The morality, responsibility and consistency of those who voted for the winner may be gauged by the statement - which I have already encountered three or four times - that they "hope" that those of us who warned them against him were wrong.
Hope.
They have elected a politician to the most powerful post in the West based on what they hope he will prove.
Such appalling insouciance and irresponsibility is certain to be punished. God may delay His punishment for sin - often to the next world - but He never intermits anything to the punishment for stupidity, which is always paid, and paid strictly and with plenty of interest, here on Earth.
Hope.
They have elected a politician to the most powerful post in the West based on what they hope he will prove.
Such appalling insouciance and irresponsibility is certain to be punished. God may delay His punishment for sin - often to the next world - but He never intermits anything to the punishment for stupidity, which is always paid, and paid strictly and with plenty of interest, here on Earth.
Re: We all have our opinions and beliefs. Some are not rational beliefs, however
Date: 2008-11-05 08:53 pm (UTC)Re: We all have our opinions and beliefs. Some are not rational beliefs, however
Date: 2008-11-07 04:39 pm (UTC)I agree with you and see this also as a silver lining both for America and Europe. America foolishly tried to prevent the return of European Powers to Great Power status in 1956 when we betrayed Britain and France in the Suez Crisis. The result has been that the European states have developed a very immature and coddled concept of defense and diplomacy, one which now leads them to engage in and urge upon us the most naive, self-destructive, and short-term kinds of actions. This is because, under American protection, they have so far suffered little for their own follies -- though with the EU's desire to admit large numbers of hostile Muslim immigrants, this is starting to change.
The Soviet Union fell in 1989. There is no longer any particular reason for the European Powers to be dependent upon America for their defense. Indeed, modern Russia is so weak that the EU, or an alliance of EU Powers, could easily check Russian ambitions with purely European forces.
Obama's feckless Administration will be very likely to drop the ball on all sorts of foreign crises, and it may be gradually bourne upon the Europeans that they can't count on anyone but themselves for their own defense. At this point, I see European defense and foreign policy turning sharply to the right. I could even see the beginnings, within a decade or so, of the recolonization by Europe of at least North Africa, owing to the gradual realization that the North African states have failed and become hopeless dens of terrorism.
I do not believe that America and Europe have any differences sharp enough to be likely causes of war. For this reason, I would welcome a more powerful and realistic Europe, regardless of what form its ultimate union takes (I see good reason for pessimism about the survival of the EU in its current form).
And this is the one good thing that could come from a feckless American Administration in 2009-13.