On Mon, 3 Apr 2006 08:25:59 +1000, in a place far, far away, "Johnboy"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:


Not even bothing to care about what other countries and cultures think - and
not even caring about the idea that there might be other points of view
other than your own - leads to the sort of self-reinforcing drivel that I
see so often in this newsgroup; you all come to some self-serving opinion of
the worthlessness of other countries, cultures, or religions and then act
surprised that the "other side" holds a hostile view of your country in
return. That hostility is then incorporated into your own
USA-is-always-right-and-is-always-good meme, and is simply used to reinforce
you opinion of their worthlessness. But just perhaps you have the order of
events wrong.

Perhaps, but it seems unlikely. But it's hard to argue with such a
broad generalization. There are some other countries that it's useful
to care about their opinions, and some that aren't. There are some
people in those countries whose opinions are worth listening to, and
many whose are not. People are obviously going to have differences of
opinion, but many opinions about America and its culture and behavior
are based on rank ignorance as well (as you yourself displayed with
your foolish comments about the gun culture).

Most of the world gets its information about the US from a) Hollywood
movies and television shows (yeah, *that's* realistic), b) leftist
America-hating media outlets (Le Monde, Der Spiegel, the BBC, The Age,
etc.) and c) dictatorial government propaganda (most of the world
isn't democratic, in case you hadn't noticed). Few of them actually
have any knowledge of the country, or have lived here, or even visited
on vacation. So why is it I should take their criticism of a country
with which I'm much more familiar seriously, again?

Look, we have a person in this newsgroup who constantly argues that the
USA's closest and most trusted ally is full of queers, and all I see in
reply is arguments about wether they are 100% queer or 50% queer. You guys
just don't have a clue, because you guys don't look beyond the borders of
what you have been told by peope who believe the same drivel as you do.

Do you think very many of us take "Bob" seriously enough to even argue
with him about it? He's a nut.