If you think about it enough, you might realize how arrogant, offensive, excessive and divisive the phrase “proud to be an American” really is.
Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly do appreciate the opportunities I’ve had in this country for 22 years (though I would like the world’s fastest broadband speed of my nation of birth, South Korea). But for the most part, American culture has celebrated its vague ideas regarding freedom, independence and democracy ad nauseum, and its people stick to an increasingly dated notion of pure, rugged individualism.
I got news for you pal: it ain’t so.
On the economic front, the world hasn’t destroyed the Death Star that is the American economy, but it certainly has managed to neutralize its threat (unfortunately I lack an adequate “Star Wars” reference to use here).
For example, take the World Trade Organization’s recent ruling against the United States’ cotton subsidies, which other countries have taken offense to. We love to extol the virtues of the free market and free trade, but when it comes down to it, we don’t play a fair ball game for all nine innings.
Politically, we all know what effects former President George W. Bush had on America’s standing in the world. He mislead, manipulated and deceitfully maneuvered the United States and a few of its allies into an ideological war.
For the record, we have a lousy win percentage when it comes to those wars — Vietnam tore the country in half and the second act of the Persian Gulf War hasn’t gone much better. And forgive me for bringing economics back into this, but he also managed to ignore the huge warning signs surrounding Enron. He didn’t learn any lesson from that fiasco and let the magic and innovation of the market lead us into what may be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
And don’t even get me started on the military. Salute the troops and all, but when you have the world’s most powerful navy, an air force with ordinance that enables you to can pick which window the bomb falls through and a nuclear arsenal capable of wiping every human being off the face of the earth multiple times, it’s hard to take us seriously at peacekeeping talks. Nothing says peace like millions of guns, missiles and bombs pointed at you, no?
Yet still we cling to this notion that America is the best democracy in the world, American values will always prevail, people just hate America because they’ve been lied to by anti-American leaders and American English is the language to speak.
That’s just scratching the surface, but it is certainly enough to show why people might not be so enthralled with America and its citizens. We’re loud, arrogant, self-righteous and egocentric — wouldn’t you find someone like that incredibly annoying?
