Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
You are, however, quite welcome to come to erroneous conclusions based on your perceptions of what I might think. We are a beacon of democracy -- just a tarnished and imperfect model.
Thousands dead, millions suffering and still you find my conclusion erroneous. In the above post you'll find a BBC poll, which projects the same erroneous conclusion.

With respect to Hitler, yes, he did that -- and if you think that was in his or his nations interest, you, not I, have a rather strange sense of what a national interest happens to be...
Why? He considered Jews to be backstabbers and believed that when Germany needed Jews, they simply refused to fight. If I were a leader of a nation which is fighting the greatest war the world has ever seen and particular community is refusing to fight then I too will be pissed off.

We the US have done, do and will likely do a lot of stupid things for all sorts of good and bad reasons but that beacon foolishness is really only spouted by politicians (in uniform and not in uniform) who know better but are too political to be honest. Still, disregarding them, take the bad and the good we've done over the years and one gets a better average than one does for most nations. We do some harm fairly often, much not out of malice but because we're big and clumsy. We also do some good and most of us are comfortable with the fact that we do more good than harm.
So what's with the holier than thou nature? I agree that Americans did some great things but none of them were military in nature.

Not many nations can say that though there will be more that can do so in the future, the world's changing. For now, over the last 220 years, I can't think of anyone else that comes close. Can you?
Yes, I think Brits did a far better job, if we are looking over last 220 years.

We do want free commerce and we do not tolerate threats or potential threats for very long.
Yep, that is the key word.