Why people don’t like us

In response to my post yesterday about the neoconservatives’ construction of a new American religion to justify Bush’s global democratism, a correspondent commented:

I write you these words from London, just off Trafalgar Square.

You have no idea how much hatred America is drawing to itself by its proclamations of such intentions to export its nihilistic and degenerate social system, as if the whole world yearned for 2,000,000 people in prison, racial chaos, industrial decay, and the cultural level of Britney Spears.

Fortunately, these proclamations are increasingly laughable, as America’s economic debacle, which will deflate its brainless arrogance, is probably less than 18 months away.

While I agree with the correspondent on the offensiveness of America’s exporting its half-baked democratism and its toxic popular culture to the world, I dismiss as mere verbal excess his complaint about two million people in prison. If anything, that shows a commitment to the maintenance of civilization on America’s part rather than the opposite. Since the writer is no friend of inner city mayhem, I assume he insensibly picked up this leftist-sounding attitude during his brief visit to Britain. At this rate, if he stays there for another couple of weeks, he might end up criticizing America for capital punishment and the right to own guns.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 29, 2004 03:18 PM | Send