trying to grok

Very interesting article.
My favourite material was at the bottom.

"That is something that no member of the European Union can ever understand."

Does the author demonstrate an equivalent ignorance and dismissal of every individual in an unknown culture, or in this case, many unknown cultures ?

Judging all Europeans by the ignorance of a few citizens sounds rather arrogant to some readers.

Might some Europeans, or Asians, or Africans, Or Arabs, or Pacific Islanders, or South Americans therefore also be justified in branding the USA a particular way because they met a few USAmericans who couldn't speak another language?

Doublespeak.

Here come the flames ... :-)

I'm not judging them all by the actions of a few by any means, but there is a kind of groupthink has gotten into many peoples minds, mostly european minds, that presupposes that they know all about the US, and that we dont know anything about europe. My guess is that we are both equal in our ignorance, but this is not the postition taken by many in the self loathing left.

I'm simply am rejecting the knee jerk idea that America has less to offer than does the storied lands of old europe. My basic feeling after lving in Europe for 5 years is that the best parts of Europe migrated across the pond when the opportunity presented itself. that was a cruel and cyinical view, but it was an honest one.

If you want to find the capitol of anti-semitism, you dont have to go to the middle east, you need only go to Paris. If you want to find brutal strong arm crime, most cities in europe outdo anything I ever saw in pre-guliani New York. Amsterdam, for all of its tolerance is one of the most genuinely unhappy places I have ever seen. Most of Europe reminds me of the kind of darkness you see in the eyes of kids in the richer neighborhoods of the US, where the kids have all of their material needs taken care of, but their parents spend no time with the kids, leaving the kids spiritually vacant and wondering aloud what is their purpose in life.

The people of Europe have nice art and nice ruins to visit, but the current generation has become a selfish and spoiled generation of people who look at everything in terms of their own personal comfort. Once upon a time, Germany was the economic powerhouse, based solely on the productivity of its people, today that is no longer the case, and it only took 10 years to get that way.

Too many people in Europe believe that America is really the source of all their problems, and its at that dark idea that I was hoping to shed some light.

America bothers them becasue we are disturbing their sleep. We in America challenge the Euros, while Americans tend to enjoy competition, Euros look at competition as something that needs to be stopped before someone gets hurt.

I've lived there twice and talk to people there all the time. There has always been an anti-American element there. Leftists have had an even bigger role in the media and education then here, or it feels like it.

Socialism and Communism were invemnted there, after all.

America stands in the way of a lot of that stuff, which is why the elites there view us as a threat. They also resent that they depend on us for their security, because they have never done much to secure it for themselves since WWII. I remember well, all through the 70s and 80s hearing American politicians bitch that we were spending billions to protect Europe and they were doing little or nothing to beef up ther militaries.

A I find your piece a simplistic -as the lady says about another- "bunch of rambling nonsense" surprising for a polyglot who can't use a spell checker.
B "The function of the military in a democratic society is the application of violence on behalf of the citizenry. The vocation of the professional officer corps is the management of that function." (Huntington) This wonderful group has enabled we americans at 6% of the worlds people to be able to consume 40% of the world's resources. Pretty cool eh? And so
enabling the U.S. military to become the single largest user of energy in the world. Which then is then able to get more resources- Wah Lah!

C Is that why you brown nose the neo con chicken-hawks led by the court appointed president.

D Then if you can go deep, Martin has this Prof. got you pegged or what?

"...the perennial anxiety that accompanies imperial hegemony in the New World might be a compensatory gesture for the originary Ishmaelite fate of castoffs relentlessly clamoring for re-integration into the mainline genealogical history as the chosen people..."

http://complit.la.psu.edu/faculty/kadir/absoluteamerica.html

Finally
E Remember as Jefferson said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

Hey Snidley - I notice you don't use your real name!! What are you ashamed of yourself and your views unlike Frank, Sarah, James and Mark? Maybe you're AFRAID someone won't like what you write so you use the shield of a fake name so you're just a coward! People like you don't deserve the protection of our wonderful military. You think you're so cool and hip being snide and snarky. Well you're not, you are just another pathetic whiner of the left.

I think the article nails it. I lived in Germany 5 years while in the USAF. I traveled to England, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Austria during that time, and spoke to many people on the way.

I initially had a naive view of Europeans, particularly the British, who I tended to think of as Americans who spoke differently. After an extended conversation with a Brit RAF officer, I realized I was mistaken. The Brit himself told me he really didn't understand Americans very well, and that he had much more in common, culturally, with the Germans than he did with Americans, regardless of the common language we each shared.

Every European I spoke with after that confirmed exactly the points made by the article. Admittedly, this may not be a statistically significant sample, but it is suggestive.

I think Mark, and particulaly Snidely, are still stuck at the naive stage in their world view. Either that, or perhaps the article simply trod upon some fondly held biases. But, that's just a personal opinion...

This part in the article resounds in me as an American:

"Americans share one thing in common with each other that no other person in the world can understand. While the rest of the world goes to bed at night saying 'Well if things get really bad, I can always go to the States...' As Americans, we know that we have nowhere else to go. If we don't make it here, there is no where else we can go, and few places that will accept us even if we wanted to go. If America were to fall, we all know that we would not be welcome anywhere else. That, is why we fight so hard, that is why we still hold onto our patriotism and faith when most of the world has thrown theirs away."

I would respect Snidely's decision to post nicknonymously if, as I do, he had a valid email address and a consistant identity.

I would, in any case, like to ask him how a court ruling that any further recounts would have to be done in accordance with existing state law constitutes an appointment.

I too, BTW, have had similar online discussions with Europeans who do not comprehend what makes USians tick.

As a kid, I lived in France. We were not made to feel welcome there in any way, and this was little more than a decade after defeating Hitler. As Americans, we were not even allowed to drive through DeGaulle's hometown.

They have never appreciated us or considered us as equals. We show them daily how little they have, and they cannot stand it.

Yes, clearly they are all just jealous. Go USA!