One of the perspectives I've been hearing from the newly minted liberal leaning republicans is that American progressivism is good for the entire world. I think the argument is that America is the nation with the highest amount of democracy per capita or something, and that it being the strongest nation in the world is good for the rest of the human civilization.

If there has to be one strongest nation in the world, I can see how this argument may hold true. And it may be due the nature of the fabric of human civilization, at least these days. History may point to other examples but now we're all more connected. I digress, the point of this post is different.

What I take issue is with how otherwise smart and humanist people think they get to decide what's best for people on the other side of the world. How do financially independent technologists with a single family home in some suburb in a beautiful countryside whose biggest problem is arguing with their online friends about an upcoming election the result of which will likely have zero impact on their livelihood other than making a few percentage points more or less on their annual income which they don't need to survive, can decide what's best for an average Taiwanese in the urban jungle that is Taipei or an average Israeli or Palestinian that is the war zone that their country has become or an average Southern European who loves their siesta and prefers a chill summer on the beach over having a higher income? This is one of those rare bipartisan hubrises certain Americans show where they think America needs progressivism because it needs to lead the world otherwise democracy will implode and thus every human being will suffer. Like, do you even have a sense of what other people around the world think about this? Why do you know better?

Look it might be that America being the leading country in the world is better for humans around the world because of the way global discourse is shaped in the 20th and 21st centuries. But to think that that outcome is binary and because of that you as an average American get to dictate what's best for lives you have absolutely no idea on?

Show some sense of humility, please.