How Do You Spell That?

It's a simple enough question. In what parts of society does America out-perform the rest of the world?

I guess this all started from a quote on Derek's Blog from Jeremy when I responded that the domestic IT Industry was in trouble due to a cheap workforce in India. My response was that when it became cheaper to hire an Indian IT guy and a translator, the days of high-paying IT development jobs will disappear. To which Jeremy responded:

"Translator? Hah! They already speak better English than many Americans."

Over the past year as I've been reading through blog after blog, I have noticed a few things.

On the left, you will find where America has gone wrong. Jack-Booted Ashcroft Nazis descending from black helicopters to infiltrate and zombify the masses to unite under the New World Order of George W. Bush. Oh btw, QUAGMIRE QUAGMIRE QUAGMIRE!!!!!

On the right, you will find stories about where America has done something right. Armed soldiers carrying little girls books to school in Iraq just after their group took heavy fire from Saddam supporters.

On the left, you will find that Europe is mad at us because we don't take into consideration what pain our decisions cause. That our "culture" of fast food, brainless entertainment, and general mass consumption is destroying the world, and threatening years of social upbringing.

On the right, you will find Americans tired of those damn Europeans who are scared of standing up for freedom and democracy because you just know they don't want to lose all of those big oil contracts.

On the left, you will find anger, self-loathing, and elitism.

On the right, you will find obnoxious patriotism, pride, and elitism.

If you could take the values and ideals of these parties and put them into one person, what would you have?

On the left, you would have a person who can't stand what he does, and knows that he is smarter than those around him.

On the right, you would have a person who thinks what he does is right and just, and knows that he is smarter than those around him.

What does this mean? Hell, even I don't know. I do know that over the years I have seen what this country can do wrong and what this country can do correctly. Some people in our country think that we deserved 9/11 because we were so shallow in our countries views. And while they might be right on the "wake-up call" portion of that equation, I have yet to see someone justify the mass murder of almost 3,000 people that morning. I have also yet to see what Europe can bring to society as a whole except for sneering and good wine (ok, that was a cheap shot, I know). :-)

I guess when it comes down to it is this. America does screw up a bunch of things. But to think that we can't do anything right, and that we need the "world" to approve everything we do is beyond asinine.