And I am frankly sick and tired of the intellectual laziness and
dishonesty of a certain kind of Americans, who dismiss any
foreign critique of current US policy (and that is policy, not
even culture or values) as anti-Americanism.

LOL...yeah, there's no intellectual laziness in Europe, that quote from a
European may be the biggest case of "pot-kettle" I've seen in print. European
leftists began bashing Bush from the moment he took office, interestingly
enough for his "isolationist views". Such opinions were formed over such
things as his Texas accent, his and Cheney's work in the oil buisness and the
fact he had a ranch in Texas. Universally most of Europe knows Bush as a
"cowboy". Talk about intellectual laziness.

I am gonna have to agree. I have had discussions with some Europeans who are
just as apt to try and use simple stereotypes and classifications, because it
is just easier than thinking.
There are criticisms of Americans for not being fluent in European languages,
or not having mass transit to the degree Euros do. With just the slightest bit
of thought, one would realize that America is much more spread out, and even if
you do learn a language, if you never would have a chance to speak it, it is
forgotten very soon.

Using experiences from smaller, culturally and racially homogenous countries,
and using that to criticise a much larger and diverse country like the US, can
be intellectually lazy. So is acts of saying "No", but never offering
alternative solutions.

Honest criticisms can be needed and helpful. But when those criticisms are
born out of stereotypes, television shows, and a desire to criticise the US,
just because, that is intellectually lazy too.

But then many Europeans belittled Reagan as stupid and simple for daring to
think that the USSR could actually be defeated or rolled back.




Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter