10-10-2016, 05:58 PM
Oh ok... guys, about the "do we worry about what foreigners think", I can tell you about the situation in Austria, but it really will not shed too many light on the underlying question. The situation of our countries is quite far apart on that one by the very nature. So prepare to be disappointed when I now answer these questions.
We Austrians actually need others to like us - or at least not to dislike us. It's utterly important for our wealth (not so much for the protection, that is after all indeed not that big of an issue). But we live off deals with our economical strong partners, we need those relations to stay as wealthy as we are. And maybe even more important, we need tourism, and a big part of our economical wealth is based on that. So naturally, the foreign view always is an issue here, especially in election years. We have our right-wing and we have the rest warning the voters about the bad image to the world should the right-wing rise to power. A strategy that generally tends to backfire in the end, but yes, it's an issue and honestly: rightfully so.
But that's how it's here, in a country with a population half of that of Mexico City - that gains much income based on the fact that obviously our mountains look nice in the sunshine and we somehow tricked others into believing skiing is fun and worth the huge expense. To simplify it. That has not much to do with a powerful nation like yours. When you want to draw conclusions on whether you should care about the foreign view or not, my country probably isn't too suitable for comparison.
I will say this though: If you do care, I can tell you what we care about (we being Europe, if I were African I would write quite different things). Torture, war crimes, Gunatanamo. The way you act like a big bully with the big bombs (in largely varying degrees, depending on who's running your show). You're getting thoroughly disliked in many parts of the population because of the actions you do take and don't take and all the hypocricies in that. Which does not always reflect in the actions of our leaders towards you, although listening to their phone calls isn't such a nice thing to do, too. We tend to excuse things, but the more outrageous stuff gets the closer people look. Trump already caused quite damage on the way we see the United States, obviously him being president would have a nearly devastating effect. But whether you should care about that or not, that's really not up to me to discuss. (Although, of course I personally would feel like you totally should.)
We Austrians actually need others to like us - or at least not to dislike us. It's utterly important for our wealth (not so much for the protection, that is after all indeed not that big of an issue). But we live off deals with our economical strong partners, we need those relations to stay as wealthy as we are. And maybe even more important, we need tourism, and a big part of our economical wealth is based on that. So naturally, the foreign view always is an issue here, especially in election years. We have our right-wing and we have the rest warning the voters about the bad image to the world should the right-wing rise to power. A strategy that generally tends to backfire in the end, but yes, it's an issue and honestly: rightfully so.
But that's how it's here, in a country with a population half of that of Mexico City - that gains much income based on the fact that obviously our mountains look nice in the sunshine and we somehow tricked others into believing skiing is fun and worth the huge expense. To simplify it. That has not much to do with a powerful nation like yours. When you want to draw conclusions on whether you should care about the foreign view or not, my country probably isn't too suitable for comparison.
I will say this though: If you do care, I can tell you what we care about (we being Europe, if I were African I would write quite different things). Torture, war crimes, Gunatanamo. The way you act like a big bully with the big bombs (in largely varying degrees, depending on who's running your show). You're getting thoroughly disliked in many parts of the population because of the actions you do take and don't take and all the hypocricies in that. Which does not always reflect in the actions of our leaders towards you, although listening to their phone calls isn't such a nice thing to do, too. We tend to excuse things, but the more outrageous stuff gets the closer people look. Trump already caused quite damage on the way we see the United States, obviously him being president would have a nearly devastating effect. But whether you should care about that or not, that's really not up to me to discuss. (Although, of course I personally would feel like you totally should.)
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
