This does not happen with such regularity anywhere else in the world
Whatever you believe about police and race and racism in the United States, consider this: unarmed citizens who pose little to no danger to society or law enforcement — and, in some cases, citizens in need of help — are being killed in the streets by the very people responsible for keeping us safe. Leave aside for a moment the question of “why.” The bare fact is, this does not happen with such regularity anywhere else in the world. This should disturb as conscientious humans, frighten us as fellow citizens, and concern us very deeply as Americans. Because I can tell you from first-hand experience that in the international halls of power, in the highest human rights bodies in the world, countries from around the world use these events — as well as the ensuing crackdowns on legal protests in response to these events — to discredit the moral power of the United States. Let there be no doubt: every killing of an innocent American civilian at the hands of law enforcement needlessly leaves dead another member of our society, fosters a more dangerous situation for all members of our society, and threatens the stability of the entire world. There is no need to accept this as our destiny; in fact, we must not. For if this is our destiny, we are all doomed.
Do we want Saudi Arabia or Zimbabwe pointing to our abysmal human rights record as a reason to ignore anything we can say about theirs? I don’t think so.
As a non-American, I can tell you that your moral authority evaporated during the second Iraq war. It’s not too late to win it back, but Clinton and Trump being nearly tied in national polls means you won’t any time soon, probably not for a generation, possibly not ever.
Until you manage to actually educate the next wave of voters and politicians nothing will change for the better. Republicans are still trying very hard to destroy whatever schooling you have left and Democrats are too bloody feckless to stop them. Pretty soon your only option will be violent revolution, which you cannot win because the left isn’t the faction hoarding all the guns.
I’m absolutely not saying the rest of World, or even Europe is doing just peachy. We have major problems here as well with the resurgence of the far right since the neoliberals in power are unwilling to admit their policies do not work. But when I want to see a government/country worth imitating, I look towards Iceland, Sweden, Estonia, not the USA.
ps. I’m well aware that the face of America we see abroad is not at all what America actually looks like on the inside. I’ve been there enough to know that much. But when it comes to moral authority, appearances are important and the news does not paint a pretty picture.
Good points, David @1. I do, however, want to comment on this:
National polls are not very meaningful, when it comes to election outcomes. For example, we all remember the 1980 election as the huge landslide that swept Reagan into power. He won by 10 points! But… the national polling just before the actual election had him neck-to-neck with Carter, and even behind Carter in October. So it’s not very useful to look at national polls as some kind of bellwether of american morality; as a nation, we seem to be fairly evenly split into right & left, regardless of who is running. Note as well that right now, Clinton is polling better against Trump than Reagan was against Carter at this same time in the 1980 election. The latter were dead even at about 40% each; Clinton is up over Trump by 3-6%. In a way, I’m impressed that in such a deeply misogynist nation as the USA that she’s doing even that well.
“National polls are not very meaningful, when it comes to election outcomes.”
Sorry, I meant that there’s just too many Americans who would vote for Trump, regardless of whether he’ll win. I could have expressed that a lot clearer I suppose…
US ‘moral authority’ evaporated during the Vietnam War. Or perhaps the country never really possessed it to the extent imagined by Americans, despite their ‘anti-colonial’ pretensions. The US invasion and colonisation of the Phillipines in the early 20th century was an atrocity on a huge scale, and yet with breathtaking hypocrisy, Americans assumed the high moral ground in regard to European imperialism.
Michael De Dora and his compatriots should understand that the US has not been regarded as a moral exemplar by many people, particularly those in the West. That, of course, is a result of US foreign policy not of the country’s internal human rights situation which is still far superior to most nations on the planet. If other countries had a demented American style gun culture the cops would probably shoot civilians dead with similar frequency, regardless of race.
So if representatives of brutal dictatorships presume to hypoctically criticise Americans or other Westerners on their human rights records, the rebuttal is, ‘yours is far worse’.
Mexican American War. Or maybe just taking territory from the Native Americans. Oh, and slave-owning.
The whole “moral authority” thing has been more of an idea that we were *supposed* to do the right thing, and thus lead others by example. But anyone who thinks our history shows us as being successful at it is definitely studying with rose-colored glasses.