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September 14, 2005You mean…(sniff)…they never really loved us?Jonah Goldberg has a particulary good essay up at National Review Online. Particularly good because more often than not he hits a double, but this one might be a home run! (I’m sorry but since Judge Roberts began with the baseball metaphors, I’m hooked…I’m like Rafe Palmiero on ‘roids!) Anyhow, in this essay Jonah points out, once and for all, that quite contrary to all we are told in the media and by the folks on the left, America was not “the beloved country” before George W. Bush came into the White House: …Anti-American books tore up the best-seller list in France throughout the Clinton presidency. The staged anti-globalization riots during the 1990s were not love letters to America or the Democratic party. In 1999, Bill Clinton needed 10,000 policemen to protect him from Greek activists who aimed to firebomb him. Protesters in Athens continually pulled down a statue of Harry Truman….al-Qaeda got its operation up and running throughout the sunny days of Bill Clinton and the dotcom bubble. In the 1980s, anti-Americanism was also a big problem, but fortunately the elites of Europe generally understood…it was better to have America as a friend than the Soviet Union as a ruler. Second, because we’re behind the wheel, they can indulge their vanity by playing backseat drivers… A columnist for the British Sun wrote this week, “America may have given the world the space shuttle and, er, condensed milk, but behind the veneer of civilization most Americans barely have the brains to walk on their back legs.” Then he got offensive… What bodes even worse is that Britain is the only country in Europe with a military capable of projecting significant military force abroad for a sustained period of time. Even if the next president, or the one after that, succeeded in winning European friends where Bush has failed, it seems unlikely those friendships will be of enormous use.…We are in for some lonely days. I suspect that if President Hillary is elected in 2008 Europe will fall all over itself to kiss her feet and declare that their friendship with America can now be restored because “the first Lady of the World,” (hey, I didn’t call her that, The Hague did, a few years ago) will “unite the world in the blahblah and pursuit of blahblah…” It will all be lies and BS, just as it was when President Bush visted Europe shortly after his election and - before ever seeing him - the left and the press over there were calling him the moronic cowboy idiot tyrant. I’ll tell you what worries me, though. The idea that Americans - who deep down want to be respected and loved, because (on the whole) they are themselves respectful and (mostly) loving - will grow weary of being disliked by Europe and will vote-in a Hillary - or someone like her, who is palatable to Europe - just to be loved, again. Europe can’t offer us much - flyover space to the Middle East - moral support, once in a while - but there are some who, I suspect, would give up a great deal for their minimal offerings, if France and Germany and Brussels would only LOVE us. But it seems they never really have. Loved us, I mean. I have a friend who is divorced. The catalyst for the divorce was a disagreement during which his wife admitted to him that she “never loved” him - that she’d married him only because she assumed he would “take care” of her. With that acknowledgement, the “marriage” was revealed to be a sham and could not continue. Everyone wants to be loved. And yes, Americans are generous, good-hearted folks who would like to be loved. But healthy love does not demand that you give up who you are for it - healthy love does not forfeit self. It gives and receives but does not “need.” An outsized need to be loved can sometimes cause tremendous damage. Think about it. Think about the people you know, or the people you read about in the news, who need to be loved, and what that driving need has done to them. It is amazing how destructive wanting to be loved can be. I pray my nation doesn’t fall prey to that need. UPDATE: By happy synchronicity, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred are examining this question also: He (asked me) why…Europeans were so anti American. Europeans, we said, dislike Americans because, in a short period of human history, went on to surpass Europe in being the center of global influence. (…even worse) that America was built by European ‘garbage…’ …a century ago, Europe was only too happy to rid itself of the ‘wretched refuse’ and ‘teeming masses’. The European elite and intellectuals thought that once rid of the annoying and newly demanding ‘unwashed’ peasant class, Europe would once again regain it’s rightful place as the center of the moral and political world… Europe…never got over the fact that, unleashed, those ‘wretched refuse’ and ‘huddled masses…understood what the elite and intellectuals of Europe never understood for themselves– that given the opportunity, they were perfectly able to fend for themselves, succeed and even excel. Thus, the European ‘refuse’ become proud and worthy pillars in the community. Their worth and contributions to the American mosaic was far more than what the Europeans had exploited them for. Europe had made a mistake by sending off it’s most abundant natural resource, it’s own sons and daughters. Why do behave in this way? Because this country was built by the ‘wretched refuse’. Because everyday, immigrants come to our shores to take their best shot, knowing they won’t be impeded or blocked by our ‘elite’… America is replete with success stories, of immigrants who came with nothing and within a generation or two, made it. We’re told everyday how much were hated around the world. We also know that given the choice, we’d have to issue green cards to millions of those people who ‘hate’ us. Of necessity, I had to edit both Jonah’s piece and SCA’s, but please do go read them… UPDATE: a friend with a phenomenal memory sent this to me - on the same subject: The July 2001 G8 meetings in Genoa provided the occasion, for instance, for a front-page offering of dubious taste by the paper’s lead cartoonist Plantu. It shows George W. Bush, protesters in the background, giving orders to seven figures, representing the other participating nations, who are variously depicted as bound, gagged, and blindfolded by American flags or impaled through a variety of orifices upon the flagpoles bearing them. “Tell these kids to stop the violence!” Bush demands. An article on the “anti-globalization” movement Attac in the edition of August 28 was accompanied by a cartoon by Plantu’s colleague Serguei. In it, the world is depicted as the body of a living piggy-bank sporting an Uncle Sam hat and a stubbly beard and with a fat cigar embossed by a dollar sign stuck between its teeth. A small dark figure, evidently the dispossessed of the earth, holds out its hand pathetically. Another offering by Serguei from August, this one accompanying an article on Henry Kissinger and Chile, depicts Uncle Sam with a death’s head, glowering at a globe dripping in blood. In his right hand, the Uncle Sam figure clutches the cigar with the dollar sign on it: the icon of American cupidity. Hmmmph…imagine that. And all before 9/11. H/T to MaxedOutMama for the SCA piece. http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/09/14/you-meansniffthey-never-really-loved-us/trackback/ 12 Responses to “You mean…(sniff)…they never really loved us?” |
September 14th, 2005 at 8:32 pm
Democrats shift focus in court fight
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats say the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist has eased the pressu
September 14th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
Those SC&A guys are brilliant.
