The United States, with 4.5% of the world’s population, pays 22% of the budget for the good works of our friends at the United Nations. It pays 27% of the peacekeeping budget – this is apart from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US economy is a significant engine of worldwide economic growth, contributing over the last 20 years to the emergence of new economies in the developing world which have lifted hundreds of millions of people from existential poverty.
During the Cold War, the US spent an average of 6.7% of its GDP on NATO – an organization designed to protect Western Europeans from collectivist tyranny. In their own defense, Europeans spent an average of 3.5% of their GDP. American sacrifices not only protected Western Europe, they set the conditions for the eventual liberation and liberalization of Eastern Europe. When Europe proved incapable – once again – of stopping a genocide on its doorstep, American combat power – once again – stepped in to stop the bloodshed.
US contributions in the intellectual sphere have led to the award thus far of 270 Nobel prizes. The next closest country to contribute to the advancement of the human race – the UK – had 101.
In recent years, the US government gave $15 billion in foreign aid. The American people, giving through private means, added another $34 billion to overseas causes. In absolute terms, we are both the most generous state and generous people in the world. Aid to Africa alone has more than trebled over the last decade.
Four hundred thousands of our sons gave their lives combating fascism and militarism in World War II. Thirty-six thousand died protecting South Koreans from the sere pleasures of Kim Il Sung’s socialist worker’s paradise. Another 55,000 died giving the Pacific Rim a chance to join the free world. Almost 4500 have given their last full measure of devotion liberating the Iraqi and Afghan people from those who would thrust one or another tyrannical boot to their necks.
No man is compelled to tip his hat to any other here. Individual rights are held in common, regardless of gender, race, creed or condition. We have built a society wherein a citizen’s prospects are limited only by his gifts and ambition. We argue among ourselves continuously, sometimes bitterly. But there are no Belfasts here, no Kosovos, no Mogadishus. Ordinary people live their lives in security and dignity – things we take for granted, but which are beacons of light to the world’s darkest corners.
None of which makes us perfect. But it does rather make this chart interesting:
It doesn’t really surprise me all that much that people have a positive view of Germany. They engineer and sell wonderful gear at a fair price and make an international habit of simultaneously being both inoffensive and apologetic. Much like second place Japan. Those gone looking for reasons to take offense really have to dig when it comes to Germany and Japan. At least since US troops came to visit and decided to stay, 60-odd years ago. And one might as well have a positive opinion of the EU. All of those busy little Belgian bureaucrats running around in their bunny-print jammies can’t help but engender positive feelings. France and Britain are loved for what they once were, while the BRIC countries are loved for what they might in time come to be.
What surprises me, given our culture, history and contributions, is how many people the fact that 47% of our own citizens believe that the US is a “mainly negative” influence on the world. Not as contrasted against some Platonic ideal, but in direct competition with Russia, for one example. Landing us just ahead of North Korea and Pakistan. For heaven’s sake.
I wonder who these Americans are?
Update: For those who don’t read comments, I’ve been corrected on the spread of the poll pool.
Update 2: Reading through the article’s pdf again, I see that my original observation was not so very far off the mark:
When asked for their views of their own country
if i had to guess, they’ve the type of people you see at a starbuck’s browsing DailyKos on their MacBookPros, sipping on their $5 latte-whatever and thinking how much better their lives could be if they were only living in canada.
oh, and their BMW is double-parked outside.
They’re the ones with no real knowledge of history, Lex. Don’t worry, they’d make the same mistake no matter which country they lived in. In fact, they’ll make the same mistake again tomorrow.
Somebody once called them useful idiots, but I fear they’ll never be useful to a freedom-loving Republic. Just can’t get there from here.
– Max
Let’s just put it in layman’s terms. They are ungrateful idiots that are out of touch with reality! Sorry, not in the best mood today especially when it comes to ignorant people! LOL!
Um, that 47% is the measure across all the countries surveyed. They don’t give a breakdown isolating what percentage of Americans think about just the US.
I’ll bet the inside-America perception of American influence is much higher.
Also: you’re not suggesting a per-capita assessment for the UN, are you? I mean, should China pay four times more than we do for UN dues?? Should Indonesia pay 2/3 of what we do? We’re rich so we pay more. And our UN dues, with which we’re chronically late, are hardly the deficit-creators that the Iraq war is. We spend our UN dues in less than two days in Iraq!
“…is the fact that 47% of our own citizens believe that the US is a “mainly negative” influence on the world. “
The 47% quoted are not, I believe, a percentage of US citizens. Rather they are the combined negative percentage view of the US by “17,000 people in 34 countries” included in the survey….which the survey claims is an improvement from earlier surveys.
