Well, it's 97 days and counting until the good people of Iowa single-handedly decide which presidential candidates will get the chance to (mis)lead the US for the next few years. On the other side of the pond, Gordon Brown has officially wimped out of calling an election, so it will be a little while before we see his slug-fest with David Cameron.
But hey, everyone knows US politics are so much more exciting anyway ;)
This is the first time, by the way, that I've bothered to follow primary race campaigns. Even in '04 I was still recovering from Democratophobia (yes, it's a real condition) to pay attention until Kerry had already won... *sigh*
And now, though I attempt to discern the real differences between Obama and Hillary, and try to find any signs of intelligent life from the GOP (ok, I actually gave up on that months ago), what interests me most is not the minutiae, but the larger picture: the relationship between the US and Europe, between them and the Middle East, and again with Russia, India, and China.
I don't have anything worthwhile to say about these things, except this: the United States had better realize that it no longer owns the world; and it had better realize that fast, because everyone else already has. The government and its people need to understand that civil liberty and justice are not "Made in America," but a universal standard to which all people have an equal obligation to submit and enforce.
This means that US interests must take a back seat to human interests. If the government feels it necessary to take an active role in the welfare of other nations, then it must do so under the authority of the international community: to do otherwise is not just unwise, it's immoral.
It also means that whatever standards the government holds other nations to, it must also apply to itself. Forbidding Iran to build nuclear weapons, while sitting on your own stockpile of Hiroshima-dwarfing bombs, is morally unacceptable. So is justifying your own regime-changing in practice while condemning others in principle.
In summary, the rest of the world has already rejected the tired line that the US is authorized to dictate global politics. It's only a matter of time (and maybe not that much of it) that the US will no longer be able to reach its arms that long. What then? If America ignores that reality it could lead to destruction, and the rise of another superpower. But if it works now to establish the international authority that will outlast it, we could see the establishment of the rule of law and of justice, which allows for peace.
If time permitted I would write a (lengthy) post titled "Why I'm not a Republican." It's something I feel the need to justify, because the Democratic position on abortion grieves me, and is not something to be put aside lightly. However, to vote Republican because of that one issue would be to neglect the larger issues at that I mentioned above. Abortion represents one life destroying another for its own supposed benefit. What Bush and his potential sucessors describe as "security" is the equivalent on a global scale. And, like many women who have abortions testify, when immoral means are justified to acheive desired ends, much is lost, and very little is gained.
