Son of the American Revolution

While I was in South Africa, some people got the impression that I am a very patriotic person.

To my friends here in the States, this may come as a surprise. After all, I've taken many opportunities in this space to rip on USA policies and societal quirks, particualrly regarding racial issues.

Nevertheless, I can easily see why I gave off a very different impression while overseas. It's very easy to explain.

Inside the USA, it seems that freedom of speech is slowly being choked off. This is happening for two reasons. One is that conservatives have decided to use scare tactics to suppress dissent of all kinds. 9/11 has been used as an excuse to label most who disagrees with the Bush administration's policies 'unpatriotic' and justify draconian speech restriction by labelling some speech a 'threat to national security'.

The other reason is that extreme lefties basically call for the job, career or reputation of anyone who says anything politically incorrect on a silver platter. Why? Because they believe freedom of speech doesn't apply to famous people who say things they don't like. Oh, none of them would ever admit it. But if you thought Chris Rock should have lost his oscar gig because he joked that no straight black man watches the Oscars, if you thought Harvard's president should be fired for suggesting that women and men might have inherent aptitudes for different subjects, if you thought...well, you get the idea. Basically, if you call for someone's head when they speak their minds in a way that doesn't necessarily contaminate their job responsibilities completely, then you're one of the speech nazis I'm referring to.

Anyway, when I left the States for my longest period of time outside the country, I noticed something just as annoying: it has become trendy for everyone else to rip on the United States and their cowboy president for just about everything that's wrong with the world. It's the in thing to talk about at parties where people aren't wearing khakis with navy blazers; it's the cool tool for foreign politicians to use to distract their people from the horrible and morally-bankrupt policies of their own governments.

Bush went to see his family? NO! How could he? There 's a war going on -- a war HE started! How DARE he! HE HAD DINNER yesterday? Damn his stupid foreign policy!

Seriously, if you listen to some people talk, you'd think the U.S. in general, and Bush in particular, was responsible for all the world's problems -- past, persent and future. Those who know me understand why this would rub me the wrong way.

I hate trendyness when it comes to ideas. You want to wear trendy clothes? Be my guest. You want to listen to trendy music? A little less acceptable, but tolerable. But I draw the line at trendy thoughts.

It's ridiculous to assume the States (and/or Bush) is to blame for all the present conflict in the middle east. It's even absurd to accuse them of being the biggest problem there. They may not have helped, but they didn't start the fire either. England created Iraq, and owned the territory which now houses both Israelis and Palestinians. Yet much of what I heard was yap-yap-yapping about what a horrible world power the United States was.

It reminded me of a few expressions: "Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." And "It's time for everyone to clean up their own backyards before they go knocking on their neighbor's door."

I'm not saying that the foibles of the U.S. government shouldn't be discussed. I'm saying the conversations should be kept in the proper perspective. Bottom line: not everything is America's fault. I found myself having to remind people of this fact over and over again. A lot of the comments I heard were such neo-liberal, meaningless sound bytes. I could have easily imagined two idiots at some protest exchanging their little crap anecdotes, and then high-fiving one another. Way to go: you've stated the obvious.

The biggest joke to me was the amount of crap I heard about how "imperialist" the USA is. Really? Name me one country that has any semblance of economic power that hasn't oppressed (or outright tried to exterminate) at least one group of people. Give up? That's because there aren't any. And yes, Canada is included. You think the place was empty when the British and French got there?

Does that make this history okay? No, but it's useless for you to point out how many native Americans were slaughtered by ancestors of present-day Euro-Americans without also pointing out the atrocities committed by the nations where those people came from in the first place. You think the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal were sitting around having tea parties and singing "Kum Ba Ya" while all that was going on?

Hell, there are national governments in the world right now following policies that make the war in Iraq look like a sunny stroll in the park. And historically, it's pretty easy to argue that the following countries also among the all-time worst offenders of liberal sensitivities are (in no particular order except for #1) England, Germany, Japan, France, Russia and China. Hmm, sounds a lot like the U.N. security council. That's not a coincidence.

In sum, you are neither original, trendy nor on the cutting edge of social consciousness when you harp on U.S. policy as if nobody else exists on the world scene. As for bitching about NGOs based in the States, that's a pointless exercise for a whole different variety of reasons (that I'll post about later).

I may be very critical of my government, but I'm even more critical of anyone who attempts to demonize any country unfairly. Especially the one I know best.

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