Ever since WWII, Americans have been accustomed to seeing Western Europeans as allies. Unfortunately, things have changed! While America still has fans in Western Europe, there is an increasingly loud anti-American bigotry coming from Western Europe. Don't get me wrong; America could use some constructive criticism from Europe.
For example, Europe's drug policy concentrates more on rehabilitation for drug addicts whereas America has counterproductive policies putting non-violent drug users in the same prison as violent criminals! And Netherlands has a more sane policy on prostitution, which allows it to flourish as long as they're tested for STDs. Outside of Nevada; most American states have a lock 'em up mentality on prostitution, which wastes police time, time which could be used to go after violent criminals!
The tariffs the U.S. had put on imported European steel was another counter-productive measure that goes against the idea of free trade that America has been promoting in the last 20 years. I have no problem with Europeans being critical on this matter.
But what disturbs me, however, is that much of the criticisms of America coming from Europe isn't constructive at all! Some of the criticisms from certain European intellectuals and protesters alike are childish and immature!
One of the common immature criticisms coming from the European anti-Americans is the criticism of President Bush and his "cowboy attitude". Think about this for a minute! This type of criticism is promoting prejudice against people who live in rural areas and live the ranching lifestyle!
Many of the people who spew out this anti-cowboy propaganda show extreme prejudice towards rural people of Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Wyoming and other similar states. But that's not all they're insulting! For one thing, they're insulting the paniolos, the Hawaiian cowboys. How does it feel to hear our fellow Hawai'i residents insulted by arrogant European chauvinists?
And who did both the white American cowboys and the paniolos learn the cowboy tradition from? They learned it from the Spanish and the Mexicans! The Hispanics are the original cowboys. I bet that many European chauvinists didn't know that.
The European chauvinists claim that Americans don't respect the outside world. As I have already shown, those same European snobs don't respect the culture of ranchers of Hawai'i, mainland US, Spain and Latin America. The European hypocrisy on "respect for the outside world" doesn't end there. A lot of Europeans don't even respect immigrants coming to their country.
European hypocrisy on race has been examined in greater detail by an American writer Nina Burleigh, who was visiting Paris, on salon.com. Burleigh said she was rudely lectured (unsolicited) on US foreign policy, and what made her more furious is that she "knows what the French in Paris really think of their own Algerian immigrants."
Burleigh said that some of the same French people "whose hearts and mouths bleed for American blacks and Native Americans, Afghan civilians" have also made very racist remarks about Muslim immigrants from Algeria and Morocco. So what does this all mean? It means that a lot of the so-called European "sympathy" for the supposed victims of America is nothing but insincere phony BS!
And around the same time that article by Burleigh appeared on salon.com, an anti-immigration, anti-Semitic, semi-fascist Jean Marie Le Pen was the #2 vote getter in the French primary, meaning he was eligible for the run-off election against eventual winner Jacques Chirac. Le Pen had 18% of the vote in the primary election. Le Pen's American equivalent Pat Buchanan, only got 0.5% of the vote (4th place) in the 2000 Presidential election.
Fortunately, there is hope in Europe.
An example of a mature European is British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who understands the threat of Al Quaida and Saddam Hussein without making racist remarks about Arabs. Let's hope more Europeans have Blair's mentality as the War on Terror continues.
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