question for the ages

Thomas Friedman asks one that's worth asking:

Maybe Asians, Europeans, Latin Americans and Africans don’t like a world of too much American power — “Mr. Big” got a little too big for them. But how would they like a world of too little American power?

Plenty of folks, including me, dislike (and rightly so IMO) this country's spoiled over-indulgence, its squandering of resources in relentless attempts to police the entire globe and magically transform entire cultures overnight, its ever-increasing government nannyism, its people's ignorance of anything not served up by the boob tube, etc., but as Friedman points out, at least the U.S. is still willing to show some courage and stand for something on an international stage. That's worth a lot and is important to remember. And it's more than can be said of most (all?) current, and especially emerging, powers. Like it or not, we may soon find out what a world dominated by governments with even less of a moral compass than that of the U.S. is like. As they say, be careful what you wish for...