Yes, I agree all those things are great about Europe and I certainly wouldn't mind living there. I think there's a stronger sense of culture there and certainly history.

I guess I've basically got white man syndrome. As a child of the 80's and early 90's I grew up w/ affirmative action, NWA, Spike Lee Joints, Black History Month, revisionary history, and basically everyone pointing out how whitey's dumped on every other race. And it's true, we have. We screwed the Native Americans first, then the blacks, then everyone else we could get our collective claws on.

However, there comes a point where you begin to wonder 'Hey, why can't I be proud of my heritage? Why do I have to hear about how sh*tty my ancestors were all the time? After all, hasn't slavery existed ever since civilization began?' True...doesn't make every hunky dory but it's true. It doesn't erase racism or bigotry or the need to confront the social issues that are still very real in American culture...but it's true.

This is an old argument, but I guess what I'm saying is after awhile you become automatically defensive. Not that you hate anyone or think anyone's wrong, but you just don't want to hear about it.

I kind of feel the same way about Anti-American sentiment. I understand that our president has fuct things up and basically stuck a middle finger up @ Europe, but lets be honest, this shit was around well before Bush Jr. took office.

All these stereotypes about Americans get tiresome and eventually we (I) become defensive. Everyone rants about how arrogant and ignorant we are. Okay...well...no offense because I love you guys, but I've spoken to some of you and you have plenty of your own mis-conceptions about what America and Americans are like. There's plenty of ignorance on either side. I read British papers (online editions anyway), I see the slant, I see the slander. Your views are biased too!

Much like Petey, I haven't the slightest clue where I'm going with this. I love Europe, I'd love to live abroad, but you kick a mean dog and he just gets meaner.

Sure, fair enough, nowhere is perfect.

And I'm not gonna dwell on this James, but calling us boneheads was for sure casting the first stone, hmm? I guess I bite too.

Like you, I guess, I'm quite patriotic, even on the subject of Europe. Unlike many of my countrymen (and I imagine fellow Europeans) I am a definite Europhile.

Now I've not spent much time in your country, admittedly. When I did I was lucky enough to be surrounded by the good people who constitute Trish and her family and I saw many good things. As a people you tend to unfailing politeness (which for some reason is abandoned as soon as you leave your home state, but anyway) and a sort of open friendliness which almost embarrasses us more reserved Englishmen with our stiff upper lips.

And there's no reason not to be proud of heritage, my ancestor John Morrell, the watchmaker, chap who made the clock in the middle of [url=http://www.brianloomes.com/archive/page-2.html]this page[/url] and the watch which I shall in due course pass down the line. Should I be proud because he's a famous clock and watch maker, or [url=http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?WestHam/WestHam1881.shtml]ashamed of where he died?[/url] (I *think* this is the same guy)

I'm rambling too... *wanders off...*

Fair nuff. When I said boneheads it was certainly not my intent to generalize Europeans, but rather some of your leaders. I definately was not thinking of citizens (who were nothing but polite when I visited!), so I should have been a bit more clear in my bonehead remark.

My feeling was for the most part was that with so much anti-American sentiment in the EU, I wouldn't really be overly eager to put my country on an equal footing in an official assembly with them (essentially making it 50-1 or 2 depending on who's leading England).

Again, I love Europe and am an admitted Anglophile, so it's nothing against you guys. If anything I'm trying to spend MORE time there. No one likes to hide their patriotism, and sometimes I feel like that's how people want me to feel. But I can't help admiring my country and it's persona. Maybe not all the qualities in its present state are admirable, but at heart it's a country of ingenuity, individualism, tenacity, and honor. These aren't creations of our government, but creations of our history as a whole.

What can I say. I love it.

Ages ago when I first read Revelations I came to the conclusion that if the time of Revelations was now, or coming very shortly, then yes, America is the Babylon of which Revelations speaks, at least figuratively - you have to take into account I am an atheist and I don't believe that the Bible is the word of god, or the word of god transcribed, or anything but the word of some people who may or may not have believed in god.

But...

...if we had to have a modern day Babylon, America is it.

Now then, one of the funny things about human beings is their penchant for self-fulfilling prohesies. We humans tend to the look to the future and see what we want to see, whether we want to see it out of hope, or out of fear, or whatever motivates us. Then we share that vision with others and...conciously or subconciously we move in that direction. Obviously not all visions are realized, and even those that are might not be fully realized, but people do have a way of fulfilling their own prophesies. For example, there are Christians who avidly support the Jewish State of Israel because they believe in the book of Revelations and for Armageddon to start as per the book of Revelations, there must be a state of Israel. There must also be a red-bull if I recall correctly, and there are folks who are trying to genetically engineer such a beast ... because its needed for the events of Revelations to occur.

So, while I am an atheist and I do not believe in god nor do I believe in hell or the rest, I give more than a passing thought to Revelations because I know billions of folks around the world do believe in god, to some extent or another. And those folks may well cause some of the events of Revelations to come to pass - while I do not believe in a mystical kingdom of Babylon with its Scarlet Whore, I do believe in the U.S.A. and the culturally corrupting influence of our widely exported mass-media. While I do not believe god will send us some miscolored bovine as a sign of the apocolypse, I have faith my fellow human beings may well engineer one. While I do not believe Angels will cause the fish of the sea to wash up dead on the shores, I do believe we may very well strip the fish from the sea with our over-fishing. And while I do not believe in human-faced, lion-headed, locust demons the size of horses coming up from out of the ground any more than I believe in a fiery hell with a flaming lake, I DO believe in ICBMs coming up out of the ground, nuclear destruction, global warming, and numerous other man-made catastrophes any one of which could sub-in for the hand of god in our own little human-engineered Revelations-flavored apocolypse.

The good news is that if we just hold out long enough, America's debt and current foreign policy may well cause the USA to lose its place as the world's pre-eminent superpower - so in 20 years, we will have to point the finger at some other country, perhaps China, and say "there is Babylon! There is that Scarlet Whore!"

The bad news, of course, is that someone will always be around to point the finger at...and to point the finger. Right up until we fulfill our own prophesy and wipe our own race out.