Is this microphone on?
September 14th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
In the mid-1960’s I was at lunch at a convention of food technologists. A woman at our table from Germany proceeded to lecture us about why Europeans didn’t like Americans and what all was the matter with us.
All my ancestors came from Germany and I was interested in her because like many in my family, she had dark hair rather than the stereotyped blond-haired German. I didn’t get to talk to her because she was totally interested in holding forth about what was wrong with America.
The present idea that other countries loved us before Bush is news to me.
September 14th, 2005 at 10:48 pm
Also, when my sister and I went to Germany and Poland in 2000, to see the towns where our ancestors lived, we visited the harbor at Bremerhaven to see the spot that was their last sight of Germany. The woman at the museum there kept emphasizing how happy Germany was to be rid of the people who were leaving. They even had dormitories for the emigres to stay in until a ship could take them away.
September 14th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
To Evon: I think it was Ralph Peters who commented that the whole “wretched refuse” idea actually is Darwinism in action. The people that left on those ships from Hamburg, Danzig, Belfast, Liverpool etc. were the brave ones,possesing the guts needed and ready to face that voyage and and uncertain future and those that were left behind were the ones that lacked the guts, were too cowardly to do anything else, except start the two worst blood baths of the 20th Century of course!
September 14th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
Yep.
Our gain. Their loss.
God bless America!
Heh!
September 14th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Time for America to give back! May I suggest—(From the AP) A federal judge has declared it unconstitutional to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Why wait for those Canadian Visas? Heck, in Europe they brag about countries with no borders where they don’t even check passports anymore! Smart idea! A terrorist can make it from Bosnia to Portugal in a few days! Yeah, the smart ones stayed!
September 15th, 2005 at 5:02 am
May I register a dissent of sorts?
“Everybody wants to be loved” — ? Perhaps not. For myself, I want to be respected. I have my family for love. From the rest of the world, I want the blessings of respect: civil treatment in public places, the implicit acknowledgement of my autonomy, and the explicit acknowledgement of my right to defend what’s legitimately mine…plus maybe a little assistance should I get backed into a corner.
There’s quite a shortage of general respect at present. I consider it seminal to our present social malaise. Just the opinion of one Long Island crank, of course.
September 15th, 2005 at 12:00 pm
For myself, I want to be respected. I have my family for love
FPorretto, you’re absolutely right.
As for anti-Americanism, a couple of decades ago my husband and I were in Italy for a few months, my husband working for an Italian company, me sightseeing. The anti-Americanism was such we were asked at least twice when were we leaving, and that Americans werent welcome.
September 16th, 2005 at 12:37 am
Maybe we shouldn’t have sent all thos troops to rescue Europe from the Nazis during World War II… or even protected them during the Cold War… Let’s see what they think if we say that…
September 16th, 2005 at 10:22 am
about that person who commented Americans were barely smart enough to stand on their “back legs” - -
um, many of us share ancestors with you. The only difference is, our ancestors were perhaps smart enough to leave.
I know I shouldn’t expect Europeans to love us, but it just irritates me on a very basic level to hear people making cracks about Americans being somehow sub-human. (Which is what the Sun reporter’s remark sounds like to me, even if made in jest). Because it’s not far from joking about a group being sub-human to not caring when they die, to thinking they deserve to die…didn’t Thomas More or someone make a comment about how you should never say “Thou fool!” to another, because you are denying the fact that they are a child of God?
January 19th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Europe’s Big Problem
As I mused when I returned from Europe, I wonder whether some European decisions arise from a reflexive anti-Americanism, rather than from any genuine European desires and impulses.
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