What concerns me about this is that it has made America such a weak player in the world. We are so caught up in appeasing 20% of the population who switch their votes based on their selfish desires, that we forget to care about the greater good, the bigger picture. Look at China, the gov. there has so much power and control but it is effective because it quells the outspoken opposition. Now I would never ever support our country becoming such an authoritarian dictatorship, but I believe that we could learn a lesson about Patriotism from the Chinese.
Not really. China's number one problem these days is corruption that causes them to make decisions that are not in the best interests of the country and that makes it difficult to institute reforms that the national government realizes would benefit China but are stonewalled at the local level because they take money out of the pockets of local graftmeisters. The problem is, the Chinese have no effective way of controlling the greed of the local mandarins under their current system. So they try to tamp down the public discontent by making examples of the most egregious cases and playing the jingoism card.
The Chinese government is riding the back of a tiger and knows it. What worries me is if China gets someone over there like Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia who doesn't care how much damage the tiger does so long as he is still in charge.
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