The UN speech I'd like to hear

This week, in President Obama's speech to the United Nations, he declared that he "took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust." He did not say anything in the remainder of the speech to indicate that this perspective was an invalid one. Nor would I expect that he would; after all, President Obama's wife told us all last year that for the first time in her life, she felt proud of her country (once it was clear that her husband was winning the Democratic Presidential nomination).

I would love, just once, to hear a President of either party go to the UN and offer some sentiments along this line:

"Messrs. Qaddafi, Castro, Chavez, et. al: You all have denounced the United States vociferously and fomentedly for years, if not decades...and, I might add, for jolly well long enough. If it weren't for this country, none of you could even afford a skyscraper with bright carpets and padded chairs such as the one we are convening in now, not to speak of the posh hotel suites you are occupying during your stays here. This country was built on the initiative of people who put their reputations, untold hours of hard work and their very livelihoods, in many cases, on the line to make it possible. It is called capitalism; it works and the whole world is more productive and better off because of it. We love freedom, we love the flag and we love God. No, our people aren't perfect; they have their weaknesses and their foibles, and we have some bad apples, but by and large we get up every day and go out and try to improve our lot in life, thereby creating more opportunities for those underneath us on the economic ladder to improve their status and standing. In the last 200 years, the world has progressed to a greater extent than the last 5,000 years of civilization have ever seen. We have left the buggy whip, the mule and plow and the institution of slavery behind forever and replaced them with jet planes, automobiles and central air conditioning. What a country! Welcome to the United States of America!"

Don't tell me it can never happen or I'll have to find another pipe dream.

The President went on to say to the assembled world leaders that going forward, no nation should seek to dominate another. I have heard a lot of commentary on this in the several days that have elapsed since then. Charles Krauthammer opined that this was one of the more naive statements to ever be uttered by a sitting President. I don't know if my reasons for agreeing with Krauthammer or synonymous with the ones he had for expressing this belief to begin with, but I do think Krauthammer's assessment was accurate. Krauthammer, however, tends to come from a more neoconservative position than I do, with a practiced defense of American empire. I do not share that outlook; I believe history shows that America has flourished when it has concentrated on sound fiscal policies domestically, combined with incentives for the kind of hard work, ingenuity and investment that lead to prosperity. This can be combined with a robust determination to defend our interests in the world at large, but it need not lead to an interventionist foreign policy.

I actually think that President Obama was even more dangerously wrong in another portion of the speech: "It is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 - more than at any point in human history - the interests of nations and peoples are shared." This sort of claptrap makes for a good applause line from the tinhorn dictators at the UN, but it is a ridiculous across-the-board formulation. The "interests" within our own country aren't even shared, beyond the most basic fundamentals of putting food on the table and bringing home a paycheck, by hook or crook. The philosophical and political differences within the United States have never been more pronounced, let alone across the rest of the globe. What the President is trying to tell us is that we should all care about and work for the same goals. But we cannot and will not; we see the world too differently. The President sees other countries that are more "compassionate" and "fair" and "socially just" than the United States because these countries maintain a higher output of tax dollars of which this portion of the population can take advantage. I and my fellow conservatives, on the other hand, see a country that has already moved much too far in this direction and needs to return more of its tax revenues to their rightful earners who made the money in the first place!!! This is genuine fairness, rather than the artificial equitability advocated by liberal politicans who want to pad their vote tallies with the ballots of grateful welfare recipients.