Why Hate America??

[Kongamato]

This is the kind of post I'd write and then delete afterwards, but I think I'll post it anyway.

There are several different Americas that we can look at here. All have some folks who dislike it, "hate" often being too strong a word to use here. The key thing is that hate is irrational, and there is a difference with disagreement and hate. Be able to tell the hateful BS and the respectful disagreement apart. The reasons they have for disliking America as a state are usually due the mistakes we've made in foreign policy and our territorial expansion. While we did help rebuild Europe and Japan, I think they are seeing this as a "What have you done for me lately" world, and that we're a big, trouble-making bully.

Some hate America, Inc. I have a suspicion that the only contact with America that many of these folks get is from McDonalds and Microsoft. Ever heard of "McWorld"? To these folks, America is the embodiment of faceless consumerism, and we Americans are mindless sheep, serving the Megacorps as they seek to mass-produce all products, remove all individualism, stomp on puppies, and take their pr0n away. Others just think Coca-Cola tastes bad.

Some hate "Americans", or "ze Amereekans". We are stereotyped as obese, self-important puritanical corporate slaves addicted to lowbrow entertainment. Oh, and we're also really stupid, too. Our display of patriotism also bothers many. In post-9/11 patriotism, we've agreed to give support to "The Man" in order to eliminate our enemies. However, their distrust of power has them see this as more sheep-like devotion to a rogue state out to take all the oil from the world and drain innocent Arab blood for use in slip-n-slide parties. And then others just think country music and rap are silly.

I've begun to exaggerate. Anti-americanism has many forms, some of it being a disagreement with our national problem-solving methods, other forms of it being a rejection of popular, standard things to appear more "sophisticated" and "intellectual", true or not. What I think is going on is that many of the forces in this world are best represented by America. We're the main part of a lot of things, and all roads are leading to us. So many things out there can be considered "American" and some people are bound to dislike them. If either you or they consider this "hating America" then I think that a re-evaluation of opinion is in order. However, if somebody says we caused the Indonesian Tsunami because Israel said to, maybe we could call that hate.