Jonathan Freedland writes that the world should have a say in United States elections. My first thought was that the piece is a satire, exposed by Freedland’s Swiftian name and uncommon ideas cobbled together in a pseudo-serious manner. He even uses the phrase “a modest proposal”. It’s a poor satire, however; a sad descendent of Jonathan Swift’s superior essay on cooking and eating Irish babies. With none of A Modest Proposal‘s wit or ghastly imagery, Freedland rewrites the satire genre by actually being semi-serious about his outlandish idea, something real satirists understand is not the purpose of the literary form.
Freedland surmises that since the US’ influence over the rest of the world is so complete, the whole world should have a say in who gets elected President.
So perhaps it’s time to make a modest proposal. If everyone in the world will be affected by this election, shouldn’t everyone in the world have a vote? Despite Bob Dole, shouldn’t the men who want to be president win the support of Liverpool and Leipzig as well as Louisville and Lexington?
Everyone in the world is also affected by the American military. Are we to allow other countries to decide our defense budget? The last time I checked the United States was still sovereign. Freedland goes on to point out staples of Liberal thought, which he then cites as reasons the world should have a say in our electoral contests.
Everyone from Madrid to Bali is now drawn into the “war on terror” declared by President Bush. We might believe that war is being badly mishandled – that US actions are aggravating the threat rather than reducing it – and that we or our neighbours will eventually pay the price for those errors. We might fear that the Bush policy is inflaming al-Qaida, making it more not less likely to strike in our towns and cities, but right now we cannot do anything to change that policy. Instead we have to watch the US campaign on TV, with our fingers crossed – impotent spectators of a contest that could shake up our lives.
War affects bystanders just as much as the major combatants. Does that imply the bystanders should or even can help determine whether such a war will be fought? War is, by implication, a casualty-based enterprise, and its industries are made by inflammation of sentiments and policies. And its combatants may wage it on a global scale; it is like a football game with no boundaries. The game will pile into the stands, regardless of whether the spectators wish it to. The nature and scale of war is like that. Pretentions of indignation are tools of rhetoric.
Such a request would also represent a recognition of an uncomfortable fact. It would be an admission that the old, postwar multilateral arrangements have broken down. In the past, America’s allies could hope to influence the behemoth via treaties, agreements and the UN. The Bush era – not just Iraq, but Washington’s disdain for Kyoto, the test ban treaty, the international criminal court and the rest – suggests that the US will no longer listen to those on the outside.
Someone in Europe finally gets it! Yes! Multilateral arrangements with the United States have always been suspect anyway, given Europe’s reliance on US might and money to achieve status not unlike an uncontested boxing champion who rests on previous laurels and accomplishments, all the while dwindling in true power to what Thomas Bray calls a “90 pound weakling”. Multilateral, in this sense, means the US shoulders at least 85% of the burden.
Freedland writes as if Bush was solely responsible for Kyoto’s demise, when the truth is that Kyoto was never a worthy document, proven by other signatories’ flaunting of its measures; proven by Clinton’s failure to sign it; proven by John Kerry’s stated unwillingness to sign it; proven by Japan and Germany and China all unable to meet its impossible restrictions on emissions. As for the international criminal court, the only name you need to say is Milosevic.
Freedland seems to forget that while Americans have sole authority to decide their leaders, they do so under a democratic Constitution. Is every country affected by United States foreign policy decisions willing to effect the American Constitution and all its democratic responsibilities? Will Americans help to choose other countries’ leaders?
And I wonder: If the United States withdrew from world affairs completely, exorcising its foreign military bases, eliminating foreign aid, restricting border access, eliminated its scientific, industrial, and commercial presence from outside our borders–how long would it take for Mr. Freedland to humbly request we go back to exerting our power over the rest of the world?