Where do non-Americans get the moral authority to judge the United States?

Question

Many bring up the slaughering of the native Americans, but how is that different from the creation of any other country..Canada, Brazil and almost every country in the western hemisphere was started the same way. In fact there were people European countries before the people who are there now got there. Look what Australia did to aborigines.

It was Europe who colonized Africa, the U.S. had almost nothing to do with Africas conditions right now. Then of course there was the slave trade, but it was the Europeans (the UK specifically) who were the biggest slavers by far the the Spanish(europeans).

Im just amazed how non-Americans are so quick to slam America but have they have no moral authority of thier own

Answer 1

I'd have to agree with you, every modern nation has done dirt to someone at some point, and many of them still do mistreat their citizens and other people around the world.

Answer 2

Feeling of justice is not related with America or non-America..

                 a non American can also judge on all American subject..

Answer 3

What you say about most of the rest of the world having done terrible things in their history too, is very true. We shouldn't have a go about the dreadful crimes America has committed without also taking responsibility for the dreadful things we have done in the past as well.

I think perhaps, outside of the USA we get the impression that these things are whitewashed in your schools and history books, which isn't necessarily so, if it isn't then good.  

Having said all that, every country, including America, should teach history truthfully, to help people understand how such truly terrible things can happen in seemingly civilised countries, to help prevent these things from happening again, don't forget, there are still parts of the world were unimaginable cruelty, suffering and genocide still goes on.

The other thing the British should remember about the way the Native Americans were treated, was that in the early times,many of those *Americans* were still pretty much British settlers, and other Europeans, Billy the Kid for instance, still had a Yorkshire accent.

Edit:

Thats a really good poem SB, and true:)

Answer 4

They're just upset because of the war mostly and they think we poke our noses in everyones business but what they don't realize is that many countries that are in trouble ask for US presence and ask us to come there and help them fight their wars. Georgia has already asked the US to help them fight Russia but I think Bush doesn't want to do that with our troops in Iraq.

Answer 5

And where does the US get the moral authority to appoint itself as police force of the world?

Answer 6

I agree and "Darkness" has certainly proved your point. Some of them act as if they have never done anything wrong. They constantly say bad things about Americans yet we're the first ones to help them when they need aid from natural disasters or wars. We're out there right now providing aid to Georgia but they don't care about that. I guess they just want us to stop helping other countries because we come off as "arrogant" when we do or thinking we're better for some reason. It really doesn't make any sense to me.

Answer 7

It's the USA that seem to think they have the moral authority to judge other nations.

Oh! and for your info; The UK was the first country to ban slavery. Slavery was banned in the UK way before it was banned in the USA.

And it was African tribes that fought against each other, but instead of killing their tribal enemies they sold them to the slave traders.

The USA, as caused more problems in the world by being the big bully boys with the 'You either with us or aginst us' and 'It's our way or nothing' attitude.

So come off your high yanky horse, America is not that great.

Answer 8

"What I've always wondered is how anyone who claims to love freedom and who desires the chance to seek their own fortune in an enviroment that has no limits to acheivment could chastise America. "

Hahahaha. I love how some Americans think America is perfect. And er...just to be picky about spelling, it's "environment" and "achievement".

Answer 9

I don't judge the USA on their past, of course no one can have the moral highground there-it was a different time.

But I do judge them on the present. You're not required to be American to have an understanding of what's wrong with it. It's well known (outside of the US it would seem anyway) that the USA has a terrible human rights record in the present (see Amnesty International) particularly pertaining to the rights of children (the US is one of only two countries never to have ratified the human rights convention on the rights of the child-to put it into perspective, the other one is Somalia). There is a great deal of government corruption and a poor welfare system, poor education in comparison to many other western countries, lack of healthcare...could go on.

You can't deny other countries have big problems too, but the US stands out because it's a developed country and supposedly on of the richest nations in the world-yet they seem a long way towards catching up with the morals of the rest of the western world. It remains the only developed country with the death penalty, the country that sentences the most minors to the death penalty, that incarcerates children in adult jails.

