It’s easy to think that because you live in the most powerful country, that it is the only country on the planet that matters. Why discount the interests of smaller countries and the people who live in them simply because those countries ARE smaller. To the right: show some respect for America’s friends before you find out what it’s like to live in a country that has no friends. And to the left: don’t impose your purity politics on the rest of the world. Soviet dissidents didn't shun the US because of Vietnam or segregation. There was no prize for having the cleanest conscience in the west.