Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Who are these people?

U Peeple!
ER — (archived)

I've always felt that one of the most seductive things about America, in the eyes of the world, is how our films, TV shows and our popular music often take highly critical positions on certain aspects of American government policy and culture. Anti-US dictatorships love to show these films because they have so much contempt for the intelligence of their own people that they really think the audiences don't realize that American artists have the freedom to criticize their government, while they don't. It appears our own conservatives have the same lack of faith in American audiences.

On the other hand, flag-waving crap a la "Green Berets" or "Red Dawn" are shouted down as the pathetic attempts at puerile propaganda they are. And it's not just overt jingoism, put-on airs of racial and cultural superiority are equally treated with the contempt and derision they deserve: Mexican audiences have been known to riot at "The Magnificent Seven", and Germans love to watch "Hogan's Heroes": stupid Krauts and wise-cracking Yanks my ass.

I love my country because I CAN bitch about it, not just because my taxes are too high or because I'm afraid of unions, but because I can vent my severe differences of opinion about some of our foreign and domestic policies. And those things in which I DO agree with my government and nation (which are by far the bulk of my country's activities) I do not feel the need to constantly remind and nag others about them. In fact, to constantlly do so I find vaguely but distinctly un-American. At the very least, it's tacky.

I love my wife, too, but I don't have any desire to wear a "Sandy" pin on my lapel, or celebrate our marriage with a bumper sticker. And I am instantly suspicious of the motives of those who feel the need to do so.

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