This is an essay that I found interesting.
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A genealogy of anti-Americanism
By James W. Ceaser
America's rise to the status of the world's premier power, while inspiring much admiration, has also provoked widespread feelings of suspicion and hostility. In a recent and widely discussed book on America, Aprs L'Empire, credited by many with having influenced the position of the French government on the war in Iraq, Emmanuel Todd writes: "A single threat to global instability weighs on the world today: America, which from a protector has become a predator." A similar mistrust of American motives was clearly in evidence in the European media's coverage of the war. To have followed the war on television and in the newspapers in Europe was to have witnessed a different event than that seen by most Americans. During the few days before America's attack on Baghdad, European commentators displayed a barely concealed glee - almost what the Germans call schadenfreude - at the prospect of American forces being bogged down in a long and difficult engagement. Max Gallo, in the weekly magazine Le Point, drew the typical conclusion about American arrogance and ignorance: "The Americans, carried away by the hubris of their military power, seemed to have forgotten that not everything can be handled by the force of arms ... that peoples have a history, a religion, a country."
Time will tell, of course, if Gallo was even near correct in his doubts about U.S. policy. But the haste with which he arrived at such sweeping conclusions leads one to suspect that they were based far more on a pre-existing view of America than on an analysis of the situation at hand. Indeed, they were an expression of one of the most powerful modes of thought in the world today: anti-Americanism. According to the French analyst Jean Franois Revel, "If you remove anti-Americanism, nothing remains of French political thought today, either on the Left or on the Right." Revel might just as well have said the same thing about German political thought or the thought of almost any Western European country, where anti-Americanism reigns as the lingua franca of the intellectual class.
The symbolic America
Anti-Americanism rests on the singular idea that something associated with the United States, something at the core of American life, is deeply wrong and threatening to the rest of the world. This idea is certainly nothing new. Over a half-century ago, the novelist Henry de Montherlant put the following statement in the mouth of one of his characters (a journalist): "One nation that manages to lower intelligence, morality, human quality on nearly all the surface of the earth, such a thing has never been seen before in the existence of the planet. I accuse the United States of being in a permanent state of crime against humankind." America, from this point of view, is a symbol for all that is grotesque, obscene, monstrous, stultifying, stunted, leveling, deadening, deracinating, deforming, and rootless.
It is tempting to call anti-Americanism a stereotype or a prejudice, but it is much more than that. A prejudice, at least an ordinary one, is a shortcut usually having some basis in experience that people use to try to grasp reality's complexities. Although often highly erroneous, prejudices have the merit that those holding them will generally revisit and revise their views when confronted with contrary facts. Anti-Americanism, while having some elements of prejudice, has been mostly a creation of "high" thought and philosophy. Some of the greatest European minds of the past two centuries have contributed to its making. The concept of America was built in such a way as to make it almost impervious to refutation by mere facts. The interest of these thinkers was not always with a real country or people, but more often with general ideas of modernity, for which "America" became the name or symbol. Indeed, many who played a chief part in discovering this symbolic America never visited the United States or showed much interest in its actual social and political conditions. The identification of America with a general idea or concept has gone so far as to have given birth to new words that are treated nowadays as normal categories of thought, such as "Americanization" or "Americanism." (By contrast, no one speaks of Venezuelanization or New Zealandism.) Americanization today, for example, is almost the perfect synonym for the general concept of "globalization," differing only in having a slightly more sinister face.
Although anti-Americanism is a construct of European thought, it would be an error to suppose that it has remained confined to its birthplace. On the contrary, over the last century anti-Americanism has spread out over much of the globe, helping, for example, to shape opinion in pre-World War II Japan, where many in the elite had studied German philosophy, and to influence thinking in Latin American and African countries today, where French philosophy carries so much weight. Its influence has been considerable within the Arab world as well. Recent accounts of the intellectual origins of contemporary radical Islamic movements have demonstrated that their views of the West and America by no means derive exclusively from indigenous sources, but have been largely drawn from various currents of Western philosophy. Western thought is at least in part responsible for the innumerable fatwahs and the countless jihads that have been pronounced against the West. What has been attributed to a "clash of civilizations" has sometimes been no more than a facet of internecine intellectual warfare, conducted with the assistance of mercenary forces recruited from other cultures. It is vitally important that we understand the complex intellectual lineage behind anti-Americanism. Our aim should be to undo the damage it has wrought, while not using it as an excuse to shield this country from all criticism.
Degeneracy and monstrosity
Developed over a period of more than two centuries by many diverse thinkers, the concept of America has involved at least five major layers or strata, each of which has influenced those that succeeded it. The initial layer, found in the scientific thought of the mid-eighteenth century, is known as the "degeneracy thesis." It can be conceived of as a kind of prehistory of anti-Americanism, since it occurred mostly before the founding of the United States and referred not just to this country but to all of the New World. The thesis held that, due chiefly to atmospheric conditions, in particular excessive humidity, all living things in the Americas were not only inferior to those found in Europe but also in a condition of decline. An excellent summary of this position appears, quite unexpectedly, in The Federalist Papers. In the midst of a political discussion, Publius (Alexander Hamilton) suddenly breaks in with the comment: "Men admired as profound philosophers gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America -- that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere." The oddity of this claim does not belie the fact that it was regarded for a time as cutting-edge science. As such, it merited lengthy responses from two of America's most notable scientific thinkers, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. In Jefferson's case, the better part of his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia, consists of a detailed response to the originator of this thesis and the leading biologist of the age, the Count de Buffon. The interest of Franklin and Jefferson in refuting this thesis went beyond that of pure science to practical politics. Who in Europe would be willing to invest in and support the United States if America were regarded as a dying continent?
