McCain camp blasts Obama for "citizen of the world" line in Berlin...but here's the funny part...

[WilliamPitt]

...it seems he borrowed that line from someone else's speech...

"I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world."

- Barack Obama, July 24 2008

"While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a "citizen of the world," John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election."

- McCain campaign statement, July 24 2008

"And tonight, we declare anew to our fellow citizens of the world: Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God's children. Look to where peace and prosperity flourish today. It is in homes that freedom built. Victories against poverty are greatest and peace most secure where people live by laws that ensure free press, free speech, and freedom to worship, vote, and create wealth."

- Ronald Reagan, fifth inaugural speech, February 6 1985

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

- John F. Kennedy, inaugural speech January 20 1961

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I always answer the Zogby poll question : I consider myself to be a citizen of the world. Avoids the

embarrassment of being a citizen of the USA when traveling.

[Renew Deal]

2. We're all citizens of the world.

It doesn't matter where you live.

[CTyankee]

3. I have trouble with that question for some reason.

I always answer "my community." Why? Because I live in a very liberal city (New Haven) that is the cultural capital of Connecticut. I live in a diverse neighborhood, diverse racially, economically, religiously and with regard to sexual orientation. I am proud of the academic atmosphere, a place where the arts are revered, homeless people are cared for and people are generous with their time as volunteers.

However, since this issue about "citizen of the world" has been raised, perhaps I'll widen my perspective and next time answer the way you do. Thanks...

[derby378]

4. It's still a round world the last time I checked

I'm an American, yes, but I'm still walking on this Earth, and that gives me something in common with every other human being. Whether we walk, crawl, or roll, we're all still making contact with the same big blue marble.

Ah, yes - Big Blue Marble. Anyone else miss that show all of a sudden?

[crikkett]

5. doesn't this niggling crap from the mccain camp get tiring for anyone else?

Is it just me?

[Lex]

10. yes, it's super lame and pathetic

and, as you say, tiring

[Frustratedlady]

13. Don't you think they are getting desperate?

It reminds me of an ice skating competition where performers are hoping the best of the best misses those triple leaps and falls on their butt.

The better Obama gets, the more intense and stupid McCain's remarks become.

[Union Thug]

6. Eugene Debs...1915

"I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth. I am a citizen of the world."

[spanone]

7. irony is lost on rethugs

[MasonJar]

8. As John Donne so poetically explained in Meditation 17, "No man is an

island entire of itself. Everyman is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...." And ends "...never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

[2 Much Tribulation]

9. Stranger, and funnier, yet, is that the Founders all considered their fight tobe for all Humanity...

not just for the united colonies of America.

[2 Much Tribulation]

19. And here are some "humanity" quotes by Founders and US Presidents....

on edit: quotes provided courtesy of fellow DU'er Land Shark!

On ALL OF THE NEWER US PASSPORTS, on pp. 26-27 one finds the following quote:

“The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class, it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.” –Anna Julia Cooper

Thomas Paine, acknowledged happily by Jefferson and grudgingly by John Adams as the architect of the American Revolution wrote:

“I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. {…} Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.. –Thomas Paine, from “The Rights of Man”

Thomas Paine was perhaps the original “do-gooder” so despised by a few these days?

Benjamin Franklin, considered at the time in both Europe and America as the world’s smartest man, and of course a very influential Founder, said:

Our cause is the cause of all mankind, and…we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own. Benjamin Franklin

We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom and that belief has always strengthened us in our progress. President Jimmy Carter

We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature. Glorious is it for the American to be called by Providence to this post of honor. -- Benjamin Franklin

Max Lucado in “America Looks Up” describing America’s vision using the male pronoun: “He placed his hand on the shoulder of humanity and said "You're something special."

“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore (individual citizens) have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring. –Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Following World War II, 1950

President Eisenhower:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross. -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., April 16, 1953

President George Washington in his Farewell Address:

“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. {...} It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. {...} In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated...”