Nelson Mandela says you should judge a country on how it treats it's worst citizens, the people at the bottom of the pile, not it's best, and you don't need to be American to see that how America treats it's worst citizens is pretty poor.

On top of that add their poor excuse for foreign policy and the fact that the government likes to think they can bully anyone into doing what they want (still waiting for a moment like in Love Actually when the British Prime Minister stops sucking up to them), it's not exactly impressive as a country.

Answer 10

i'm a non american and i admit i do jugde the united states sometimes

but then again americans judge england too...

were not actually all cockneys or really posh with bad teeth.

Answer 11

You're right they have forgotten their own history.

Answer 12

I agree with you but I don't know who you think has these opinions. When native Americans, Aborigines and other native peoples where slaughtered it was by Europeans, the United States / Australia etc. didn't exist!

Anyway, I personally think the treatment of the Aborigines in Australia was far worse than the treatment of native Americans.

Answer 13

There is no moral high ground other nations can stand on in which to condemn us in the United States. Especially in Europe ! It seems today that Europeans like many Americans lack a sense of history. It seems that they have forgotten what an imperialistic America did at the expense of hundreds of thousands of its lives. Liberate and free an oppressed continent from fascism. Whats even more saddening is to see Americans cast such a disparaging image on the very country who's sacrifices have allotted them to do so. What I've always wondered is how anyone who claims to love freedom and who desires the chance to seek their own fortune in an enviroment that has no limits to acheivment could chastise America.    

Answer 14

I agree that most, if not all, countries have things in their history that they'd rather have locked in a basement, never to surface.

However, where do we get our moral authority?  We have stuck our nose in a lot of other people's business, and we're spending billions on it right now, for example.  We sometimes act as if we are the moral centers of the universe, so I imagine our dirty laundry is more likely to be critiqued.  

Answer 15

Don't Talk about Aborigines, We weren't alive at those times, Let it go.

And Europeans Might be the bigger slave TRADERS, but americans were bigger slave OWNERS.

And dont forget, white americans are originally European!

Answer 16

Time after time

After crime after crime

They raped, robbed, pillaged, enslaved and murdered

Jesus Christ was their god and they done it in his name

So he could take the blame if it's not all a game

With bible in one hand and a sword in the other

They came to purify my land of my Gaelic Irish mothers

And fathers, and sisters and brothers

With our own ancient customs, laws, music, art

Way of life and culture

Tribal in structure

We had a civilisation

When they were still neanderthal nations

We suffer with the Native American, the Indian in Asia

Aboriginal Australia

The African people with their history so deep

And our children still weep and our lives are still cheap

You came from Germany, from France, from England

And from Spain

From Belgium and from Portugal

You all done much the same

You took what was not yours

Went against your own bible

You broke your own laws

Just to out do the rival

But did you ever apologize

For the hundreds and millions of lives

You destroyed and terrorised

Or have you never realized

Did you never feel shame

For what was done in your country's name

And find out who's to blame and why they were so inhumane

And still they teach you in your school

About those glorious days of rule

And how it's your destiny to be

Superior to me

But if you've any kind of mind

You'll see that all human kind

Are the children of this earth

And your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out

You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free

You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free

You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free

Inside our minds we hold, hold the key

Answer 17

Same way as the US now judges other nations in the world.

Answer 18

If I had been alive at the time the UK was pulling all that bad stuff, I would have spoken out against it, as I do now about our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.   The USA has NO moral authourity to stick its' nose into other countries politics, in the quest to "eliminate terror" - what was the birth of America, if not a "terrorist" uprising by "insurgents" against the ruling United Kingdom?  The other thing you are committed to in the USA, is to prevent the spread of Communism.  Well, Cuba is just 90 miles from you... and Communist.  Try to change that.   And then try some of those South American countries, and North Korea, Myanmar, China and Russia.  Then get back to me.