Although Buffon was its originator, the most earnest and best known proponent of the degeneracy thesis at the time was Cornelius de Pauw, whom Hamilton cited for the aforementioned claim of canine quietude. Pauw's three-volume study of America, which was widely regarded as the book on the subject, begins with the observation that "it is a great and terrible spectacle to see one half of the globe so disfavored by nature that everything found there is degenerate or monstrous." (The attribution of monstrosity, seemingly in tension with the more general characteristic of contraction, was thought to apply to many of the lower species, such as lizards, snakes, reptiles, and insects, producing a still more sinister picture of America.) It was Pauw who insisted as well on the inevitability of an ongoing and active degeneration in America, a point on which Buffon equivocated: No sooner did the Europeans debark from their ships than they began the process of decline, physical and mental. America, accordingly, would never be able to produce a political system or culture of any merit. Paraphrasing a sentence of Pauw's, the great Encyclopedist Abb Raynal famously opined: "America has not yet produced a good poet, an able mathematician, one man of genius in a single art or a single science."
Rationalistic illusions
The degeneracy thesis could not in the end stand up to Franklin's and Jefferson's careful empirical criticisms, which demonstrated that nothing, on the surface at least, was degenerating at an unusual rate in America. Nature, as Jefferson so felicitously put it, was the same on both sides of the Atlantic. But what their responses could not entirely refute was the contention that the quality of life and the political system of America were inferior. Precisely this claim lay at the core of the second layer of anti-American thought, developed by a number of romantic thinkers in the early part of the nineteenth century. These thinkers placed degeneracy - for almost the same language was used - on a new theoretical foundation, arguing that it resulted not from the workings of the physical environment but from the intellectual ideas on which the United States had been founded. Anti-Americanism now became what it has remained ever since, a doctrine applicable exclusively to the United States, and not Canada or Mexico or any other nation of the New World. Many who complain bitterly that the United States has unjustifiably appropriated the label of America have nonetheless gladly allowed that anti-Americanism should refer only to the United States.
The romantics' interpretation of America owed something to the French Revolution, which inspired loathing among conservative philosophers such as Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre. The French Revolution was seen as an attempt to remake constitutions and societies on the basis of abstract and universal principles of nature and science. The United States, as the precursor of the French Revolution, was often implicated in this critique. These philosophers' major claim was that nothing created or fashioned under the guidance of universal principles or with the assistance of rational science - nothing, to use The Federalist's words, constructed chiefly by "reflection and choice" - was solid or could long endure. Joseph de Maistre went so far as to deny the existence of "man" or "humankind," such as in the Declaration of Independence's statement that "all men are created equal." According to Maistre, "There is no such thing in this world as man; I have seen in my life French, Italians, and Russians ... but as for man, I declare that I have never met one in my life; if he exists, it is entirely without my knowledge." Not only was the Declaration based on flawed premises, but so too was the U.S. Constitution with its proposition that men could establish a new government. "All that is new in [America's] constitution, all that results from common deliberation," Maistre warned, "is the most fragile thing in the world: one could not bring together more symptoms of weakness and decay."
By the early nineteenth century, as the principal surviving society based on an Enlightenment notion of nature, America became the target of many romantic thinkers. Instead of human reason and rational deliberation, romantic thinkers placed their confidence in the organic growth of distinct and separate communities; they put their trust in history. Now, merely by surviving - not to mention by prospering - the United States had refuted the charges of the inherent fragility of societies founded with the aid of reason. But the romantics went on to charge that America's survival was at the cost of everything deep or profound. Nothing constructed on the thin soil of Enlightenment principles could sustain a genuine culture. The poet Nikolaus Lenau, sometimes referred to as the "German Byron," provided the classic summary of the anti-American thought of the romantics: "With the expression Bodenlosigkeit [rootlessness] I think I am able to indicate the general character of all American institutions; what we call Fatherland is here only a property insurance scheme." In other words, there was no real community in America, no real volk. America's culture "had in no sense come up organically from within." There was only a dull materialism: "The American knows nothing; he seeks nothing but money; he has no ideas." Then came Lenau's haunting image, reminiscent of Pauw's picture of America: "the true land of the end, the outer edge of man."
Even America's vaunted freedom was seen by many romantics as an illusion. American society was the very picture of a deadening conformity. The great romantic poet Heinrich Heine gave expression to this sentiment: "Sometimes it comes to my mind/To sail to America/To that pig-pen of Freedom/Inhabited by boors living in equality." America, as Heine put it in his prose writing, was a "gigantic prison of freedom," where the "most extensive of all tyrannies, that of the masses, exercises its crude authority."
The specter of racial impurity
A third stratum of thought in the development of anti-Americanism was the product of racialist theory, first systematically elaborated in the middle of the nineteenth century. To understand today why this thought qualifies as anti-American requires, of course, allowing oneself to think in the framework of another period. The core of racialist theory was the idea that the various races of man - with race understood to refer not only to the major color groups but to different subgroups such as Aryans, Slavs, Latins, and Jews - are hierarchically arranged in respect to such important qualities as strength, intelligence, and courage. A mixing of the races was said to be either impossible, in the sense that it could not sustain biological fecundity; or, if fecundity was sustainable, that it would result in a leveling of the overall quality of the species, with the higher race being pulled down as a result of mingling with the lower ones.
The individual most responsible for elaborating a complete theory of race was Arthur de Gobineau, known today as the father of racialist thinking. Gobineau's one- thousand-page opus, Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, focused on the fate of the Aryans, whom he considered the purest and highest of all the races. His account was deeply pessimistic, as he argued that the Aryans were allowing themselves to be bred out of existence in Europe. America became an important focus of his analysis since, as he explained, many at the time championed America as the Great White Hope, the nation in which the Aryans (Anglo-Saxons and Nordics) would reinvigorate their stock and reassert their rightful dominance in the world. In this view, while America's formal principle was democracy, its real constitution was that of Anglo-Saxon racial hegemony. But Gobineau was convinced that this hope was illusory. The universalistic idea of natural equality in America was in fact promoting a democracy of blood, in which the very idea of "race," which was meant to be a term of distinction, was vanishing. Europe was dumping its "garbage" races into America, and these had already begun to mix with the Anglo-Saxons.
