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The principle of checks and balances serves the United States well, but it also applies to the world at large in a less formal sense. When one nation violates human rights, engages in aggression, pursues nationalism, quashes dissent and rejects openness, other nations can serve as a receptacle for freedom, peaceable living, diversity and inquiry. When George W. Bush pushed for a war of choice using bogus evidence of weapons of mass destruction, his nationalist appeal ended at the borders, and countries from all other continents rightly (and nearly successfully) applied counterpressure against Bush’s solitary crusade.

Now Europe is threatened by a wave of aggressive, xenophobic nationalism. In elections on October 21, 2007, the Swiss gave the largest portion of their votes to the Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP), the Swiss People’s Party, which ran on a platform of kicking out entire families of immigrants and improving the genetic stock of “Swiss Quality.”

Here at home, Republican Tom Tancredo is running for President with a similar platform, “running for president to win back our sovereignty, our identity, and our destiny… This is our culture; fight for it. This is our flag; pick it up. This is our country; take it back.” Fight for our culture? I don’t know about Tancredo’s home of Littleton, Colorado, but that sure as a shingle isn’t part of my culture. It’s all a little bit too Germanic for my taste, if you get my drift.

We can’t control what the Swiss do in their democracy, but we certainly can control what happens in ours. The election of hypernationalist government in Europe is a problem. The election of hypernationalist governments in Europe and America could be a disaster. An open, diplomatic, liberal-minded government in the United States isn’t needed just for America’s sake, but for the world’s sake. Europe has been minimizing America’s capacity for damage for seven years now; it’s time for us to return the favor.

(Source: Associated Press October 22, 2007; Tancredo08 for President literature)