[nicolas_t]

While I agree with most everything Jeff says and it's really well written, I'm always a bit irked when I see the the president of the US being called "Leader of the Free World".

Especially when it's stated in those terms: "We lead the free world. And we do it by taking the higher moral ground, doing what is right before doing what is expedient."

I'm not sure the US can still qualify as leading the free world under those terms. Ask people who were tortured by Pinochet, look at the coup in Haiti in 1991, look at what happened in Iraq and the lie around the Weapon of Mass Destructions, look at Gitmo. Are those the actions of "leaders of the free world"?

I do wish that the US could become worthy of being called leaders of the free world but they're not there yet and with Trump, they're not going in the right direction.

[jhbadger]

The "free world" is pretty meaningless since the Cold War ended. It never really meant "free" anyway -- Pinochet's and Franco's regimes were as much a part of it as Western democracies. What it really meant was the "anti-Soviet world".

[nicolas_t]

Yes, the term "the free world" comes from the Cold War propaganda but it doesn't stop the fact that the US, as an economic powerhouse, has a disproportionate influence on the rest of the world and this is why I would want it to be worthy of the name "Leader of the Free World".

It's unfortunately not and I think that people repeatedly calling them that tends to legitimize the US actions.

[JBiserkov]

I see a browser extension potential here. Substitute Soviet with Russia/China and call it a day.

[mdemare]

That's nonsense. Spain under Franco wasn't considered part of the "free world". To a first approximation, it referred to countries in NATO, plus a few allied countries like Sweden and Japan.