With notable perspicacity, Gobineau foresaw the Tiger Woods phenomenon. The natural result of the democratic idea, he argued, was amalgamation. America was creating a new "race" of man, the last race, the human race - which was no race at all. Gobineau modeled his system on Hegel's philosophy of history, substituting blood for Spirit as the active motor of historical movement. The elimination of race marked the end of history. It presented - and here one could, in his view, see America's future - a lamentable spectacle of creatures of the "greatest mediocrity in all fields: mediocrity of physical strength, mediocrity of beauty, mediocrity of intellectual capacities - we could almost say nothingness."
Racialist ideas persisted throughout the nineteenth century and affected many of the social sciences, especially anthropology, a discipline that remains so traumatized by its origins that even today it cannot treat questions of race without indulging in paroxysms of guilt. The extreme of racialist thinking in the early twentieth century served as the foundation of Nazism. Today, the substance of the racialist philosophy is rejected except by a few elements on the extreme right. Yet traces of it have managed to find their way, often unconsciously, into subsequent theorizing about America. The European anti-American Left today has been divided in its criticisms of race in relation to America. Some follow the analysis, though not the evaluations, of Gobineau, arguing that the universal principles in the American experience, when they have not produced the brutal repression of the "Other" (the Indian and African), have fostered blandness and homogeneity. Alternatively, it is sometimes said that the process of amalgamation is not proceeding rapidly enough, especially in regard to African Americans. America is tardy and hypocritical in its promise to eliminate race as a basis of social and political judgment.
The empire of technology
The fourth stratum in the construction of anti-Americanism was created during the era of heavy industrialization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. America was now associated with a different kind of deformation, this time in the direction of the gigantesque and the gargantuan. America was seen as the source of the techniques of mass production and of the methods and the mentality that supported this system. Nietzsche was an early exponent of this view, arguing that America sought the reduction of everything to the calculable in an effort to dominate and enrich: "The breathless haste with which they [the Americans] work - the distinctive vice of the new world - is already beginning ferociously to infect old Europe and is spreading a spiritual emptiness over the continent." Long in advance of Hollywood movies or rap music, the spread of American culture was likened to a form of disease. Its progress in Europe seemed ineluctable. "The faith of the Americans is becoming the faith of the European as well," Nietzsche warned.
It was Nietzsche's disciples, however, who transformed the idea of America into an abstract category. Arthur Moeller Van den Bruck, best known for having popularized the phrase "The Third Reich," proposed the concept of Amerikanertum (Americanness) which was to be "not geographically but spiritually understood." Americanness marks "the decisive step by which we make our way from a dependence on the earth to the use of the earth, the step that mechanizes and electrifies inanimate material and makes the elements of the world into agencies of human use." It embraces a mentality of dominance, use, and exploitation on an ever-expanding scale, or what came to be called the mentality of "technologism" (die Technik): "In America, everything is a block, pragmatism, and the national Taylor system." Another author, Paul Dehns, entitled an article, significantly, "The Americanization of the World." Americanization was defined here in the "economic sense" as the "modernization of methods of industry, exchange, and agriculture, as well as all areas of practical life," and in a wider and more general sense as the "uninterrupted, exclusive and relentless striving after gain, riches and influence."
Soullessness and rampant consumerism
The fifth and final stratum in the construction of the concept of anti-Americanism - and the one that still most powerfully influences contemporary discourse on America - was the creation of the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Like his predecessors in Germany, Heidegger once offered a technical or philosophical definition of the concept of Americanism, apart, as it were, from the United States. Americanism is "the still unfolding and not yet full or completed essence of the emerging monstrousness of modern times." But Heidegger in this case clearly was less interested in definitions than in fashioning a symbol - something more vivid and human than "technologism." In a word - and the word was Heidegger's - America was katestrophenhaft, the site of catastrophe.
In his earliest and perhaps best known passages on America, Heidegger in 1935 echoed the prevalent view of Europe being in a "middle" position:
Europe lies today in a great pincer, squeezed between Russia on the one side and America on the other. From a metaphysical point of view, Russia and America are the same, with the same dreary technological frenzy and the same unrestricted organization of the average man.
Even though European thinkers, as the originators of modern science, were largely responsible for this development, Europe, with its pull of tradition, had managed to stop well short of its full implementation. It was in America and Russia that the idea of quantity divorced from quality had taken over and grown, as Heidegger put it, "into a boundless et cetera of indifference and always the sameness." The result in both countries was "an active onslaught that destroys all rank and every world creating impulse.... This is the onslaught of what we call the demonic, in the sense of destructive evil."
America and the Soviet Union comprised, one might say, the axis of evil. But America, in Heidegger's view, represented the greater and more significant threat, as "Bolshevism is only a variant of Americanism." In a kind of overture to the Left after the Second World War, Heidegger spoke of entering into a "dialogue" with Marxism, which was possible because of its sensitivity to the general idea of history. A similar encounter with Americanism was out of the question, as America was without a genuine sense of history. Americanism was "the most dangerous form of boundlessness, because it appears in a middle class way of life mixed with Christianity, and all this in an atmosphere that lacks completely any sense of history." When the United States declared war on Germany, Heidegger wrote: "We know today that the Anglo Saxon world of Americanism is resolved to destroy Europe.... The entry of America into this world war is not an entry into history, but is already the last American act of American absence of historical sense."
In creating this symbol of America, Heidegger managed to include within it many of the problems or maladies of modern times, from the rise of instantaneous global communication, to an indifference to the environment, to the reduction of culture to a commodity for consumption. He was especially interested in consumerism, which he thought was emblematic of the spirit of his age: "Consumption for the sake of consumption is the sole procedure that distinctively characterizes the history of a world that has become an unworld.... Being today means being replaceable." America was the home of this way of thinking; it was the very embodiment of the reign of the ersatz, encouraging the absorption of the unique and authentic into the uniform and the standard. Heidegger cited a passage from the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke:
Now is emerging from out of America pure undifferentiated things, mere things of appearance, sham articles.... A house in the American understanding, an American apple or an American vine has nothing in common with the house, the fruit, or the grape that had been adopted in the hopes and thoughts of our forefathers.
