What else would you expect?
Reader comment on item: Hating America's Success

Submitted by William Eakins (United States), Oct 12, 2004 at 08:42

When you look at the list of the critics of America, with their presuppositions and moral backgrounds, what else would you expect? I don't believe that one should cave in to the criticisms of the amoral and hedonistic crowd. The only surprise on the list , in my view, is de Tocqueville. One must remember, however, that at the time he came to America he was the representative of the skepticism of Europeans that freedom under law would really work.

America's successes and virtues prove how shortsighted those past and present critics of America were at the time, and in the present. Any nation as large and powerful as we are does possess some scary elements. We have the power to do much good, and wrongly guided, to do much harm. What is in our favor is that we trust people, as most of the world doesn't. Before we consent to a world run totally by a detached elite, we should reflect on how well this "boisterous experiment" has worked.

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