Hillary Clinton Atlantic Council Speech | Atlantic Council

Hillary Clinton Atlantic Council Speech Atlantic Council: "To expand freedom to more people, we cannot accept that freedom does not belong to all people. We cannot allow oppression, defined and justified by religion or tribe to replace that of ideology. We have a responsibility to address conditions everywhere that undermine the potential of boys and girls and men and women that sap human dignity and threaten global progress."

Hilary Clinton is the highest representative of the US in Germany today and the above citation from her foreign policy address makes me believe that the US is back on track. Freedom! It sounds so simple, however, Europe did entangle themselves in various erroneous ideologies during the time after the US civil war while the US constitution held a steady course across the Atlantic.

During the week-end I enjoyed browsing a reader by Svante Nordin called Det Politiska Täkandets Historia or The History of Political Philosophy. Nordin doesn't talk much about politics in the US, unfortunately. Pragmatism is not mentioned. Hilary Clinton speak about the trans-Atlantic relationship and rightly points out that between the two of us, the US and the EU, we can determine world policy. However, in my humble judgement I sense Germany slipping away on their own with a future together with Russia. Here they will be in charge rather than playing second fiddle with the US.

Several writers point out the difficulties that reunification resulted in. Ideologically, nostalgic former Eastern Germans are lost in the past. Die Linke is a clear example of this. It is the non-biological lure of socialism and the philosophies of Hegel and Marx that some people now turn into criticism of capitalism. They simply can't let go of these tales for the sake of lost prestige in having bet on something that looked like on the right horse but that philosophers during the 17th century would have turned down.

Earlier on during the financial crisis Angela Merkel voiced an opinion that the political system of Germany hopefully would be a model for the world. Americans probably don't think so. At least judging from the problems of carrying through a European type health care system recently. Personally I believe the world-norm will become closer to that of the US rather than to that of northern Europe. Less safety and more dynamism. Returning finally to the citation above and how one should approach the goal of spreading freedom. I don't think the military way is appropriate generally speaking. It creates too much bad blood all over the world so it comes out on the negative. It gives freedom a bad name and facilitates the spread of authorianism.