Following Nietzsche, Heidegger depicted America as an invasive force taking over the soul of Europe, sapping it of its depth and spirit: "The surrender of the German essence to Americanism has already gone so far as on occasion to produce the disastrous effect that Germany actually feels herself ashamed that her people were once considered to be 'the people of poetry and thought.'" Europe was almost dead, but not quite. It might still put itself in the position of being ready to receive what Heidegger called "the Happening," but only if it were able to summon the interior strength to reject Americanism and push it back to the other hemisphere.
Heidegger's political views are commonly deplored today because of his early and open support of Nazism, and many suppose that his influence on subsequent political thought in Europe has been meager. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Heidegger's major ideas were sufficiently protean that with a bit of tinkering they could easily be adopted by the Left. Following the war, Heidegger's thought, shorn of its national socialism but fortified in its anti-Americanism, was embraced by many on the left, often without attribution. Through the writings of thinkers like John-Paul Sartre, "Heideggerianism" was married to communism, and this odd coupling became the core of the intellectual Left in Europe for the next generation. Communist parties, for their own obvious purposes, seized on the weapon of anti-Americanism. They employed it with such frequency and efficacy that it widely came to be thought of as a creation of communism that would vanish if ever communism should cease. The collapse of communism has served, on the contrary, to reveal the true depth and strength of anti-Americanism. Uncoupled from communism, which gave it a certain strength but also placed limits on its appeal, anti-Americanism has worked its way more than ever before into the mainstream of European thought.
Only one claw of the infamous Heideggerian pincer now remains, one clear force threatening Europe. If Europe once found identity in being in "the middle" (or as a "third force"), many argue today that it must find its identity in becoming a "pole of opposition" to America (and the leader of a "second force"). Emmanuel Todd develops this logic in his book, arguing that Europe should put together a new "entente" with Russia and Japan that would serve as a counterforce to the American empire.
The real clash of civilizations?
There is a great need today for both Europeans and Americans to understand the career of this powerful doctrine of anti-Americanism. As long as its influence remains, rational discussion of the practical differences between America and Europe becomes more and more difficult. No issue or question is addressed on its merits, and instead commentators tend to reason from conclusions to facts rather than from facts to conclusions. Arguments, no matter how reasonable they appear on the surface, are advanced to promote or confirm the pre-existing concept of America constructed by Heidegger and others. In the past, European political leaders had powerful reasons to resist this approach. Such practical concerns as alliances, the personal ties and contacts forged with American officials, commercial relations, and a fear of communism worked to dampen anti-Americanism. But of late, European leaders have been tempted to use anti-Americanism as an easy way to court favor with parts of the public, especially with intellectual and media elites. This has unfortunately added a new level of legitimacy to the anti-American mindset.
Not only does anti-Americanism make rational discussion impossible, it threatens the idea of a community of interests between Europe and America. Indeed, it threatens the idea of the West itself. According to the most developed views of anti-Americanism, there is no community of interests between the two sides of the Atlantic because America is a different and alien place. To "prove" this point without using such obvious, value-laden terms as "degeneracy" or the "site of catastrophe," proponents invest differences that exist between Europe and America with a level of significance all out of proportion with their real weight. True, Europeans spend more on the welfare state than do Americans, and Europeans have eliminated capital punishment while many American states still employ it. But to listen to the way in which these facts are discussed, one would think that they add up to different civilizations. This kind of analysis goes so far as to place in question even the commonality of democracy. Since democracy is now unquestionably regarded as a good thing - never mind, of course, that such an attachment to democracy arguably constitutes the most fundamental instance of Americanization - America cannot be a real democracy. And so it is said that American capitalism makes a mockery of the idea of equality, or that low rates of voting participation disqualify America from being in the camp of democratic states.
Repairing the breach
Hardly any reasonable person today would dismiss the seriousness of many of the challenges that have been raised against "modernity." Nor would any reasonable person deny that America, as one of the most modern and the most powerful of nations, has been the effective source of many of the trends of modernity, which therefore inevitably take on an American cast. But it is possible to acknowledge all of this without identifying modernity with a single people or place, as if the problems of modernity were purely American in origin or as if only Europeans, and not Americans, have been struggling with the question of how to deal with them. Anti-Americanism has become the lazy person's way of treating these issues. It allows those using this label to avoid confronting some of the hard questions that their own analysis demands be asked. To provide just one striking example, America is regularly criticized for being too modern (it has, for example, developed "fast food"), except when it is criticized for not being modern enough (a large portion of the population is still religious).
A genuine dialogue between America and Europe will become possible only when Europeans start the long and arduous process of freeing themselves from the grip of anti-Americanism - a process, fortunately, that several courageous European intellectuals have already launched. But it is also important for Americans not to fall into the error of using anti-Americanism as an excuse to ignore all criticisms made of their country. This temptation is to be found far more among conservative intellectuals than among liberals, who have traditionally paid great respect to the arguments of anti-American thinkers. Much recent conservative commentary has been too quick to dismiss challenges to current American strategic thinking and immediately to attribute them, without sufficient analysis, to the worst elements found in the historical sack of anti-Americanism, from anti-technologism to anti-Semitism. It would be more than ironic - it would be tragic -- if in combating anti-Americanism, we were to embrace an ideology of anti-Europeanism.
James W. Ceaser is professor of politics at the University of Virginia and co-author of The Perfect Tie: The True Story of the 2000 Presidential Election (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
I did skim through parts, as thats a MONSTER of a quote, but I see the idea. I guess as someone that is almost a personafication of the ideals that anti-americans hate about america I should be concerned.
Is there something wrong with the way I think? Should I not want technology? Should I consider people with a different skin color to be inferior, and to a greater extent all people different from me? Should I consider people with a mixture of backgrounds to be a bastardization?
