It is a list .Pick up your eyes.
Yeah, there is a Canadian show with the same premise.
It would be interesting to send a U.S. camera team out into the streets of Brisbane or Calgary to look for folks to mock in those cities. The U.S. media has periodic cycles of publishing how ignorant Yanks are about geography and history of the world, but I noticed something the last time someone did a world-wide survey: Yanks fared poorly, but not nearly by orders of magnitude worse than the rest of the world.
I am definitely disgusted by the various U.S. news outlets that play far too little world news, (which, of course, reinforces Yank ignorance), but the “Americans are ignorant” theme does not play that well when we compare it to the actual knowledge of other peoples. (If nothing else, we beat (with a pretty pathetic score) the Brits in the first Geography Cup 
)
I doubt that Yanks are extremely more ignorant than the rest of the world. It is more likely that the ignorance many Yanks have is more visible when we wander out to be tourists. Everyone outside the U.S. knows about the U.S. because we keep exporting our movies and because a lot more people want to know what they have to fear from our economic or political policies. Line up a dozen Aussies and Yanks and ask them all questions about Austria, Upper Volta, and Butan. I suspect that the scores would be similar, even if the Aussies knew far more about the U.S. than the Yanks did about Australia.
Nope. It is ‘Jimmy does it too’. That some other nations have done it (and pretty much quit, BTW) doesn’t excuse the degree to which America did it and continues to do it - and justify it.
No, sorry. Far too simplistic. That’s comparing a jaywalker to a murderer because they both broke the law.
Semantics, there is a dental floss thin line between the two. For most I would say hating a country IS calling it evil.
Don’t count out perspective.
You made the distinction between good and bad, not I. I think there is only ‘them’ and ‘us’.
No nation has or will ever stop exerting its political influence to further its own agenda. Military deployment is just one of the cards in each leaders hand. A card each leader knows it can play.
Nonsense. Being justified in calling another country evil isn’t at all the same as hating them for reasons that are not justified.
More nonsense. Quite often, there is clearly a good side and a bad side. Or a neutral versus a bad side, or even just lesser evil versus greater evil.
No, using force is quite different than, say, offering a subsidy. Are you really going to claim there’s no moral difference between trying to win people over by sending them aid during a disaster, and trying to bomb and terrorize them into submission ?
Oh please. Most nations today don’t ‘exert political influence’ in the form of bombs. You can not in all seriousness say that war is the same as making a speech at the United Nations or wrangling a trade deal.
I don’t believe you can hate someone and not feel justified.
If you insist on seeing things this way then steps taken in the Cold War to prevent nuclear Armageddon makes American foreign policy for the last 50 years the lesser evil.
You two are assuming countries are limited to offering carrots or bombing. American gunboat diplomacy is the most obvious, but by no means the only way nations impose their will on others.
Feeling justified =/= being justified
Like MrDibble says, it’s be justified, not feel justified.
That assumes that all of the nasty things we did were intended for that purpose, and not, say, the profit of corporate America. And that assumes that those methods were necessary and effective; I fail to see how exporting dictatorship and torturers around the globe had anything to do with preventing nuclear war. For that matter, how did and does pressuring hospitals in the Third World into not providing abortions, even at the expense of the woman’s life, prevent nuclear war ?
And if any country was likely to start a global nuclear war, it was, and is, America, not the Soviet Union. It was, and is, America that is ruled by Bible-thumping Christians who could easily convince themselves that the Rapture is coming and that launching the missles will propel the Elect to heaven and only smite the unbelievers; I’ve heard that argument.
So ? It’s still mass murder.
Point taken.
I didn’t assume that at all. I said, “steps taken”, not “all steps taken” and I just used that general example to show a flaw in your morality argument…obviously there were plenty of other irons in the fire at the time. And since when has the profit of corporate America been an isolated factor? Even before Adam Smith and The Dutch, French, Portuguese, British East India Trading Companies and their global conquest you had the Hans League, The Peloponnesian War was over influence and trade…and on and on. A government is a group of people that gathers money and spends money to increase its prestige and position…I call that a business. What governments sell is security and general prosperity, what they require is your money, loyalty and if necessary, your life.
It’s complicated, and more importantly, needs to be looked at though the eyes of then not now. Americans BELIEVED they were in grave danger (and who are you to tell them they weren’t). I’d sleep better at night without nukes pointed at me 60 miles offshore. How did Isolationism work out for the Manchu Dynasty? How’d early 20th century Europe do with American Isolationism? Global influence is domestic safety.
America must speak to other nations with one voice, but there are plenty of opinions about what that voice should say…you disagree with pro-life, duly noted.
You must be getting flashbacks or something, cause THIS isn’t that argument.
Who cares ? They are all dead and gone; we are the ones doing the harm now. The fact that some groups of people preyed upon other people in the past doesn’t justify us doing the same.
America is a democracy; the government is supposed to work for us. It is not a business; it is not for profit.
And how did spreading dictatorships, practicing, teaching and promoting torture, screwing up other country’s economies, and all the other things we did make us even slightly safer from nuclear attack ? They didn’t. The one and only thing that protected us from nuclear attack were our own nukes, and the non-suicidal nature of the Soviet leadership. Our behavior decreased our security, by creating many millions of enemies out of people who otherwise wouldn’t have cared about us.
Tell it to the people who died in the World Trade Center.
No, that was your argument, that the evils that America committed were committed to stop nuclear Armageddon; I say that few if any were.
I’d looove to read me some “perspective” on invading and bombing the shit of a country for no other reason than because you could.
