Obama, choice of a new generation - of Eurotrash

I saw this opinion piece from the Guardian, a UK newspaper linked on Patrick Conlon's blog Born Again Redneck with the warning, "Don't read this unless you want to feel annoyed and frustrated by the idiocy of a sniveling European imbecile."

I have to disagree with Patrick on one point. I'm not "annoyed and frustrated". I'm just disgusted. But judge for yourselves:

If Sarah Palin defies the conventional wisdom that says elections are determined by the top of the ticket, and somehow wins this for McCain, what will be the reaction? Yes, blue-state America will go into mourning once again, feeling estranged in its own country. A generation of young Americans - who back Obama in big numbers - will turn cynical, concluding that politics doesn't work after all. And, most depressing, many African-Americans will decide that if even Barack Obama - with all his conspicuous gifts - could not win, then no black man can ever be elected president.

But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.

The crowd of 200,000 that rallied to hear him in Berlin in July did so not only because of his charisma, but also because they know he, like the majority of the world's population, opposed the Iraq war. McCain supported it, peddling the lie that Saddam was linked to 9/11. Non-Americans sense that Obama will not ride roughshod over the international system but will treat alliances and global institutions seriously: McCain wants to bypass the United Nations in favour of a US-friendly League of Democracies. McCain might talk a good game on climate change, but a repeated floor chant at the Republican convention was "Drill, baby, drill!", as if the solution to global warming were not a radical rethink of the US's entire energy system but more offshore oil rigs.

If Americans choose McCain, they will be turning their back on the rest of the world, choosing to show us four more years of the Bush-Cheney finger. And I predict a deeply unpleasant shift.

Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for.

[. . .]

Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American. But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us - and, make no mistake, we shall hear it.

It says that there is still hope for us you sniveling European imbecile.

The fact is, and this is what really enrages the Eurotrash, that Mr. Freedland (the author of this whiny little snot-nosed screed) and all his countrymen and all the other citizens of the European Union are only free today because they were made free and kept free by the sacrifice of American men like John McCain.

The willingness of the United States of America to spend its blood and treasure is the only reason that Mr. Freedland is not today saluting the swastika of England's Nazi overlords or the hammer and sickle of its Soviet masters (actually I would rate the chances as better than 50/50 that he does salute the hammer and sickle).

Mr. Freedland and the other members of the European gelding class need to take heed of the old saying that you'd better be careful of what you wish for because you just might get it. If Barack Obama is elected president and is able to enact his plans for this country then just who will protect Europe from a resurgent Russia or militant Islam or a China bent on hegemony?

Old Europe has created a kind of lotus eater society for itself with generous cradle-to-grave social services, short work weeks, long vacations and a code of sexual morals which would please a teenage boy. They have only been able to afford this because America has been willing to shoulder the cost of their defense.

However the Eurochickens are coming home to roost as their abandonment of religious faith and national responsibility have robbed the European people of faith in their own future. This has led to sharply declining birth rates and forced them to import large numbers of untamed Muslims to keep providing the services that the aging native population are dependant upon.

If the American nation becomes the Obamanation and we become as weak and enervated as they are then who will step into the breach when the next Hitler or Stalin (and as sure as the turning of the worlds there will be one) rises up and casts his covetous gaze upon a supine continent?

The citizens of Old Europe have chosen the live their lives in a kind of dreamy perpetual adolescence. They need to pray that mom and dad stay employed and willing to continue looking after them. Or they just might find out how cold and cruel the real world can be.