A few choice words,
Back when I was younger, in another life,(I was wandering the shoestring trail across the Subcontinent to SE Asia at the time), I enrolled in a 2 week course at a Buddhist monestary located just outside of Kathmandu, Nepal. The course studies took up most of our time but in the evenings we’d sit outside on the roof for open air dining and just talk the way travellers do. There were maybe 50 people from many nationalities enrolled in this course. Diversity doesn’t quite describe it.
Evening after evening, I would sit down to eat with 10-15 different people. The discussions were always lively to say the least. I don’t know that I’ll bother to convey the international situation at the time, suffice to say America enjoyed about the same level of bitching and moaning from all and sundry.
Now America was well represented within this group and after a few nights it became clear that every night someone was going to bring up one hot topic or another. These were understandably open-minded, generally educated types, so the conversations while passionate never really degenerated into attack. Maybe the setting helped, who can say. I mostly stayed out of it and let the Americans defend themselves, and they did a fine job of holding their own. But, not unlike myself, they were taking it from all sides, and were often facing perscpectives they had perhaps not seen before. World problems, were not resolved but many weighty issues were wrestled with during the evenings.
The time came when the Europeans at the table turned to me and wondered what I felt about America, being nearly a roommate as a Canadian.
So I pointed out a few things that these conversations made very clear for me.
Americans enjoy a standard of personal liberty that continues to be the envy of the rest of the world. (y’know, except Canada 
)
The guy on the top of the mountain makes a pretty easy target if you’re feeling inclined to throw some clods of dirt. Zero points for originality.
When European countries, most not larger than American states, can get together and agree on anything - a president, a currency, a foreign or domestic policy - then, and only then should they consider that maybe they know what America ought to do. Or perhaps just temper their vocabulary to acknowledge so.
I also pointed out that any night in America, right after the news, you could surf channel to channel and see comedians giving the government/politicians/pres heaps. Each night, every night. America laugh’s it’s ass off at it’s own flaws, who else does that?
I like to think I gave them a little to think about that evening. When I looked around after these comments I think the most surprised faces I saw were Americans!