The German saying for stuff like this is “der Dank des Vaterlandes” although it literally applies to the next lower level.
Once more you find the nail and hit it on the head with insight, wit and brevity.
I was just thinking this afternoon of those films that postulated a ‘what if’ scenario of a world without the USA. Just going back to the turn of the last century and taking from there a POV that leaves the USA out of the world equation as if we were another China. No TR and his peace prize for the Russian-Japanese War, no WWI bailouts for the losers in Europe. No bailouts for the losers in WWII or Korea or Vietnam or resistance in Greece and Germany to communist aggression and no power to stave off the COMINTERN and Soviet domination in the world.
I don’t know how the struggle between Hitler and Stalin would have worked out but God knows it would not have been pretty and I picture either bleak steppes in eastern Europe of today or the slightly less hideous picture of charming little german families raising their young on the bones of the Polish and Ukrainian and Russian ‘former’ inhabitants.
I’m not sure where the US haters come from but there does come, from time to time, the wish that they got to actually experience, for a time, a world without us and without the brave men and women from here that gave their lives that others may live free.
I was going to say what Fliterman did but he beat me to it. At any rate, I agree it’s sad but I’m wondering if the American portion of those with such feelings would rather be living in Germany or Japan, as opposed to Canada. Hey, we didn’t even rate being polled about!
Very well said, Lex. One of the most fascinating, or, perhaps more frustrating, aspect of this self-loathing is that it is so difficult to locate. Look to the right or the left, the young or the old, the educated or the uneducated, and you will find elements and hints of this irrationality.
??
How about the 75% of the 50% that didn’t graduate from H.S? Buttressed by the 15% Moonbats.
Sorta funny to see the Germans and Japanese on top of the list- 2 nations built from ashes in our image at our insistence..O’course folks like my father and yours had to sacrifice on the way to “modify their behavior” first….
b2
You mean like the Ivy-educated wife of our leading presidential candidate?
Irony defined: A peace activist typing away a stream of anti-US-military hate speech on the internet, only made possible by the DEFENSE Research Project Agency that created it. And, you forgot GPS, Lex. Our government maintains those satellites and the rest of the world uses them for free. I don’t think anyone has ever written us a thankyou or even bothered to ask. How quickly do you think the international lawyers would pounce if we failed to maintain that satellite system and it stopped working for the rest of the world’s free usage?
And, I think you’re also forgetting EAST Germany. West Germany has been helpful, but plans for East Germany under the Soviet government during the Cold war called for the nuking of the two largest cities in Denmark, with 48 hour notice to submit or the rest would be nuked. All would have happened without NATO forces on guard. That is a matter of historical, documented fact.
Agree with the education aspect. Not the type of education that our institutions currently provide, but they type of solid, factual and substative education my father had.
Even though his education ended at HS (11th grade actually, he got his GED when he returned from WWII). He knew more history than I did even after I graduated from college. His experience overseas changed his world perspective forever.
Not to be political/cultural, but sorry it is political/cultural, my personal experience is that liberals/Liberals/Democrats-Socialists are the ones I know that do not especially like this country, or at least condemn it quite freely.
Well said B2. And dead on accurate. Sweet Jesus even China ranks above us…yet the world right now wants the US to boycott the Beijing Olympics and is in a snit that President Bush may go to the opening ceremonies.
In a world without the U.S., everyone would be speaking German, which is good since the world seems to believe they are at the top of the list for influence. However…Jews would have been annihilated worldwide and we’d all be very familiar with a high-kicking goosestep.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. There are some holes in the research methodology (which the Beeb at least acknowledges in the .pdf write-up) which make me question the whole “world opinion of the US” title. I can’t imagine how anyone could get an accurate statistical sample of the entire global population. Of course, the un-asked poll question is “why?” Why do you view a particular country as positive or negative? Not asking it allows readers to make their own conclusions, and hopefully blame the properly approved villain.
Yeah, fliterman and Michelle are right. I’ll modify the closer. And reflect on my own assumptions…
And TomR, I’m not recommending an international per capita assessment, although it is thought-provoking to read the burblings coming out of the General Assembly – and most especially the UN Human Rights Council – and consider what it is we’re sponsoring with your tax dollars. I would like to see a bit more transparency on how the UN spends money, ours and everyone else’s.
Well said, all of you.
Consider who participates in surveys. As my cousin Suzie says
“The news always finds and interviews the, barefoot, toothless, village idiot.”
