All About McCain

[Tenigma]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Except it didn't use to be that way. It used to be that when other markets were faltering, they'd be looking to us for help. I think it IS significant to note that the rest of the world appears to have diminished respect for our economic stature, especially in a world where we are increasingly reliant on world consumer confidence.

While it's not directly related to the global economy, one thing I want to mention is the little personal anecdote Obama gave during the first debate, about how his father did everything he could to come to the U.S., and how the U.S. is no longer looked upon as the beacon for people to come to.

I caught a snippet of the Laura Ingraham show, where a female caller said Obama was absolutely wrong, because we still have a ton of illegal immigrants trying to cross into the border.

I agree we still have a lot of people wanting to come here, but I think a lot of what's driving that is economic. What Obama was talking about was people wanting to come here for ideological purposes; people seeing America as the home of the free, where you can make your dream come true. When other countries snort and disrespect our country, we lose footing as the "beacon of freedom" that people want to flock to.

Some might think that's a good thing--less immigrants. But I'd like to continue to think of us as the good guys. Not the scary fundamentalist Christianist country so afraid of terrorists that our government thinks it's OK to ship suspects to foreign countries to be tortured.

Oh one thing... I give McCain credit for being expressly against torture, but I bet Obama will be much faster about closing GITMO, stopping extraordinary rendition, stopping "advanced interrogation techniques" and other horrendous things we do to people, many of whom aren't even formally charged. How does that stuff make us the good guys?