They said Obama would make America more popular around the world, and he did. Apparently, people really like the fact that just by being an ally of America, you get a free iPod. In fact, the U.S. is viewed more favorably everywhere except Muslim countries. You’d think the “secret Muslim” rumors would help Obama over there, but apparently there’s a well-defined plateau in popularity with them while our policy is still to kill terrorists and not kill Jews.
So what does our newfound popularity mean?
ADVANTAGES OF AMERICA BEING POPULAR
1. Get invited to more parties.
2. Could be elected homecoming queen.
3. Will no longer get picked last when the world plays a game of kickball.
Of course, being popular is opposed to what we were before: Feared.
ADVANTAGES OF AMERICA BEING FEARED
1. Countries will do whatever we tell them to.
Personally, I liked that better. Like if we were feared, no one would dare blow a vuvuzela out of fear of us declaring war on their country and obliterating it — which we probably would. Yeah, being feared requires being mean to countries and pushing them around, but it’s well established that foreigners don’t have rights so that’s not a problem. Plus, it just creeps me out that people would choose to have other countries than America; it just doesn’t make any sense. They’re probably all psychos. And if a bunch of weirdos like us, that could be bad.
So what do you think? Is it better America be feared or popular? And you can’t all pick “feared”. We need more balance in IMAO comments.
I will pick popular to balance out the comments if you will change “are policy” to “our policy”
Thankies.
Oh and I’ll be sending Princess Buttercup’s quilt in a couple of weeks. 🙂
It is of course better to be popular.
Serial killers who appear well-adjusted are more effective than serial killers who openly flaunt their willingness to dismember you.
(yes I am proposing America become a serial killer. there’s almost 200 countries out there and that’s really just too many)
America should scare the vuvuzela out of any other nation.
Fear America? They should run in terror and tremble. When we don’t kill them all they will say “Yea !! America saved us!!” and then we will be feared and popular, too.
Popular would be nice since America could get laid by smokin hot Brazil or the bikini team that is Sweden. Then that Stupid Russia would be all jealous because they’re stuck going out with Skankistan.
That said, if we were feared we could make the rest of the world sit on their vuvuzelas while we explain what REAL football is.
Other advantages of being feared:
* Girls will be more willing to make out with us.
* More oil.
* Socialists will stay in their own countries.
* There will be less immigration to the United States, meaning more cheap labor in third-world countries for production of Nuke the Moon t-shirts.
* More people will try to take us on, meaning our military won’t get too bored.
Disadvantages of being feared:
* Cats will hang around us. Cats love a big strong person who beats them up. They love that feeling of someone’s hand striking across their sensitive butts.
* Frenchmen will hang around us. Frenchmen love a big strong person who beats them up. They love that feeling of someone’s hand striking across their sensitive butts.
P.J. O’ Rourke summed it up better that I can (BTW I think he would vote feared):
“A John Wayne movie,” I said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie — with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something Mister Limey Poofter? You’re right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They’re us. WE BE BAD.
“We’re the baddest-assed sons of b!tches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars. We’re the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cape d’Antibes. And we’ve got an American Express card credit limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.
“You say our country’s never been invaded? You’re right little buddy. Because I’d like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who’d have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying “Cheerio.” Hell can’t hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, spit further, f**k longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I’d rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and sh!t them out before lunch.”
Popular? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
In that poll, while the US dropped three percentage points in the last year under Obama, Russia rose 13 percentage points and China rose 11 percentage points. So, please explain how this data shows that Obama is somehow making us more “popular” among the crappy countries that make up the rest of the world.
Who wants to be popular if the people who decide whether or not your popular are a bunch of frigging idiots? I mean these bozos call “soccer” “football” – and they don’t even watch REAL football. Communists.
So big deal. All the morons riding the short bus suddenly like us. wo hoo. But the malicious, spiteful, crazy, freaks that no one wants to hang out with? They would love to kick the big Jock’s ass, if only they weren’t so afraid to confront him directly. Instead, they slash our tires during the football game and lust after our cheerleader girlfriends. Screw those losers. I say we kick their asses. They are the same jerks who stuff the weak kids into lockers and torment them to make themselves feel better. (See honor killings).
Forget about Nuking the Moon, we should have Nuked Mecca on September 12th, 2001. Then we could all laugh at the idiots left turning in circles (like a cat getting ready to lay down) on their prayer rugs because they no longer have anything to face when they “pray” to their false god.
So I guess that would be a vote for “fear”. Prefaced by turning the middle east into glass. With those morons out of the picture we could turn all our attention to the liberal know-it-all who spit on our Constitution and want to run our lives.
Oh sorry, I misread that poll…please have Hillary press the “RESET” button for me.
Why is Israel not on that poll?
@Marko: Excellent! You refernced both cats and Nuke the Moon t-shirts in one post.
I’m not so sure about this “feared” thing. It’s all well and good as it goes, but I’d choose “pants-wetting, trembling, terrified” as a policy for international relations. It fits with P.J. O’Rourke’s description. By the way, Matt, I seem to remember reading that some time ago. Was it in _Republican_Party_Reptile_? Mebbe during the Reagan years?
Curses! Moderated again. Perhaps it was my refernce to “p*nts w*tting”
I don’t care if its fear or popularity that motivates the rest of the world to stay in line. All this pussy-footin’ around commie dictators, pandering to islamofascists, and general flower-scented doucheiness displayed by the left makes us look weak. The weak are never feared and are only popular as targets.
“And you can’t all pick “feared”. We need more balance in IMAO comments.”
As in “Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated.” Frank ?
I don’t come here to make balanced comments, nor to be fair, nor to medicate myself.
So, I say “feared” in a popular sort of way with freedom lovers world-wide (the few that are left or even know the meaning of the word).
Oh, darn, that was too balanced.
We should base our self-esteem as a country on how popular we are with other countries. Like if Iran gives us a approval rating of “0,” we think as highly of ourselves as That One does of himself, and if France gives us an approval rating of “100,” we commit suicide.
Oh, wait, we already did that.
Remember when we scared the nukes outta Qaddafi/Ghadafi/Kaddafy/Liberace-looking-mofo? Yeah, me too. Let’s go with “feared”.
Oh, and yes, chicks dig it. Feminazi protestations notwithstanding, even they get the tingles when they see a strong man perpetrate violence (read: hippy-punching).
Love the O’Rourke quote, BTW. That one goes on my cubicle wall.
Uh, I believe the Nuke the Moon policy is a policy of fear. Therefore, my official stance is the same as IMAO: being feared.
I think Fearpular would be the next best thing.
Which Jews are we talking about? Which Arabs are we talking about? My answer is the same as to the Priests of Baal, Lets drop a big nuke in the middle of Palestine whoever God wins and thus is still alive becomes our new best friends. Before you get all uppity I have the same plan for my own white divided liberal/conservative neighborhood.
bdog57,
The same time Bush scared the nukes out of Lebanon is also the several years that Iran paused their Nuke plans. Once we were bogged down in Iraq (much thanks to Iran ) they restarted them. While I am a frequent critic of the middle eastern wars, if Bush had not invaded Iraq in 2003 Iran would not have paused their nuke problem would now be 2-3.5 years ahead of where they are now. So basically Iran would now have nukes so figure out how long you think Iran will be willing to sit on and not use their nukes and add that to now. We might already be living on borrowed time thanks to the 2003 invasion.
Most peace in Iraq coincided with the surge but also was largely due to a secret deal under Bush to promise not to invade or attack Iran if they stopped sabotaging Iraq. At the exact same moment Al-Qaeda (In Iraq) overplayed their hand and bombed too many Sunni’s pretending to be Shias (to spark a civil war) and at that moment the Sunnis had enough and started rejecting Al-Qaeda and ran behind the US military forces for protection form the Shias. The exact opposite of the dynamic at the start of the invasion of 2003.
In the end we had the will and resources for one shot at the middle east and we dropped the ball by starting in Afghanistan. Should have started in Iran while flying missions basically like suppressing fire over Iraq and Afghanistan until Iran was done and then clean up Iraq and Afghan on our way out. Both would have been possible without the Iranian Guard infiltrating like they did.
I always kind of favored the “Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women.” view of foreign policy but I hear that has fallen out of vogue.
I guess that puts my vote in the “trembled before” column.
I think it’s better to be popularly feared.
How about…fopular? (think ‘fugly’)
Who’s fopular? Fred!, Christie, Jindal, Palin, Cheney, Dale, Mr. T, etc.
Perhaps there is some need to explore the dichotomy of the limited options of fear and popularity. For example, the left has a dreadful fear of “The Fred”, but he is wildly popular ’round these parts. And similar castigation/reverence can be said of others. The point being that the point of view may be more influential due simply to the number of people who hold individual views on any subject being a larger number than that of people who hold the opposing view.
I think greater definition is required as to what constitutes genuine drop a load in your pants fear, versus I know they can wipe us off the map, but they won’t do it because there is a pussy in the white house now. Evidence of this attitude change in a single individual country adjusting it’s fear level can be readily exposed after the 444 days of captivity under Mr. Carter and the 0 minus one days under Mr. Reagan, by that very same Iran.
As to the subject of popularity, who gives a flying fu,,, um fig. As any skank on any groupie train can testify; The one with the most money is the one who is the most popular. Being less rich doesn’t really make you less popular, it just makes more people not care about your presence.
I call insignificance to the surveys. As to answer the original question. I’ll take Mr. Reagan, who was BTW BOTH feared AND popular.
Popularity is easy: Give’em whatever they want.
Fear is easy: Take whatever we want.
Respect is hard: It can’t be demanded, only earned.
The more feared we are, the more friends we will aquire.
there’s a “who, whom” issue here. Countries that elect their leaders and believe in individual liberty, including economic liberty(*), are worth be popular with and we should seek their popularity and approval. Countries that have dictators or socialism(*) should fear us
(*) I just ruled out everybody but Israel, didn’t I?
Why can’t we have both? Like, say, hot chicks with guns?
As Machiavelli says, it’s better to be both, but if you have to choose you have to go with fear.
I’d prefer to be dreaded (not in the hippie hair sense) than feared. Dread implies more impending doom and less certainty about when it will strike, but more certainty that it WILL strike.