One thing I've found is that stupidity and irrationality knows no borders. In fact, those qualities are so intrinsic to the human spirit that they are as important as the metabolism of oxygen. In fact, some people are so consumed with being idiots that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they banged their heads and jarred their atrophied brains into nominal functionality.
The most recent source of irritation to my psyche is the rampant Anti-Americanism that exists in the world today. What in the name of GM Chrysler is up with that? I'm constantly hearing how we evil Americans are using the evil subversion of free trade and capitalism to take over the world. Yes, it's those nasty Americans who are extending their empire by giving away food and money to needy countries. Heck, many Americans even hate Americans, pointing out how grievously evil we are any chance they get.
I'm not going to be a crackhead and say that the U.S. is perfect, but we definitely don't deserve the crap we get. Let's compare, shall we? How many countries have slaughtered 6 million Jews this century? Oh? Just the Germans? How about those 10 million dead Chinese civilians? That would be the Japanese, whom we so cruelly nuked and then viciously dumped money into their economy to make them one of the strongest economic powers in the world to day. And who gets the title as the most expansionist nation this century, dominating about a dozen nations and sponsoring civil wars all over the world? I think that would be the Soviet Union, but nobody hates them except the Chechens. Heck, everybody's friends, the Swedes, sold iron ore to Nazi Germany throughout WWII, and the jacked up the price when the Germans were losing! How many people did the weapons made out of their iron kill? Bulgaria was Germany's ally in BOTH world wars! The Swiss got rich off of dead Jews! Egad!!
"Well what about those poor little Native Americans?" says the geek in the tie-dye and the unwashed hair. "Americans killed all of them!"
Well, sure. I'm not going to defend that. That was genocide of the highest order. Of course, we learned how to do it from the Spanish, the Portuguese, the English, the Australians, and even Native American tribes who decided they didn't like their neighbors. It sucked and is incomprehensible by today's standards, but it was pretty much normal conduct of the day and barely raised any eyebrows anywhere.
"Well what about Vietnam?" says the geek's "life mate".
Sure, that was questionable, but what about the French who were there for decades fighting the Vietnamese independence movement? Heck, the French were fighting to OWN that territory, we were fighting to protect its sovereignty. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. Congratulations to all of you Monday morning quarterbacks who just won the Hindsight Bowl.
"What about slavery?" asks someone who wisely does not stand up, but stays hidden in the crowd. I guess we'll have to imprison the entire section.
Again, that's something that sucks by today's standards and its echoes are still dragging down society as a whole like a really big shit that you just can't squeeze out. A century and a half ago, though, it was business as usual. Plenty of countries practiced slavery, and many still do (ironically, many of them are African). Heck, the Africans we got the slaves from owned their own slaves. EVERY culture had slaves at one time or another. The Greeks, the Romans, European and Asian feudal systems, Native Americans, AND Africans all held slaves and that was that. Amazingly, the idea of human rights is pretty damn new.
It all comes down to this: the U.S. ain't perfect, but we certainly have a less-dirty record than most countries out there. It seems that the U.S. is held to a higher standard than any other country, and that anything we do is scrutinized in the worst possible light. Heck, it seems we can't do anything right. When the Hutus went nuts in Rwanda and we didn't stop it, we get blamed. When we intervene in Yugoslavia, people bitch! What the hell? Ironically, our relations with one of the countries that I would say is justified to hate us, Vietnam, are better than some of the countries we've helped out over and over again.
So if you're one of those people who realizes that the U.S. is just another country and inherently no better or worse than any other (except Albania, which sucks) and know better than to make knee-jerk judgements based on someone's nation of origin (or skin color, or gender or whatever), then this doesn't apply to you.
If you're not one of those people, then you can kiss my red-white-and-blue ass.
