GrandPoobah
Posts: 120
Joined: 11/20/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: erieangel Sunday, on two separate news shows on two networks, Santorum accused Obama of being weak for apologizing to the Muslim world for the Quran burning in Afghanistan. Santorum claimed there was no need for Obama to apologize because the burning of the holy books was "inadvertent". The way I see it, the military made a mistake. Obama then apologized for that mistake as commander in chief. I guess Santorum either A) has never made a mistake or B) has never apologized for that mistake because hey, it was a mistake. An apology is nothing more than a simple admission that "we (I) screwed up." In every human interaction, there is a chance to offend someone, and the simple words "I'm sorry" can often go a long ways towards minimizing the effects of that "screw up." When nothing is said, the offended party is left to conclude the act (or words) were intentional, thus deepening the hurt. Do we think less of the person who apologizes? Not usually. Usually we believe they are sincere, and truly wish "that thing" hadn't happened. We're more willing to move on. For years, the US government refused to apologize for the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. Finally, after most of the affected people were dead, somebody finally had the nerve to say (admit) that "we screwed up." Surprisingly, the remaining survivors really appreciated that. Of course, beyond a small monetary compensation, the words did nothing. However, they "meant a lot." To date, the Japanese government has never apologized for what they did in Korea. Why? Their society is too focused on "saving face" even though none of the current leaders were alive when all that happened. If, today, the Japanese government publicly stated "You know, we did some things in Korea that were not good things, and we're truly sorry those things happened" the Koreans would gladly accept the apology, and think nothing less of the current Japanese leaders. In fact, they'd probably respect them far more. Saying those words can be hard, but the impact is incalculable. While it probably didn't change many minds, Obama did the right thing. We screwed up...and needed to admit it. If the US wants to be a world leader again (lost during the Bush years) it's things like this that will re-assure people we mean it.
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