A recent link on the drudge report caught my eye: the story was a series of guidelines on how to speak and act to counter the image of the “ugly American.” An expert quoted in the story says that “surveys consistently show that Americans are viewed as arrogant, insensitive, overly-materialistic, and ignorant of local values.”
In short, we are convinced the American way is the only way and most other folks would be better off following our lead.
Yes, America sucks so bad that 11 – 12 million Mexicans snuck across our southern border to get better jobs. (Can’t blame them for that, but there’s a process for immigration and hiring a coyote to haul you and the fam up north ain’t it.) Now that our elected overseers are talking about unenforceable immigration “reforms,” some of these same illegals are throwing hissyfits in the streets. By missing work to loudly proclaim their right to flaunt the laws of the country that pays them bettter then Mexico ever could, some are getting fired for unapproved absences. Welcome to America.
United States capitalism is so unsuccessful that we have a 5.5% unemployment rate. Please contrast this to the 20% unemployment rate among France’s 26-years-old-and-younger set. Much of this comes from the fact that employers are afraid to hire new workers without a track record. Once hired, it’s hard to fire them. To get more employers to hire new workers, the French gov’t proposed that anyone under 26 could be fired without cause during the first two years of their employment. What happened? Days and nights of rioting. Was it ugly? You bet. What happened? France surrendered to itself (again). Shocking.
And regarding American intolerance – didn’t we just liberate millions of Muslims from dictatorships that routinely used mass killings, rape rooms, and torture as standard operating procedure? Why yes, I believe we did. Examples of Muslim gratitude and like-mindedness? How about an Afghani being put on trial for his life for having converted to Christianity? How about Iran threatening to blow Israel to kingdom come on general principle? How about open-minded Muslims chanting “death to America” while they sign up to be martyrs in the name of Iran’s “right” to have a nuclear weapon? How about the Christians being killed regularly in the Sudan?
What could one call these attitudes and practices of foreign nations and foreigners within our borders? Misguided, ignorant, xenophobic? Yes, and don’t forget ugly. Sometimes it really does go clear to the bone.