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June 29, 2008 At this date Obama is ten points up on McCain. That is among those who do not usually vote. When it comes to those who vote the figure is about 50/50. With the promise to get out of Iraq and to introduce a confiscatory taxation on US oil profits an Obama win could be the start of a US withdrawal from the world stage, and a slowdown in its domestic economy. Would this be a bad thing? At the moment he US now is the sole arbiter of the international scene, a role it has been struggling to achieve for the last fifty years of so ,a few examples being: General Macarthur’s refusal to aid the British fighting in Burma during WWII until he was sure they would be unable to retain their position in the Far East; the US refusal to aid the French in Indo China during the first conflict there for the same reason; the threat to use force against the British and French during their intervention into Suez unless they withdrew,again for the same reason. All three of these actions are examples of the previous US desire to be sole arbitrator of international affairs. Could an Obama win put the US on an equal footing with the secondary powers; in effect making it also a secondary power (or all of the secondary powers major powers). A transfer of capital from business to social services would greatly impede America’s position as world economic leader. The withdrawal of the US military from the world stage would force others to become major powers. For the past twenty years or so there have been indications that this is how the US mainstream want things to pan out. Maybe there is an instinctive awareness among the US population that it is lonely at the top and wouldn’t it be so much nicer if we were not the only whipping boy. Is it time for the US to give up its messianic mission to convert the world into a model of western democracies? The rest of the world is not western and can not change its cultures in order to accommodate a system of government built upon Greek, Roman, and Western European models.
The US has been in an historic bind as its only claim to legitimacy has been that it had no choice but to rebel against a cruel and unjust colonial master (even though at the time Britain was one of the most benign and enlightened powers on the world stage). With the revolution over there had to be a reason for it and so great freedoms were handed out to population at large, including the right of each man to vote ,no matter what his education. As in all systems the less effective are the majority and vote for policies most beneficial to themselves. It could be that the majority of US voters feel the dilatation of US power would be to their benefit; for a start they would not be so liable to have to serve in a foreign war; would not be the major target of terrorist attack; would not be expected to help out every time some one got into trouble. An Obama win will not automatically put the US in the position of being a secondary power but it will be a
start, and if popular US culture is any indication, this in the general will of the US public at large and so will be the beginning of a trend putting the world back into a more natural state.
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