In my opinion? No to all. I have never understood and may never understand why people fear and hate things like this. Maybe thats the core of americanisim though. The other cultures are old and have roots deep in this world. They have old gods and old laws that are still in someways feared and obeyed. The Roman gods and the like. American is the baby of the world. We're not that old and really only have the god our people brought with us to fear, a god that they wanted away from to have freedom of religion. And because we've let so many other races into our midst and hearts we've learned that faith is just that, faith. It's not a reason to hate. It's not based on a real thing, its a belief, not a truth. People need faith but they cannot use it to harm others or it defeats the purpose.
And after centuries other cultures are catching on. Japan has rock and pop bands, last I saw their culture was around the same as the US in the 80's. Watched anime? Those weird hairstyles remind you of anything? Its an easily denounced example but its something to think about.
According to this article the anti-americans can't seem to find a real reason to hate us. Thats just like when white extremists couldn't find a reason to hate blacks or christians couldn't find a real reason to hate gays. Its not there so they reason one out to rationalize their fears.
Americans can only solve things through war? Thats GW's thinking, not ours. Of course in reality he doesn't really make the decisions on capital hill. Americans are degenerate? To someone with different thinking, maybe. Americans are immoral? Heard it. Women that work are immoral, Blacks that want freedom are immoral, Gays are immoral just because. That arguement holds about as much weight as a kleenex.
This article sent me off thinking. Is this attitude I'm starting to see more and more really americanization? The idea that people are equal? The idea that having a little fun is fine as long as the work gets done? The idea that you can listen to, make, and be as weird as you want without fear of someone killing you over it? Are these really the american way? Have the anti-americans with-in America had me convinced they were American and in reality I'm a real American? If it is then the founders of America seem to have succeeded in planting the seed of freedom deep in the planet if its reaching the entire world. I think they'd be smiling right now if thats the case, don't you?
I've got a lot to think about from this one. Good find jimmy jim.
~Rico (For once it seems, is proud to be an American.)
Nice article Jimro. However, the only thing that I found that Ceaser didn't touch on was European contempt (as a whole) for America's religious people (particularly of the Christian and the Jewish faith). To be blunt, a quick look at history since the Enlightenment in terms of the rift between US and European churches is that US churches still have people in them.
It is very ironic, as this article pointed out, that Europeans (as well as the anti-Americans in America) trash 'middle America' for having no history, no culture, and no traditions but also trash Middle America for being largely religious. Do they even realize that religion is responsible for the culture, history, and traditions of Europe that they take so much pride in?
You bring up a good point, but Europe has largely moved onto secular humanism and consider those who practice faith a "step behind" or partaking in the "opiate of the masses".
Just like I can acknowledge that my ancestors were brutal Vikings without being one myself, no matter how fun that might be...
Jimro
But I LIKED Thor...
Damn Europeans! They're so @#%$ anti-American!
I found something that I personally found to be quite ironic.
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BADEN-WURTENBERG, Germany, January 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) A German state is targeting potential Muslim immigrants with a test to determine their loyalty to German social policy on homosexuality, among other issues.
The southern state of Baden-Wurttemberg now requires all Muslims requesting citizenship to undergo an extensive test designed to reveal their views on such issues as gay rights, womens equality, topless beaches, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 against the United States.
The test is designed to weed out those applicants who express views that go against Germanys social policies. This is believed to be the first use of such testing worldwide, although the Netherlands is reportedly considering a similar move.
Homosexuals are given extensive recognition in German society, including rights of civil union that almost parallel rights of marriage.
The move to single out Muslim immigrants for special testing has been condemned by some Berlin officials as an encouragement to prejudice.
Brigitte Lsch, a leading member of the Green party in the Baden-Wurttemberg parliament, wants the exam to be dropped.
This list of questions is only to be used for applicants from Islamic countries. It is an unbelievable form of discrimination, she said. If Germans were asked some of the questions, they would find it difficult to answer them. (Telegraph.co.uk)
Germany has a Muslim population of over 3 million. Islam is the third largest religion in the country, after Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
It's rather interesting because Islam is rather clean when it comes to European criticism compared to Christianity and Judeaism. Also, most of the immigrants coming into Europe these days are Muslims from North Africa. So what happens when religious Muslims are basically told to flat out say that they support something that goes against their religious beliefs?
All I can say is that Germany's political correctness test is only one step away from South Park's Tolerance Re-Education Camp: "Vere intolerance vill not be tolerated!"
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According to this article the anti-americans can't seem to find a real reason to hate us.
That sums up all of my beliefs about anti-Americans.
Is Auntie American married to Uncle Sam?
This Caesar guy actually managed wrote a right-wing paper that didn't make me want to puke. All the guys he made out to be nutcases turned out to be, after further investigation, indeed nutcases. He even avoided making a big partisan mess of it by identifying real anti-Americanism, rather than trying to broaden its definition to include everyone he doesn't like, from atheists to organized labour. I even agreed with him on most points, except the thing about how the French are preoccupied with hating the Americans, which simply isn't true; when I was over there last March the political scene was largely dominated by debate over the EU constitution.
To be blunt, a quick look at history since the Enlightenment in terms of the rift between US and European churches is that US churches still have people in them.
What are you, retarded? Have you ever been to Europe? Your ignorance is appalling.
t's rather interesting because Islam is rather clean when it comes to European criticism compared to Christianity and Judeaism.
What the hell are you talking about? Please present an example of "European criticism" of Christianity and/or Judeaism. And before you try it, legalizing gay marriage doesn't count.
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What are you, retarded? Have you ever been to Europe? Your ignorance is appalling.
Okay, I'll admit to generalizing my statement, but my point was that church attendance in Europe has been on the decline.
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What the hell are you talking about? Please present an example of "European criticism" of Christianity and/or Judeaism. And before you try it, legalizing gay marriage doesn't count.
Actually, yes it does. Oh, and there's always abortion, but that's something America does as well (unfortunately).