“{Dear Lord} Bless us with thy wisdom in our counsels, success in battle, and let our victories be tempered with humanity. Endow, also, our enemies with enlightened minds, {…} nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done."

War is a defeat for humanity. -- Pope John Paul II

And also the supposed nemesis of Catholics, Martin Luther, identified with humanity as a whole and wrote:

“War is the greatest plague that can affect humanity; it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.”

Our system of government is, EVEN ABOVE THE CONSTITUTION in TERMS OF POWER, based on inherent or inalienable rights, specifically recognized as being perpetual and self-evident (no need to prove them in any way). (just read paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence closely).

As Frederick Douglass said, the principles of the Declaration are “saving principles”, i.e., principles to fall back on when we’ve lost control of our government or our rights are not recognized. In that light, regarding the suffragist movement, it was said:

“Our political system is based upon the doctrine that the right of self-government is inherent in the people … Women are a portion of the people, and possess all the inherent rights which belong to humanity. They, therefore, have the right to participate in the government. Mr. Sears, arguing in favor of the 19th Amendment for women’s suffrage.

{A belief such as the American belief in equality means that} it is not possible to separate self-respect from respect for the lives of others that are worthy of the same for the same reasons as your own life. Therefore, we can not act to harm or deny the dignity of another human being without harming or insulting our own dignity. As Immanuel Kant put it, respect for our own lives as such means respect for humanity. – Legal Philosopher Ronald Dworkin

[Cooley Hurd]

22. You should post this as an OP (original post)...

...you would certainly have my recommendation!

And, a belated "Welcome to DU!":hi:

[2 Much Tribulation]

23. Thanks but quotes are from longer time DU'er Land Shark

I'll check to see if he plans an op and if so, let you know.

[bridgit]

11. Isn't that notion Sorensen's after all? And derived from America's loftier poetries?

[ismnotwasm]

12. McCain is a petty little bastard

Small minded, poor in spirit and lacking in all altruistic actions except when it comes to personal gain. In other words, a typical Republican. I think at one time he could have turned out better, but I don't know.

I just watched the Berlin speech with my 9 year old grandson sitting beside me. It's a Indescribable feeling of hope for the future. The world we live is his world as well, and the world of any children he might have.

Did I mention McCain is a petty little small minded bastard?

[mikeytherat]

14. Even worse: he's a lame, petty, small-minded little bastard.

His "attacks" on Obama are of an, "Is that all you have? Really?" nature. It's beyond pathetic.

mikey_the_rat

[ismnotwasm]

15. That too

Another one who embarrasses himself every time he opens his mouth. I had my back turned in a patients room one time, the TV was on. I thought I heard bush giving a press conference or something---I always cringe at that voice. It was lame-ass McCain. Figures.

[Vinca]

16. What the hell is wrong with "citizen of the world?"

McBush should be a "citizen of the home." He's acting senile.

[donco6]

17. The freeper types see evil in this.

They are spreading the lies that China and are financially supporting Barack. Also, when a Dem uses it, they paint it as a One-Worlder comment - "See Barack wants to dissolve our authority and put us under the U.N.! EEEEEK!"

[MindMatter]

20. Google has over a half million pages with that exact phrase

"citizen of the world" is a very common turn of phrase. The more common, the better, as I see it. It was true when Kennedy said it. It was true when Reagan said it. And it now more true than ever.

[YOY]

21. Because FReeps know the root of all evil really was Socrates

"I am neither a Athenian nor Greek, but a 'citizen of the world'"

Yup...that's where it came from.

[jberryhill]

18. It's because they are illegal aliens from another planet...

Hence, they don't want anyone to press the issue of "Were you born on this planet?"

There are still freepers doing incomprehensible gyrations over Obama's birth certificate. Some of them haven't figured out yet that when you request your birth certificate in many states, you don't get a photocopy of some decades-old document, but you get a fresh printout of the data, and an attestation by a state official that, yes, that's the data - and hence the document is legally acceptable as a state certification of birth.

