Bobert: "Given the fact that our role in the world is fairly modest, the issues at stake in our political campaigns do not stir such strong emotions in the electorate. What most often drives strong emotions in people, after all? Fear does. Nobody in the world is afraid of Canada. ;-) Virtually everyone in the world either fears the USA...or regards the USA as a bulwark against someone else in the world whom they fear. Or both at the same time. The USA is in the postion that Rome once was. That means there's a "life or death" sort of quality to major American political issues, just as there was with Roman political issues, and that drives the rhetoric to more and more extreme levels."

Good point.   I do think that a lot of the hate-filled rhetoric today stems from the defensiveness some people have about the possibility that (shudder!) we Americans may not "have the best health care system (or educational system, or whatever) in the world" any more (even if we once had).      It is very scary to deal with loss like that, and sometimes the best defense seems to be a good offense.   


Jim Dixon: "Americans are good at noticing that there are many places that are worse than America.

If there was a place where some things were done better, would we even notice?"

Probably not. In some ways there clearly already are. That's a very hard pill for some people to swallow. Especially when you've tagged "the others" with alienating labels like "socialist," "communist," "elitist," etc.