Okay, I'll admit to generalizing my statement, but my point was that church attendance in Europe has been on the decline.
As is true for just about every other part of the western world, including the United States.
Actually, yes it does. Oh, and there's always abortion, but that's something America does as well (unfortunately).
No, it doesn't. Signing into law a piece of paper that says "1 person + 1 person = marriage" doesn't qualify as criticising Christianity.
If you consider the legalization of gay marriage and abortion to be a direct, specific and deliberate assault on Christianity and Judeaism, you might as well call the separation of church and state (a decidedly American invention) a direct, specific and deliberate assault on Christianity and Judeaism. And even if gay marriage and abortion were a direct, specific and deliberate assault on Christianity and Judeaism, it wouldn't have anything to do with "anti-Americanism". Unless of course you believe Christianity and America to be one and the same, in which case you should probably go back to high school.
If legalizing gay marriage is critizing christianity. Please continue to do so.
Can I generalize that into trashing god promotes freedom? [daffy]hoohoo! hoohoo! 
[/daffy]
~Rico
Rico,
"Thrashing God" does not increase freedom, it is a way to belittle the beliefs of others.
Cycle,
You might want to delve the history books a little deeper. The "Seperation of Church and State" is a phrase used first by Thomas Jefferson in a letter, explaining how the Consitution protects religious freedom from one denomination of Christianity becoming the "official religion".
In fact the vast majority of Supreme court decisions prior to 1962 supported public displays of religios material, to include Bibles in schools and school prayer.
Jimro
You know, I'd think the big long daffy quote at the end would signify a sarcastic response. I knew the army brainwashed ya but I thought they at LEAST left a sense of humor behind. You people are about as fun to be around as those guys that watch paint dry. 
~Rico
Sorry Rico, I thought an over the top "dry" response was in order. Just imagine the line being delivered deadpan...
Of course we can always check with the judges..
*British Judge* 9.0
*American Judge* 7.5
*Canadian Judge* -2.0
Guess my sense of humor might be slightly out of whack....
Jimro
Well we all know the british don't have a sense of humor. Now if you'll excuse me I'll have to be strung up by my thumbs by half the board. 
~Rico
I heard this today and I liked it:
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis (1935)
Ummmm, don't hate me, but I'm English. Does that mean I have to only go to websites with '.co.uk' on the end? No, I prefer America to England really, true fact. I do have a sense of humour too. I say, let people believe whatever, my beliefs belong to me.
Are you trying to prove my satirical point? Or are you trying to disprove it by pretending to be offended at a statement clearly not meant to offend.
Or MAYBE you're pretending to PRETEND to offended at a non-offensive remark and really double whammie me.
...
NO WHAMMIES!
STOP!
~Rico
No, I'm simply saying all I have to say. Why would that remark be offensive anyway? I'm fine.
Don't mind that, Rico was yapping his big fat mouth after reading half the post.
My little jab was at two people that don't really come here anymore.
~Rico
I prefer Whoppers to Whammies. o.o
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." - Sinclair Lewis (1935)
Fascism will never be mainstream in America. The American concept of individual freedom is the polar opposit of fascist conformity.
Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
May God bless America.
Jimro
The thing I love the most is that it continually refers to "European contempt" or something as some such...
I know a LOT of people who have particular dislike for America, for various reasons, ranging from hatred for the war to hatred of television adverts (thats the one I have the most sympathy with, seriously guys, HOW can you stand THAT MANY Ad breaks, I mean you even have ad breaks after before the credits at the end of the programme, have the intro seen of the enxt and just as things are ABOUT to start it's... oh, adverts...)
But I know just as many people who hate the french, germans, polish, scandinavian, australians... I know people who hate the welsh (sheep *******ers the lot of them apparently 
) and the scottish, don't get me started on what I heard a guy in my History class complaining about the scottish... 
I do know there is quite a large view in people I know that Americans, as a whole are "arrogant" when it comes to world politics, but then so are we, and so is pretty much everyone.
But as far as i can tell the only anti-americanism is coming from the radical preachers in iraq, afghanistan and other nations with men and women ready to ick up guns and bombs and fight your heretic nation.
Unless being anti-American means NOT being pro-american, in which case the majority of people I know who couldn't care less either way are Anti-American...
All of us, everyone in the uk, apart from Herostar who appears to be a snivelling traitor... 
*that was irony, sarcasmand a the slightest touch of damaged pride just in case anyone can't read into that *
And one last thing, WHERE did you get the idea the British have no sense of humour Rico... 
All that and then Swifty goes to try and prove the point.
Least I'm not the ONLY one that doesn't read the whole post/thread.
And for the record? I blame CJ. *shot*
~Rico
I re read the entire thread, and my point stands...
I now know where Anti Americanism comes from and where the article writer is scared it will go next.
But i don't actually have a clue what it is, besides... Um, being agaisnt America...
And as I said in my above post, I know LOTS of people who have specific problems with america, specific grievances and issues. People who have THEIR OWN opinion on certain issues, that's allowed isn't it?
They have the same issues with other countries, with their own, with the local scout group. Can't stand the new scout uniform, it's a blue shirt not the traditional brown/greyish one...
It doesn't mean their anti-scoutish.
Swiftom, I agree that there are specific issues with America.
However, if I were to say, "The Black community needs to stop walking around with a chip on their collective shoulder." Then I assure you that SOMEONE will call me a racist, no matter HOW MANY BLACKS have said the exact same thing.
The fact is that there are racist people who blame blacks for everything from violent crime to lowering the education standards in America. So it makes REAL discourse very difficult.
Let's just use a few buzzwords and phrases that keep bouncing around the left; American Imperialism, Inompetence, Endless War, Military Machine, Baby Killers, Illegal Actions, International Law, Oppression, Spying, Torture.
No matter how real the issues are, there are plenty of people who hate America just because it is America, just like there fathers before them hated America. And like the racists they are, they will use any legitimate issue to put forth their racist agenda. Altho racist really isn't the correct term since Americans are ALL races.
