When one country makes others upset, this breeds a resentment that leads the resentful countries to form alliances against the superpower, (usually taking on a military form) to bring it down. This is called "hard balancing" and it brought down Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany. --Anaralia

I don't think we should do anything that would make our allies consider us a physical threat, by any means. I just don't think we should consider the desires of other countries over our own, either. Every country has (and should have) its own self-interests as its first priority. It seems like people expect the US to be the one country in the world that doesn't, and that's what I disagree with. I don't think we should avoid disagreement for the sake of avoiding disagreement. If our allies are wrong about something, we should disregard their opinions.

No, Europe won't invade us, but they can still hurt us, in the wallet.

That's their right, of course. That doesn't mean we should sell our souls or cater to the whim of everyone who has a financial hold on us. We should do what's right, and we should do what's best for our country, and if it helps the world too, then yay.

But you've just said we couldn't manage without electricity! If the power went off tomorrow, there'd be chaos. I can't even imagine it. --Burtsplurt

It's not going to happen in one day. We'd see it coming and compensate. We're beginning to compensate already today, and we still have plenty of fossil fuels left. We'll probably have no more need of fossil fuel long before it runs out. I hope so anyways.

How can bush be pro-life when he supports the death penalty? --ed

I agree, "pro-life" is a misnomer. Pretty sure the anti-abortion group picked that name to make themselves sound good and to attempt to take the moral high-ground. On the news they tend to say "so-called pro-life" and "so-called pro-choice", I've noticed, which is appropriate.

As for all the people who say the war on Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein was a bad man - where is Bush's influence in Africa? They call for his help and he doesn't come. --BoB

So it's all or nothing, right? If two people are drowning and we can only save one, best to let them both die. That's your argument.

In any case, we have sent troups to Africa, just last year if I remember right, to help stop a civil war in some country or another. And in any case, Africa isn't a threat to us, are they? They're poor as dirt for the most part. I don't think they have the technical capabilities to hurt us if they wanted to. I'm not in favor of babysitting the world. I am in favor of getting rid of threats. Saddam had weapons in the past, and he used them on other countries without provocation; he expressed a desire to harm other countries, including America and its allies, and he backed those words up with actions. He defied the international community up to the second the war started. Whether he actually had weapons at the moment the war started is irrelevant; he kept too many secrets, and I think it's right to assume he had them or would have had them in the future.