MSNBC conducted a poll to mirror a Pew Research study that they said showed that Americans are by and large weary of being the world superpower; that since we think we're tired of being the world police, that we're also tired of being the world leader.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Someone is reading this all wrong.
MSNBC'S Alex Johnson debriefs the report by saying:
"Americans' appetite for world leadership has waned significantly since before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with more than two-fifths saying the United States should mind its own business, according to a major new survey released Thursday."
I think this poll is flawed, not because of the data because they're probably accurate. But I think the temperature takers and extrapolators are all misinterpreting what the responses mean.
Johnson seems to imply that since respondants said they wish the United States would mind its own business - we should glean from that we're no longer interested in being a beacon of decency.
I don't believe that for a minute.
One could look at these same results and just plug in the words Bush Administration wherever the term U-S appears, and it makes more sense. A more accurate characterization would be "Americans think the Bush Administration should mind it's own business.
Americans must always be the world's superpower. It's what we were born to do. Not necessarily in wealth, nor in might, but in character. We became the nation that the world looked up to because of our strong moral liberal values.
Americans were - and should still be - known for compassion, generosity, patience, intuition, inventiveness, perserverance, for being star grabbers and poets, story tellers and lovers.
There's only one reason a single nation in the world can be doing any of these better than we are. And that's because they saw what we were, became fascinated by it and began to mimick us. Then suddenly, as if it were all a big joke, we stopped doing it. And now by comparison they seem ahead of us in research, ahead of us in human rights, ahead of us in natural resources and philanthropy. But really, they're just the young echoes of what we used to be.
Our deep, liberal morality has slowly been cheapened, chipped away, and defiled by a sick, strange, greedy brand of putrid filth. Now we're ram chargers, vikings, pillagers, torturers, liars, insatiably in love with ourselves and our phony, hateful and dangerous piety. Americans don't wish not to be the world's superpower. We just wish to not be what we are anymore. If that's what being a superpower means, we instinctively ... as Americans ... want nothing to do with it.
We're not bored with being the nation that world looks up to as a model of excellence. We just wish to be like we were - when we were.