Why should I be celebrating today ?

First of all, as I tell my middle schoolers (who apparently have no voice in your world), if a person starts a sentence with "no offense," offense will be taken.

You are exactly right about the topic being hard to quantify. This particular student chose her topic because she said that she was upset about how the US was so horribly hated under George Bush.

I asked her how she knew this, and she said she heard it on the news all the time.

She researched this on the Internet and couldn't find proof for America being more hated under George Bush. She did, in fact, find several international polls, etc. that showed little to no change in the perception of America for the past "x" number of years.

The bottom line is that America has been "hated" by other countries for a very long time. Call it jealousy.

 

now that is something i could not agree with More. Bush was no Reagan (Not even close)

 

I think you're a bit too worked up about this. However, my main concern is that we re-secure ties with our ALLIES in the event that the sh!t hits the fan (i.e. Russia or China starts acting up).

Isolationism just doesn't fit very well with the whole 'leader of the free world' thing. But I digress. Since the isolationism that you propose is congruent with military non-interventionsim, then do you also favor immediate withdrawal from Iraq & Afghanistan?

Um, we didn't NEED help. What did you want them to do? The rest of the world willingly supported us and our decision to invade Afghanistan following the attacks.

 

"do you also favor immediate withdrawal from Iraq & Afghanistan"

yes I do.. We should not be nation building. If they get "uppity" again we return make the temp 3000f, reduce to rubble. and repeat if neccessary.
There is a reason we dont invade Denmark for example.

Also isnt that "Leader of the Free world" thing why many countries dislike us anyway. That is one thing I agree with. We should stop being the "leader of the free world" and maybe just lead ourselves for awhile.

 

Dude, it's obvious the Iraq war is unpopular both at home and abroad, but if you really think that we are somehow at an all time low in popularity worldwide as a result, you are either too young or too insulated to know what you are talking about. Since the creation of this country we have been looked down upon as upstarts and eventually in this century with envy.

Fact remains that the majority of the world is dirt poor, as in a poverty that few Americans can even wrap their minds around. Poverty and ignorance go hand and hand and it is very easy to influence people like that to think anything. We have more food and $ at our fingertips on a daily basis than most people will have their entire lives. It's not difficult to understand the resentment. Followed closely by those same haters all wanting to come here to live and make $. No other country has the flood of people wanting to get here or actually getting here to do just that. Resentment/hatred be damned.

If you somehow attribute any anti-Americanism to the current war in Iraq, just understand that it has merely changed the chorus, but not the tune.

The world has been playing that song for a very long time.

 

Yes yes yes!!!!! The rag heads have been killing each other for thousands of years and we are not going to stop it. Bush should have bombed them back to the stone age and then let them wallow in it. If isolationism means to stop sending my tax dollars to people that want to kill me for no other reason than that I am an American then I am all for it.

 

When was the stone age? Last Thursday?

All their new crap looks like their old crap.

 

Well, that's your personal decision. It generally means that what the person is about to state is an honest, and oftentimes constructive, criticism, and is not intended to degrade or insult. But I can't make your skin thick for you.

Of course they have, and I have already acknowledged this fact. But I still think it's somewhat oblivious to think that alienating our allies hasn't damaged our image in the international community.

Here is one poll, which was conducted and reported on before your student did her paper:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/13/news/pew1.php

I'm sure there are others, but this was the first one to pop when I did the search.

 

I saw a car and running water on the news. I want them clicking two stones together to try and make a fire, then maybe they will have more important things to worry about than how they can kill us.

 

Really? Because most of the folks I've heard say it are catty females. And that is generally not their intent.