Literally all it would take for me to give Americans even an ounce of respect would be for them to make even the most modest effort to live up to the national mythology they’ve spent the better part of a century congratulating themselves for and belligerently forcing down everyone else’s throats.
No, I don’t hold other countries to the same standard, because they haven’t spent generations lecturing the rest of the world about their unparalleled courage, their moral superiority, and their supposedly instinctive resistance to fascism. They made fighting for freedom the centerpiece of their national identity. They demanded admiration for it. They treated any failure to provide that admiration as an insult. And now, when history finally asks them to demonstrate a fraction of the courage they’ve spent eighty years taking credit for, the pants-pissing cowards decide they’re helpless little babies and HOW DARE YOU, FOREIGNER?
Literally all it would take for me to give Americans even an ounce of respect would be for them to make even the most modest effort to live up to the national mythology they’ve spent the better part of a century congratulating themselves for and belligerently forcing down everyone else’s throats.
No, I don’t hold other countries to the same standard, because they haven’t spent generations lecturing the rest of the world about their unparalleled courage, their moral superiority, and their supposedly instinctive resistance to fascism. They made fighting for freedom the centerpiece of their national identity. They demanded admiration for it. They treated any failure to provide that admiration as an insult. And now, when history finally asks them to demonstrate a fraction of the courage they’ve spent eighty years taking credit for, the pants-pissing cowards decide they’re helpless little babies and HOW DARE YOU, FOREIGNER?
I completely agree on all counts.
The economic, environmental, and moral harm is incalculable.