Of course, when the blowback comes – no “ifs” about it – I’m sure you’ll place that in “perspective” as well. :rolleyes:
And therein lies the problem. Maybe ‘Americans’ believed it because that’s what their government told them to be scared of. But the government knew damn well that it would never happen. What people badly need to realize about international relations is that the leadership talks one line, but works another entirely. What they say publicly is for the benefit of the (largely uneducated) public, who, sadly, willingly laps up everything they’re told by their illustrious leaders (and, yes, I know, there are some doubters. Just not enough of them). Little of what the public is told bears resemblance to the truth, and this has been true in spades for the actions of the United States.
And one reason that people elsewhere have little taste for Americans is that they see these attempts to justify the egregious actions of the US - just the way you’re refusing to understand that yes, America has been much worse than other nations in this regard both in number of activities and in the severity of the effects that American interference has wrought on the populations of the nations involved.
I like a lot of Americans, have enjoyed my trips there, and have good pals who live there but I have little respect for people who continue to argue that America hasn’t done very much to complain about. It’s simply not true.
Sitnam, answer this one question: If your family were killed and your country destroyed by an invading army (Mongols, Romans, Huns, whatever), would you hate them?
Regardless of whether anyone has the “right” to call anyone “bad” or “evil”, the question in the OP is “why do people hate America?”. The answer is that people hate people who kill them and destroy their country and way of life. It’s as simple as that.
I think I need to clarify my position. I’m not arguing for Realpolitik in the sense that ‘these are the way things are so we need to accept them’, I’m stating ‘these are the way things are because that’s the way they must be’.
It IS for the people however there exists, as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau put it, a ‘Social Contract’. This all sounds so cold and calculating without the National Anthem and flag waving, but that doesn’t make it any less the case. This in fact empowers us to expect things from our government and if it doesn’t deliver the contract becomes null and void. Our Constitution compels us to revolt in the future and start again if necessary. The founding fathers were truly brilliant.
First, you cannot know or prove this. Second, what explains intent is what people thought at the time and that is what matters. I see I’ll have to answer Quiddity Glomfuster on this, but if I do it here I’ll forget who I’m arguing with.
I don’t recall JFK freaking out in the UN and slamming the podium with his shoe…or him saying ‘we will bury you’.
Cite for the first part?
A catchy phrase, but I will not yet back down from my earlier statement that bin Laden is a leader of a group and as an organizer he has a political agenda. His tools are a limited view of his faith and that particular relevance to the 21st century. It is an incredible stretch to lay WTC entirely on Americas lap.
OK, lets back up on this point. You said:
Your first assertion goes much father than you will be able to prove without access to top secret Soviet archives. I also feel your broad generalization about Americas ruling elite is unfounded. So I’d like a cite for both. Further, this paragraph seems emotionally charged…hence my reply.
I noticed you didn’t reply to my examples of the failures of Isolationism. Since this is at the foundation of our discussion please retort.
The military contingency plans and an extensive array of war game simulations speak otherwise. Crystal Palace wasn’t a resort.
Forget international relations, I’d say just about every facet of politics is like this.
Yup, no argument here.
I think its seen that way because we ask so much more of our government than say China or Russia. And as for the peaceful enlightened democracies, not a lot of international intrigue in Iceland.
Other nations HAVE plenty to complain about, but for them to say theirs would be an enlightened, peaceful and prosperous solo Super Power is arrogant.
I’d hate a chipmunk if it killed my family.
Your right, Americans gather in tanks and do world tours of mayhem for kicks. If the government game me some money and bulldozed my childhood home I’d hate them. If they were exercising Imminent Domain for a school I’d hate them but I’d understand. The world has never been ‘as simple as that’.
I hate America because my stepdaughter is renting 1100 square feet in a historic building in Berlin for 500 euros, and you couldn’t touch anything like that, for that money, in any comparable American city.
Damn insane real estate market!
I’d like to question whether the idea of putting things in ‘perspective’ is as helpful as you think Sitnam, since it’s a judgement call as to how far back is actually relevant to the debate.
IMHO it’s the post 1945 world and the standards of international relations set since then, that modern countries should judge themselves by. And I think that on some level most of the general population thinks that as well i.e. no-one cares about Britain fucking over French merchants in the 1800’s whearas them doing the same post 1945 would probably still be brought up during the world cup.
Further, it seems that America was one of the major promoters of those standards- they said “Hey guys look at these cool new rules of the game, wouldn’t it be better for everyone if we followed these instead”. For the US to now go actually we only wanted you little people to do that, we can do what we want breeds a lot of resentment ** no matter ** that they would probably do the exact same thing in US’s position.
In short the intelligentsia of many countries seem to pile on America because they supported the ideals that ‘the arsenal of democracy’ and 'the leader of the free world ’ espoused yet fail so often to live up to.
Of course others might say that the only relevant time frame is post cold war which puts a whole different spin on the issue.
NB; I also think its important to distinguish between many of political academia’s American criticism and popular anti Americanism in many countries populace.
Also European, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American reasons for disliking the US are also different to each other.
No, they mustn’t. I have no idea why you think that. There is no ‘must’ about it.
It’s there to read in the history books. And in the documents of the US government. You can read the records of the discussions between the CIA and the government as they plotted to get rid of Allende, for example. I did for one of my university papers.
The reason people thought what they thought is that they bought the propaganda they were fed. So that ‘the people’ thought there was a problem is immaterial.
Look up ‘sabre-rattling’.