They have this insane theory that Obama was really born in Kenya, but that he was secretly flown to Hawaii shortly after his birth, and his grandmother phoned in a birth announcement to the newspaper in Honolulu for the purpose of engaging in fraud to make him appear to be a US citizen.

It's hilarious reading, and some of it is better than the nuttier varieties of 9/11 stuff - especially since someone is gaslighting them but good.

Then, there is the freeper contingent that maintains Obama was adopted by his stepfather in Indonesia and renounced his US citizenship - at age, what, three?

But, no, our crazy alien visitors from outer space don't like it when we mention our planet of origin.

[Disturbed]

25. McLame is "lame, petty, small-minded" Asshole, like his

buddy Busholini.



“Hypocrisy, my friends, is the most obvious of political sins — and the people will punish it,” John McCain

[arcadian]

24. Ultra right wing New World Order conspiracy theorist are gonna jump all over this.

But who gives a shit what they think? Pretty much nobody.

:rofl:

[jberryhill]

30. The formula does not seem to be working for them this time around...

I don't know whether people have gotten wise to it or not.

The thing is, if they want to fault Obama on alleged "foreign policy" inexpertise, then they have to explain how it is that Obama can motivate a whole lot of foreigners into being so enthusiastic.

LEADERSHIP - it requires the ability to motivate and inspire people.

Wesley Clark put it a little too bluntly, which obscured the point he was making - flying around in a plane and then being captured is honorable military service, but it does not confer some kind of magical expertise in getting people in various countries to cooperate on common goals, and it does not confer a vision of how the world works.

[malaise]

26. You expect McSame to remember quotes from

1985 and 1961. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! He can't even remember invading Afghanistan before Iraq.

[book_worm]

27. McCain is a proud citizen of Bushco

[katty]

28. McPAIN citizen/rentpayer in the Oval Office

[Supersedeas]

29. the McBush thugs would have us believe that Reagan was a traitor too??

[EFerrari]

31. Doesn't McCain know the 30%ers HATE him?

Because those are the people who didn't hear the echos, right?

We can only hope McMore keeps messaging the wrong people. :)

[onethatcares]

32. gaud, what was ronnie thinking to say something like that.

but I guess he'd been an actor long enough to get through some tough lines.

[Jim Lane]

33. You source the Reagan quotation to his "fifth inaugural speech".

Usually I ignore typos, but this one sent me into panic mode. What a thought.

[WilliamPitt]

34. ?

It's late, I don't get it.

[Jim Lane]

38. Explaining....

The OP says that the Reagan quotation is taken from his "fifth inaugural speech". That implies that Reagan served five terms as President (or, at least, that he served four terms and started a fifth term). I was reacting to the idea of 16 to 20 years of Reagan in power.

If you didn't get it because, in hindsight, you think that Reagan wasn't all that bad compared to Shrub, I'd have to concede that that's a defensible position.

[Hidden Stillness]

35. The Greatest President Ever, was a "Citizen of the World"

"We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger.
"We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.
"We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that 'The only way to have a friend is to be one.'
"We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction."

This was the Fourth Inaugural Address by the greatest President, Franklin Roosevelt, the year was 1945, and the horrific World War II was just ending: "And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons-at a fearful cost-and we shall profit by them," and so to the next lines, above. http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres52.html

[WilliamPitt]

36. Well, I was going to go to bed.

Nope, I'm reading FDR instead.

Meh. Sleep is for the weak. ;)

Thanks for sharing.

[LeftishBrit]

37. Well, considering that McCain spoke at the British Tory conference

AND said there that he wants to 'spread Republicanism around the globe', I don't see that he's one to talk!

(N.b. in the UK, 'Republicanism' means either anti-monarchism or IRA sympathies, neither of which would be popular with English Tories!)