Hello Moderateman,
I will not bash you or your comments but I would like to respond to what you've written here.
First of all, I am writing you from Europe. Although I was born and raised in California, I did get the hell out, in 1990, one year after the earthquake in San Francisco, CA. Do the math, the quake was not in 1987, but at approx. 5:00pm in 1989.
I decided to leave USA because I knew that my beloved country was headed down a road, lead by the first Bush president, pappy, and I could see that our destination would not be a pretty one.
And so here we are today, 14 years after I left the US, a country which I love to death but am pretty disappointed with. Where are we? War, lies, a crippling economy and you know the rest. We could go on and on but I won't try to convince you or anyone else.
Why is the world bashing our country you ask? Get on a plane, travel to a different country, a different culture sometime and get a different perspective. You'll see just how silly WE seem to the rest of the world, how we are lead by our noses to believe and buy all the rhetoric. Our government relies on ignorance, similar to yours, to drum up all these patriotic emotions so that you can continue to be manipulated, all the while Bush and his friends do what they do best. "I am a WAR president." That is what he said and I believe him whole heartily.
The USA does not own anyone anything? that is nothing for me to argue about, however I will suggest that we owe it to ourselves to get our head out of our butts and try to see things objectively, listening to other opinions and points of view, even if it is something we do or do not agree with, we Americans should try a little better to listen before deciding that we know better. This is how children act.
I'll close by saying this... I love America, I love the fact that I come from that country, I love my friends and family whom I miss tremendously but I am not loving our ignorance, arrogance and overall hatred for self evaluation, self assessment and objective criticism. You must know that the decisions made by everyday people in states across the nation about who will be president, while they drink their freaking 1 Liter cokes and eat their triple double fat burgers with bacon, actually effect the entire rest of the world. I feel sorry for many nations that they must live with the decisions of who will lead our country by people who cannot themselves make educated and intelligent decisions about their own lives.
This is why so many people are speaking out against Americans. Do you understand?
Do me a favor. Do not take any of your time replying to what I'm writing you because in all honesty I will not be re-visiting this site, it was a complete accident in the first place that I found this page. Just get out of the country more frequently, ya might like it...
Have a nice 2005, try not to eat so much fast food and go for a yoga class or something.
Peace