- The Problem with America

In my part of the world, people will stand patiently in line to tell you what’s wrong with America. Bring it up, and Columbia University administrators, foreign diplomats, and homeless Bellevue escapees will all elbow each other aside to get the best place on the traffic island from which to scream at you. CBS News, ABC, NBC, CNN, and the New York Times editorial board are awash with one learned opinion or another that will describe at length the great global tragedy that is American exceptionalism.

And if you are so inclined, there are apparently many different and unrelated reasons to hate America. It’s like a continental restaurant of excuses and causes, where there is something for virtually everyone. Some say it’s the way we have treated the Native Americans, while others think it’s what we’re doing to the environment. It could be our lack of a government run health care system, or our continued political support of Zionist Israel. We are simultaneously accused of failing to embrace global communism, and being unwilling to respect the individual freedom of Americans to drive as fast as they like while high on peyote. Whatever your political pre-disposition, America has done something somewhere that you can hate it for.

And this is a particularly big week in the America hating business. One of the global leaders of the "He-man America hater’s" club, delusional Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be speaking at Columbia University, simultaneously reinforcing his own membership and that of his host. Columbia University, which had a big problem allowing military recruiters on campus, has absolutely no problem letting a guy speak who is actively doing all he can to blow up those same soldiers with IED’s. So I guess we can figure out which side Columbia is on in the global terrorism debate.

So what is it that makes so many otherwise seemingly rational people despise America? Our national motto isn’t “Global domination whatever the human cost”, so none of this can be on purpose. But have we accidentally dedicated our entire existence in the US to doing our level best to crush the spirit of the rest of the world? Are we really so driven by evil, and so blind to our own faults that we can’t see our own failure to live to our ideals? Are all the things that people say about us true, and we can’t see it because of our hubris? No, don’t be silly. While we may not be perfect, there is no culture in the world that has been more willing to honestly examine the potential of it’s own failure than America.

When it comes to the reason people hate America, we must hold steadfast to “Occam’s Razor” that more or less states "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one." In this case, the simplest explanation for all this anger at The Great Satan is envy.

The thing that America has done which causes such angst for so many people is it has proven monumentally successful at connecting people’s individual desires with their personal achievements. It has found a way to allow, and even encourage, the most unexceptional of it’s citizens to achieve the most extraordinary accomplishments. In America, even our poor people have color TV’s and air conditioning. It’s the only country in the world where being poverty stricken means that obesity is more likely to be a cause of health issues for you than starvation. Time and time and time again, to the great consternation of both our enemies and our friends, our way of life has proven so fantastically successful, that we have been continually accused of “exporting our culture”. Go to L.A., or Rome, or Moscow and the only way you can tell one 15 year old kid from another is their accent when they sing the American top 40.

When McDonalds opened in Paris, it was an instant success, and just as instantly it was decried as being part of an evil American plot. The intellectual elite of all of France sprang up in simultaneous protest. Well, not exactly simultaneous, since some of them were waiting in line to order their “Royale with cheese” they had to take turns, but you get my point. It was success of that American idea, even in France, that led to such vocal and bitter resentment.

And it’s the same thing everywhere that American hatred is most prominent. In American Universities, they are continually upset that they aren’t, by virtue of their self proclaimed superior intelligence, immediately put in charge of everything. But what they don’t get about the American system is that it rewards results, not theory. There may be thousands of people that thought of the steam engine before James Watt, but since he’s the guy who made the thing, he’s the one who is remembered.

And yes, I know he wasn’t an American. In fact, that’s my very point. What has become the American ideal, was a different sort of ideal before America embraced it. And in its time it has been carried up through the ages by every culture which has showed some success over it’s peers. And in every culture, there are some who embraced it more than others. That was the thing that America really did, we opened our doors to everyone, and let in all the people from every culture who were most likely to accomplish things. And in the process of strengthening our own hand, we weakened the tea of others.

All the same though, through the ages, many other cultures have taken their turn in the spotlight, and have since lost it for whatever reason. And in the fullness of time, America will probably do so too. Nothing lasts forever. And I’m sure that if the the current crop of University administrators, Democratic politicians, and minority group activists have their way it will turn out to be sooner rather than later.

But in the meantime, America will continue to succeed, and by it’s success, continue to incur the wrath of others. And their hatred of such a benign and otherwise benevolent system will continue to say far more about them than it does about us. When they proclaim that America is the problem, they are saying that they lack the character to succeed without politics, or a cousin in the business or whatever. They are saying that they think a level playing field is beneath them, and that the “right” system would let them be in charge without much labor or risk. They are bit players who want to be the lead, but are unwilling to do the work to get them there.

The next time someone tells you that all the worlds problems are caused by America, remember, you’re talking to a loser.