It turns out that Americans grasp that it’s foolish to try to make people like themselves — but they sure are happy to lend a hand when they see people who are like themselves. It also turns out that Americans have a pretty good grasp of the national interest, and factor both sentiment and calculation into their preference on what ought to be done.
The distinction between those who value freedom and those who do not, though, doesn't neatly follow national boundaries. There are more than a few Americans who value other things--security, social approval, 'virtue' in some sense---much more than they value freedom.
ReplyDeleteDostoyevsky had something to say about this:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/41494.html