When it comes to liberalism, I suggest that my fellow conservatives practice what they preach and look at the good effects of liberalism and not just its bad (thank you, Raj). Were it not for liberals complaining about civilian dead in the Koreas and Vietnam, would we be taking as much care today not to hurt civilians in today’s war? Would we have developed precision weapons later in our history? Would many more civilians be dead today were it not for that pressure? Though annoying as heck, liberalism saves lives in America. Why? Liberal or conservative, we Americans are constantly trying to improve ourselves and thus we respond strongly to criticism.
Whether one is an American or not history shows that complaining about America works. You complain, we respond. Besides if you can’t complain about America then who can you complain about? Can you complain about the “you can only vote ‘yes’” European Union? Does it do any good for Russians to complain about their own country? What about the unfortunate folks in North Korea? Think of Zogby polls and other complaint streams as the receiving end of the United States’ Customer Service Department, which is a necessary component of any large company and a necessary component of doing business. (How often do customers call Customer Service Departments to say how wonderful their products are versus how often they call because they have a specific problem?)
Also keep in mind that the outside world, though very much affected by the United States in myriad ways, are unable to vote for our leaders directly and have limited means of affecting our behavior. Fortunately history shows that America tends to respond well to the calls that come in to our Customer Service Department. In a way, you can say that our successes and known sensitivity to criticism produces the effects we see today in terms of those who complain about America in general. If you want to stop criticism, stop rewarding it.
Forget that. I would rather be associated with a country that is known to respond to criticism and can be counted on for “doing the right thing” — eventually, and as well as any large country can do anything right — than to be associated with a country which others have stopped criticizing because it would do them no good to do so.
