The U.S. has dominated the UN to the point where the UN is no longer credible. The U.S. staunchly promoted the authority of the Hague over everyone else while simultaneously denying its jurisdiction over U.S. corporations and citizens. The U.S. sat idly by while it's own corporations triggered famines and genocide, all to make a buck. The U.S. actively deposed unfriendly democracies and propped up friendly despots. The U.S. even failed to meet it's obligations in trade treaties, making any country who has signed a free trade treaty with the U.S. look foolish for allowing themselves to be made less "equal" than the U.S. is.

If China supplants the U.S. as the world's preeminent superpower only a small percentage of the world's populations will really notice. Ask yourselves this: If the U.S. was such a great brother to the world, why is that world so eager to deal with "the dreaded communist enemy"? China and Russia are both countries with dubious records in many respects, but the U.S. has behaved badly enough that the devil the world knows is no more appealing than the devils they do not know. Russia and China are probably torturing their prisoners, just as the U.S. is, but are they eavesdropping on every single conversation of entire nations? Are they trying to reforge the internet so that their corporations can make a few more bucks? Are they pressuring other nations to enact draconian anti-piracy laws that stifle innovation?

I'm not anti-American. The U.S. has explored more of space than any other nation. The U.S. is the world's longest surviving democracy, even if that democracy has been perverted into a plutocracy. Despite how the country is run and the dubious quality of its own students, the U.S.'s post-secondary academic institutions are still second to none, largely because they attract the world's best and brightest. However, the notion that U.S. control of the world is a fundamentally good thing is ridiculous, and it's past time even americans dropped it. Quite frankly, americans have squandered the gifts of their forefathers and desperately need to earn their place in the world again. The U.S. simply has not been a beacon to the world for a good long time.