Jimro
Fair enough, I guess. The only problem I can see is how are you meant to legislate against people crossing the line between having issues and outright hatred...
And even then, I'm not completely sure I would legislate against people having hatred for anything as long as they don't act on it, intelligent people should always be open to have their minds changed with enough information.
Therein lies the problem. Some people are too stupid to have freedom. They are have no self control and are to stupid to realize that their actions are hurting other people. Racists and Bigots of all kinds walk the line daily between being a dick and physical violence, some are content to mentall abuse their targets, but others lack the intelligence to BE mentally abusive and just their fist, bats, guns, or a '87 buick. So in the end its a matter of do we want to be free and live with idiots or be safe and have no freedoms?
~Rico
Rico,
I think I might agree with you slightly, a friend of mine puts it this way.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
However, I believe that even stupid racists are protected by the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us. That is until they do commit a crime and lose their rights by due process of law. I do not want to live in an oppressive society, individual freedom is what stands between us and all manner of fascist government.
After all, if Liberals ran the world I would likely be placed in an institution for "re-education" to save myself and others from my "dangerous individualism".
It is my opinion that Big Brother does not know best.
Jimro
again agree up to a point.
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After all, if Liberals ran the world I would likely be placed in an institution for "re-education" to save myself and others from my "dangerous individualism".
You're scared of big brother, I am too. BUT! If liberals and ONLY liberals are the ones pushing things like school uniforms, censorship of rock bands, anti-minority laws, banning video games, and what have you then I'm as conservative as a fat texas oil baron.
The thing is political affiliation doesn't seem to have to do with smiting "dangerous individualism". The people I call traditionalists are the ones doing that. The old ladies sipping tea that tell a boy with long hair he's going to hell would be an extreme example of a traditionalist.
This relates to the TOPIC in that its the traditionalists that the world hates. They are breeding anti-americanism by their stubborn actions. Its a broad term that covers too much to even start giving precise examples without causing a flamewar. Basically those that think everyone should act a certain way and make people that don't feel out of place and inferior.
The cure? One. The same cure for the drinking problem out here on the reservation. One generation has to shut their ears and ignore the previous generation completely until the all die off. And even that has good and bad repercussions.
~Rico
Fascism will never be mainstream in America.
Unfortunately, it's becoming more mainstream, what with the KKK and Neo-Nazi bands like those two little twins who call the Holocaust a "myth".
After all, if Liberals ran the world I would likely be placed in an institution for "re-education" to save myself and others from my "dangerous individualism".
No no, I'd put you in an institution for "re-education" so you can watch Sailor Moon and appreciate it as a great cartoon. There's nothing wrong with being an individual, so long as you don't tell me that DBZ is better than Sailor Moon because the five minute battles that span 30 episodes ROXORZ!!!111 🙂
After all, if Liberals ran the world I would likely be placed in an institution for "re-education" to save myself and others from my "dangerous individualism".
If you were placed in an institution, it'd be because of your paranoid delusions.
ZING!
Cycle,
Thank goodness concentration camps are a myth, re-education doesn't happen in China, ethnic cleansing is purely a propaganda tool used by the UN to send troops in to oppress the natives.
Let me restate my position.
If Cycle ran the world I would be put in an institution for "re-education". After all, Cycle knows best.
Jimro
You'd put Jimro in an institution for the mentally-ill for exactly the same seasons he said.
Okay.
No, I'm saying he's being paranoid. Originally I was just going to say "Your paranoia is astounding" but I thought it'd be more fun to say it that way.
301.00 Paranoid Personality Disorder
A. A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
1. suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her
2. is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates
3. is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her
4. reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events
5. persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights
6. perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack
7. has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner
B. Does not occur exclusively during the course of schizophrenia, a mood disorder with psychotic features, or another psychotic disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a general medical condition.
You should meet my great-uncle from England. He paces his room muttering about "the bloody protestants". In fact, he can be quoted as saying "If the bloody protestants ran the world, I'd be put in a mental institution." Whenever someone disagrees with him, or finds a flaw, or basically annoys him in any way, he calls them "a bloody protestant" and... well, you know the rest. They aren't monitoring him because they're protestants, but because he's suffering paranoid delusions. You just kind of reminded me of him, is all.
"mm... liberals... ugh... get the liberals away from me... they're everywhere.... they want to put me away... ugh... liberals... liberals everywhere..."
I also wanted to point out a choice quote from this thread: "...Liberal judges embrace freedom of speech". I wonder if there's a DSM article on hypocrisy as well?
Anyways, allow me to elaborate. Basically what I'm saying here is, first off, you're being paranoid and I need to push your buttons over it. It's what I do.
Second, I disagree with you.
According to Wikipedia, "Liberalism is an ideology, or current of political thought, which strives to maximize liberty. Liberalism seeks a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on the power of government and religion, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a free market economy that supports private enterprise, and a system of government that is transparent. This form of government favors liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law, and an equal opportunity to succeed... Fundamental human rights that all liberals support include the right to life, liberty, and property."
As you may or may not have heard, Canada's in the middle of an election (yes, another), and every election the CBC does this thing called "Your Turn" on the evening news. Basically they grab one of the three major party leaders, haul him up in front of a live audience, and basically have a kind of Town Hall thing with chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge moderating. Tonight they brought in Prime Minister Paul Martin, leader of the incumbent Liberal party (yes, with a capital L). Near the end of the show someone asked him about his promise to ban the use of the notwithstanding clause in Parliament. The notwithstanding clause, otherwise known as Section Thirty-three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, allows Parliament or provincial legislatures to override certain portions of the Charter. The federal Parliament or a provincial legislature may declare a law or part of a law to apply temporarily "notwithstanding" countermanding sections of the Charter, thereby nullifying any federal/provincial or judicial review by overriding the Charter protections for a limited period of time. For example, if they had wanted to, the government could have invoked the notwithstanding clause to block same-sex marriage, because the entire basis for legalizing it was the equality rights section of the Charter.
Anyways, I digress. The lady asked Paul Martin about his plan to ban the notwithstanding clause, and he responded quite simply: "...the function of a democracy is to protect the rights of minorities."
I think this is, in a nutshell, the way most left-wingers see democracy. If this world-state run by Liberals that you're proposing, and I'm going to assume for the purpose of discussion that by ungrammatically capitalizing "Liberals" you mean to say "the Liberal Party of Canada", were a democracy, and I'm going to assume also that it would be a democracy since "liberal" and "conservative" are words that basically didn't mean anything politically until democracy was invented, you'd be unlikely to be locked away for your beliefs, regardless of how uncommon or unpopular they might be. You'd be far more likely to be locked away because you're exhibiting signs of PPD.
WOW! YOU are GOOD!
A psychiatric diagnosis based solely on my participation on a WEBFORUM!
Dude, you rock. You must have an IQ of like 180 and be all smart and stuff! Or maybe you have ESPN and can read my mind...better bust out the AFDB! (Instructions to make your own AFDB here zapatopi.net/afdb/ )
But seriously, until you finish med school stfu.
www.merriamwebster.com/di...Liberalism
1 : the quality or state of being liberal
2 a often capitalized : a movement in modern Protestantism emphasizing intellectual liberty and the spiritual and ethical content of Christianity b : a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard c : a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties d capitalized : the principles and policies of a Liberal party
Considering we are talking politics, I've bolded the applicable sections. Since definition C applies to political philosophy and not application I don't use that meaning, that leaves us with d.
Let's see, have "Liberal" parties infringed on the right of self defense? Yes: UK, South Africa, Cuba, China, Russia Washington DC, etc. Canada is actucally pretty permissive compared to the anything but the majority of the US.
So let me restate my position, I am a very conservative person whose views are incompatible with "Progressive" political movements such as socialism, communism, or any form of collectivism. Unless you live under a rock, Liberal parties embrace socialist stances on everything from healthcare to gun control.
As to why you think it is hypocritical of me to observe that Liberal judges embrace freedom of speech is beyond me. This is like saying that birds have beaks. In the context the the linked thread it is clear that judicial review of such a case, Paranoid Conservative vs. Cycle, would strike the online annoyance clause out as unconstitutional, no matter the political ideals of the judge.
Broad sweeping generalizations are not true, but as many of my polisci instructors said, "We get to make them". Why do we get to make them? Simply because we are not talking specifics. Do you want an example of Liberal judges? Look at the judicial activism taking place in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. That court has had more of it's decisions overturned by the Supreme Court than any other.
The "Living Document" philosophy can undermine the very basis of a Democratic Republic, taking away the protections of the Republic system and allowing the democracy to become mobocracy.
Jimro
You have yet to explain or defend your statement: "if Liberals ran the world I would likely be placed in an institution for 're-education'". All you've done is blubber about gun control and "judicial activism".
Blubber is whale fat, did you mean blabber?
Jimro
Blubber is also a term meaning to complain and whine incessantly. Nice try at trying to get around his points though.
~Rico
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All you've done is blubber about gun control and "judicial activism".
The relentless pushing of eradicating all religious signs from daily life in the name of 'separation of church and state' (which, FYI, isn't even in the United States Constitution) is only one example of 'judicial activism'.
As for gun control, just look at San Francisco.
Rico,
His point was nothing but his opinions. I can't argue with the fact that he THINKS I'm paranoid, or whining, or a hypocrit, or any other attribute. You really don't want to know what I THINK about Cycle.
Simply because his admitted attempts "push my buttons" is NOT a point, it is a poor debating tactic. When you can't argue with the facts, attack the source.
So, what was YOUR point?
Jimro
I'm going to say this again: you have yet to explain or defend your statement: "if Liberals ran the world I would likely be placed in an institution for 're-education'".
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Simply because his admitted attempts "push my buttons" is NOT a point, it is a poor debating tactic. When you can't argue with the facts, attack the source.
ROFFLE, oh jimmy you're so silly. :3
~Rico
Cycle,
I've explained that statement twice now. Here it is again. Re-education is a tactic that has been used in different societies, socialist, communist, even in the UK, whether in the form of medical treatment or work camps.
This is not paranoia, this is historical reality.
Alan Turing was arrested for being a homosexual, was forced to endure androgen therapy. While this is not directly linked to his suicide I expect that it was a huge contributing factor.
Judges here in the US have broad authority to require mental therapies as part of sentencing. I've seen kids in the foster care system take more pills to keep them quiet than most senior citizens have legitimate pills.
It's an attitude of "we don't want to deal with this behavior, so we'll medicate them into zombies and let the counselor try to change their thinking"
I cannot write down my sum total of knowledge and life experience that would allow you to see my point clearly, and even if I could there is no evidence that you possess the ability to understand someone elses point of view.
Jimro
I've explained that statement twice now. Here it is again. Re-education is a tactic that has been used in different societies, socialist, communist, even in the UK, whether in the form of medical treatment or work camps.
Because we all know that Hitler wasn't a conservative to the point of being an insane reactionary. Nope, Hitler was definitely a communist!
Remember, Jimro: he without sin casts the first stone. Don't think conservatives are innocent of re-education either *mumbles something about gays, God, Iran and autism under her breath*
He'll deny it with 8 pages or a link to something longer. XD
~Rico
Cooki,
Hitler was a socialist, the National Socialist German Workers Party, aka the Nazis. Since socialism is way liberal on the political scale, I think you picked a bad example, especially since Hitler hated communism with a passion.
Since basically your entire post boils down to your opinion that "Conservatives are as evil as liberals", I can't really argue. However, I would like you to point out some examples to back up your opinion.
Rico,
I'm so glad that you know me SO well that you can predict my responses before I write them... Ever consider your own Fortune telling business? Get yourself a 900 number and you could put Madam Cleo out of business!
Jimro
