.