It Made Us Sound All Good And Stuff

After deciding to come back to the topic of anti-Americanism, I decided to dredge up this li'l anecdote to show the hell-in-a-handbasket-ness of the situation. This particular story took place about a month ago in the midst of a history lesson at my high school.

When one is enrolled in an honors class, one is not hammered by the constant teaching of the American Revolution, the American Civil War, and JIM CROW JIM CROW JIM CROW and MORE JIM CROW year after year, but is taught some of the history of the rest of the world. While tracking Japan's progress to the modern day, we were asked to write up some summaries in a small group of certain parts of Japan's experience in the second World War. One kid in my group seemed a bit baffled after reading about Japan's reconstruction.

"It makes it sound like Japan did evil things," he stated simply.

"They did all the things listed in there," I replied, referring to the textbook.

"Yeah but...but it makes the Americans sound all good and stuff,"

"Well... do you think the book's lying, or something?" I answered.

"I bet it's not telling the whole story,"

"What more did you expect?" I said.

"Well, we... we must have done something wrong," The kid didn't even know about the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it seemed.

But of course, America must have done something wrong, just as my classmate stated, because America is the most evil country in the world, of course, and would never do anything all good and stuff. Even if there is there is no reason for us to believe America has done something wrong, either because of our ignorance or because there truly is no reason, we must always remain watchful for any misstep of this horrible superpower. Don't the democratic, peace-loving countries of the Middle East call the U.S., "the Great Satan"? And they are of course morally superior. Even if we went in and helped rebuild a country we defeated after peace was declared after WW II, a war which we entered because of a massacre of our people by said defeated country, all wrong doing by the enemy must be over looked because they were fighting America, and America must be bashed at all costs.

As an American myself, I would still say I would rather live here than in any other place on the world, first and foremost because it is free and democratic. I would chose this place over all other Western democratic countries as well because A) while PC corruption may be rampant here, it is far worse in other places, and B) because here, I'm still allowed my gun. Not that I own one.

Some anti-Americanism is just plain irrational, as I found when I took in this video of Avi Lewis interviewing Ayaan Hirsi Ali*. Interesting how the person who was defending America was the one who actually lived there, and the America-basher may never have set foot there in his life, for all I know. He also said some things that I found just a bit nutty. "A place where evangelical Christianity has ascended to the highest ranks of power"? Sure, buddy. I find it hard to believe that all the attempts to erase any reference to Christian religion and Christian holidays in America are the work of our hidden theocratic government.

Of course, America has done plenty it should not be proud of; I am in no way saying that all criticism of the U.S. is unfounded. I have no problem with America-bashing if said bashing is logical. But, I also hate the attitude that America is the only country in the world that commits wrong-doings. As I said to my classmate later on in our argument over post-war Japan: Everybody is a jerk. Practically every country or group of people on the planet has done something awful to another country or group of people. America in no way spearheaded this trend; the human race did.

*A bit off topic, but I must say that I really admire Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Not only is she incredibly brave, she's also good and logical, as you saw from the video clip. She also deals with the illogical very calmly and patiently, something which I am not the best at doing.