neutone

Here's my opinion.

I enjoyed reading the article and shared many of it's sentiments. I think the finale was a bit extreme. I think there should be a differentiation between politics and public. I suspect that, like me, there is a great deal of animosity towards US president and politics. It is not targeted towards Americans in general.

There is the theory that people put politicians into place and keep them there, but in this case I don't really think that's true. The rest of the world knows how Bush and his pack lied and cheated their way into power. Certainly my many American friends are not being represented and could hardly be held accountable.

Despite their personal feelings on the subject, they may on some completely illogical level defend him or respect him due to this bizarre (and powerful) concept of loyalty/patriotism. People wierdly reserve the right to insult a family member blatently at fault, and are then offended if others (non-family members) observe and vocalise the exact same feelings.

I would suggest that the idea of free speech be exported along with McDees and Microsoft. The fact that the UK is allies of the US is exactly the reason that its voice be listened to, and the rest of Europe for that matter. There are common global interests and the rest of the world has (a sometimes unwelcome) stake in who the next US president is.