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Originally Posted by Azure
What the hell do you think it is?  |
Wow, get a grip. Freedom is subjective, if you didn't know. It is a construct that we as a society define. What is freedom to one society is not freedom to another. The average guy in the middle east could give a rats ass that we can speak out against our government, because that is not socially acceptable in his society. Freedom to him could very well be the structure of his society and knowing where he stands with his God, but to us that seems opressive and too binding. Freedom to a bushman in Africa is being able to roam where he likes and living off the land, not having the ability to buy a big home and own a big car. Our ideals of freedoms are dramatically different. An important freedom to me is a healthcare system that insures if I get sick I do not lose everything I spent my whole life working towards. I do not have that freedom in the United States, but do in Canada. Some look at my situation and say how free I am, because I don't pay exhorbident taxes (on the superficial level anyways), but the fact of the matter is that you get what you pay for and the freedoms in Canada are much greater than they are in the United States (IMO) because you have the social safety net should you stumble. But to people not raised in our system, or not familiar with it at all, they think our systems alien and binding.
The reason people in the rest of the world hate the United States is because of the arrogance they display. I had this discussion with a co-worker who spent 20+ years in the military and was posted all over the world, and he readily agreed that the distain displayed for Americans is because of the arrogance they display abroad. Americans love to rub it in the faces of others that they have "the best of everything" (in their opinion anyways), and that rubs people the wrong way. People from other countires hate it when the Americans go into their nations and tell them how bad they have it or how backwards they are. People just want to live as they see fit and live under the freedoms they prescribe to. How do you like it when your parents tell you how to live your life? Well that's the way the rest of the world feels towards America. People hate America because America is always telling them how to live their lives, telling them what is really right, and that they just aren't good enough. It ain't freedom that people want from America, its silence they want from Americans.