If they polled or interviewed reasonable people, there would be no news and no ad revenue.
When was the last time you participated in a poll? Never for me, I’m busy making a good life.
I would summarize the graph a follows: The countries which are most (least) in the news are least (most) endeared.
I looked at the detailed rankings in the pdf sheet. I could explain (not approve) some of the relative rankings in a A ranks B better then C combinations, if there was some common history or political issue that is shared or contentious between the countries. But it does not work out in general.
I believe it does not have to do anything with any country in particular. It just reflects the amount of world-wide news reports concerning y country, and news are generally negative or they wouldn’t be there.
Err, and Brazil is just an exeption, because everybody thinks of tropical holidays when thinking about Brazil.
Err, again, last post is nonsense: Brazil does not fit. It’s hardly ever in the news and nice tropical place to make holidays. It should rank on top.
Flatlander- yeah! What you said!
The only poll that matters.
What country has people busting their buns to move there? Yep, voting with their feet. We all know what country that is.
I always wonder about those survey results. Some random thoughts:
1) People say they like Japan partly because Japan is considered harmless. Because it’s associated with pacifism in many contemporary minds, it gets feel-good points.
2) Countries with strong active militaries are feared, and so are judged to be ‘a bad influence’ in the world scene. In other words, they get respect. Not a bad thing from that perspective.
3) Not many seem to be afraid of China. Yet.
4) I always look at where Israel places in these poll results. How such a tiny country in the desert can provide so much innovation, insight, prosperity and wealth to the world, and yet be despised, only confirms the madness of the majority. By such responses, honest or not, the world community discredits itself. I’m proud and thankful not be to part of such a despicable community.
Off-topic: I like your photo there, Captain. How do I go about putting in my own photo?
Best regards, P-dub.
Peter, go here and all will be revealed…
My first thought was in a similar vein to Jimmy J’s: “I guess we won’t need that border fence anymore.”
Possible “Update 3″: Shouldn’t the title be “Irrational Antipathy”?
Yeah, it should have been. Now you know how I got my call sign
Dys,
I really enjoyed the story you told of how you got your call sign. Perhaps you’d like to point it out again?
v/r
Curtis
Oh. here.
Always picking on the fat kid…
LOL! That is funny…I wondered where the name Lex came from. Actually, it sounds pretty cool. Does the navy have a callsign that is always thrown out at the namings?
The Airforce’s is SDA (shaved dog’s ass). If they can’t come up with a better story, or don’t pay up in booze, that’s their callsign. Happened to one unfortunate fellow that I know of.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 04/03/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
The callsign story is a good one, but it has always left me wondering: why did they suggest “Fifi”? To be coming in second in the voting, there must be a story behind it.
Word association: Pepe LePou matches Fifi ____?
Never underestimate the contorted creativity of the wardroom.
Flat,
Wasn’t Fifi after Lex would have joined the fleet? IIRC, she doesn’t show up until 1990 or so.
Forgive the literalisms of a Marine. Just trying to understand the “contorted creativity of the wardroom.”
CB
My last name is sort of, ah… em: French. People found the combination funny. Especially when inflicted on the new guy.
The trick is never to let anyone see the hurt. Light attack, no slack and a chink in your armor might as well have a bullseye painted on it.
Heh. I never thought about it before, but it was probably more than just the last name that inspired such a gender-specific callsign… Those Yankee brutes!
Yikes! I just now googled Fifi because I couldn’t quite remember the cartoon character connection Flatlander mentioned. Apparently there’s a whole ‘nother meaning out there… “Enya” was obviously the rule for ready room cruelty rather than the exception.
I can certainly understand you feeling lucky ending up with what you did!
And speaking of callsigns… I met Nose for breakfast this morning before he took to the skies again. Can’t say I have a clue as to why he’s called that…
French? Sarkozy? LOL. Lex’s callsign should have been Pepe! After that cartoon character.
fbl- was Nose’s nose red, blue or brown?
I’ve been holding back but I couldn’t resist. Please forgive me. I can’t control it.
b2
That Lex can parlez-vous also implicates him. It was a miracle he escaped.
Lex, Someone has to be French…and it might as well be you…you have my deepest sympathies… Best
PS, B2 are you off your meds again ?
you have my deepest sympathies…
Snake has sympathies??
Eh, probably just for fellow reptiles. But that would mean Lex is then a reptile…
*soooo confused*
That reminds me:
What’s the difference between a brown-noser and an asz-kisser?
A: Depth perception
I’ve quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2008/04/re-irrational-antithapy.html