Here are a few choice replies from some Americans — with comments on their replies — to a recent letter–writing campaign in which the Guardian newspaper asked UK citizens to write to known undecided US voters in the State of Ohio.
Have you not noticed that Americans don’t give two shits what Europeans think of us? Each email someone gets from some arrogant Brit telling us why to NOT vote for George Bush is going to backfire, you stupid, yellow–toothed pansies…
—Springfield, Ohio
This is the worrying thing. Getting a letter from any foreigner at all about an election in which you are a voter and not them would tend to piss you off. It would cause you to act out of understandable human spite and consider voting for the candidate who the letter–writer railed against.
Unless, of course, the politics of the entire planet carry the pervasive stain of his policies and a middle–eastern country has been reduced to a nest of vipers because of decisions which he and his administration made, which make your country less safe, and which would not have been made if he was not in power.
Consider this: stay out of American electoral politics. Unless you would like a company of US Navy Seals - Republican to a man - to descend upon the offices of the Guardian, bag the lot of you, and transport you to Guantanamo Bay.
—United States
A supporter of a political party is under no obligation to support the party’s leader. It follows that there is no obligation for a Republican to support Bush for President of the UNited States, given the global reach of even its Federal views, let alone policies, and the character of his policies and understanding of the world and his country’s place within it politically.
I do not say that America is a shit country, nor that UK troops should attack Republicans. I do say that there are certainly a lot of Republican Navy SEALs who would demand Bush’s resignation as Commander in Chief of the US military.
Shame on you for using the people of Ohio like this. The US presidental election isn’t just about foreign policy, it’s about healthcare, taxes, education, transportation, natural resources and all manner of issues with little to no impact on the people of Britain.
—Washington DC
Of course — I agree. It isn’t just about foreign policy. Millions of US voters will vote with domestic issues only at the forefront of their minds. But millions of others will vote in the knowledge that to safeguard their country, their domesticity, and their rightful place in the wider although admittedly rather remote world, they should choose a leader who will ensure that the USA is respected rather than feared.
(The same Washington voter also makes the point that it is our leaders who are our problem and not the leaders of America. True. But they are only a problem because they prove impotent in severing us from an almost personal alliance with Bush’s neoconservative global policies. An alliance which is too personal because it no longer depends on policy but on an amorphous and ill–defined ‘special relationship’. That relationship used to be based on an unstrained mutuality regarding political liberty worldwide.Tony Blair continues to pretend that its basis continues to be so. That is wrong.
I enjoy reading your paper and agree with your politics, but this is really too much.Your plan, if carried out, will hurt the Bush opposition TERRIBLY. We cannot afford to have this associated with John Kerry or anyone else. It will be; the press is going in for a kill, days before the election.
—United States
This is certainly possible, and shows how much this election teeters on the finest of balancing–points.
Keep your noses out of our business. As I recall we kicked your asses out of our country back in 1776. We do not require input from losers and idiots on who we vote for in our own country. Fuck off and die asshole!!!!!
—Knoxville, Iowa
Since we’re losers and idiots, could you please give the UK your input and tell that to our Prime Minister? Personally? Please? With any luck, he might then think again about committing further loser, idiot British troops to help in Iraq. Since you don’t require our input, and all. ;o) *sweet smile* *dies*
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