God bless America? Looks like it's cursed to me...

First, let me say that it would really make my day if the president of the USA (George W. Bush at the time of writing) would read this. Of course, that's after I recover from the initial shock of finding out that the guy actually can read.

Anyway, I have a rather low opinion of Americans. Not all of them, of course, but somehow, many Americans I've met do nothing to improve my general opinion, quite the contrary. Although I love insulting people (hey! I'm Dutch, it's pretty much our national pastime!), I also like explaining myself in rather longwinded rants. So, here goes.

My main gripe with Americans is their towering arrogance. The way Americans think they're Gods gift to the world. It's plain laughable! The greatest country on earth? Ha! When I look at the US, just some of the things I see are gangs, racism and guns. Those are things I won't even go into. Others, though, I will. For instance, how can you call yourself the greatest country on earth when you see your own citizens dying in the streets of the cold when there's strong winter in Chicago. Or other people dying because of the heat when there's a heat wave? Surely a great nation can take care of its people, even the homeless ones, to prevent stuff like that?

Another thing is that a lot of the Americans I know are so staggeringly ignorant. As you may know, I'm Dutch. That has Americans saying "Oh, I know Holland, I've been to Copenhagen". Snigger. How many of you actually know New York was once called New Amsterdam, when it was still a Dutch colony. (Yes, Europe is where all the history comes from [and Egypt, Japan, China etc...]. The US are just over 200 years old, when the city of Nijmegen, for instance, is almost 10 times as old).

Oh, if you think I'm generalising and just mentioning stereotypes, stop and think of what it is foreigners think of the Dutch... If, by some miracle, they actually think of the correct country (in case you didn't know: Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark), they see us as married gay couples, all high on drugs, forcing our grannies into euthanasia. (I won't even mention the cheese, tulips and wooden shoes). Although that is obviously a rather false assumption, I think it shows some of the things that make this country so much greater than yours.

Americans go on about their freedom and the "greatest democracy on earth". These are closely linked, of course. Are the Americans really so free? Well, seeing that the things I mentioned above (Dutch drug policy, gay marriages, euthanasia) seem to give me extra freedom over what anybody in the US has. I don't approve of drugs, but the fact is people will use them. If they do that, why not do it in a way that'll allow some form of control over it? As long as a gay person wants to get married, why should he be denied that right? And, even though you should be very careful, of course, I found it very comforting that my aunt, ill with pancreatic cancer for over a year, when she found the pain more unbearable every day despite the morphine, could actually have her wish and die surrounded by her loved ones and in dignity when she chose to.

A democracy is no guarantee for a good government. Also, you can take things a bit too far. I don't know if it's really true that Americans actually hold elections to choose their local dogcatcher. If it is, somebody let me know and I can have another good laugh at the follies of democracy over the edge. The Netherlands (to the Americans: Holland is not the proper name of the country, it's just a province) are a kingdom. We have a queen. That makes Americans look at us in contempt. Well, I have news for you: the fact that we have a queen doesn't make this country a monarchy or any less democratic. The queen has little real political power. She has some official tasks, but she can exert very little real influence. I personally wouldn't mind if she could, for she's a very intelligent and capable woman. For those of you who think I contradicted myself, I would like to remind you that the word "monarchy" comes from Greek "monos archein" (one rules). That reminds me more of the US, actually. The president seems to have all the power. Even the individual departments all report directly to him. The title "Secretary of ..." already says a lot. In this country, each of the ministers has his own area of responsibility. Power is much more spread out here, making abuse less likely and allowing the will of the people to be served better (because ministers can, and almost always are, from different political parties). How can a two-party system ever be truly democratic?

As if that weren't bad enough, an excellent example of why US democracy is so risible can be found in the latest presidential election. From my perspective, all I saw on television was that, after lots of campaigning (the likes of which you never see here, I doubt many Dutch civilians are consciously aware that 2002 is an election year) you went snout-counting. You throw away the votes from people who have the wrong colour snouts and the ones from old people who can't punch a hole in a piece of paper. (How retarded is that system anyway? Even in the small town I live in, all I have to do is punch a button. Pretty soon, I won't even have to leave my house in order to vote...) Then, you recount and finally make the person with the least votes president. Do three wrongs make a right? Not in my book. Why else would George W. Bush now be the most powerful man in the world?

Oh, there's no denying that the United States are the most powerful country on earth (scary, considering it's also the source of the Jerry Springer show). With that power, though, comes responsibility. Unfortunately, that seems to be lacking... A good example is what happened to the Kyoto climate conference. The US are major polluters, yet they are unwilling to take measures to effectively combat this problem. On the contrary, despite the fact that the US were taking part in the conference and an agreement was made, the Bush administration simply brushed it aside. That doesn't do much for my opinion of Americans and their government. To me, it shows short-sightedness and arrogance.

Speaking of arrogance, how arrogant is it that the US pretty much vetoed an international court of justice on that grounds that Americans might have to appear in front of it, which would be undesirable. So basically, you're saying that criminals must be brought to justice (preferably by your own standards), but that if there's a criminal from your own country, the rules don't apply? Good grief!

Yet another example lies in the spying the CIA does on everybody else in the world. The Echelon system was designed to intercept and analyse all electronic exchange of information. Not only does this violate people's right to privacy, but what business does the CIA have reading my e-mail? I don't trust anyone who does such a thing, ally or not. But it is even worse than this. A former CIA director has even admitted to using the system for industrial espionage. European aircraft manufacturer Airbus lost a major order to Boeing because of information Boeing received from Echelon. The reason the aforementioned CIA director gave was that "Europeans make inferior products. The only way Airbus could have got the order was through bribery". I felt like strangling the guy right then and there (which would have been quite hard, since I was reading that particular interview in the newspaper).

Hmmm... So, we have a country with a democratically elected almost-dictator. A country that is spying on everybody, even its allies. A country that wants nothing to do with international justice. A country that ignores international treaties. Add a vast quantity of arrogance and you get something eerily familiar. Say, do you still want to keep that stuffy old eagle as your national symbol? The Germans probably have lots of good-as-new second-hand swastikas packed away in some forgotten warehouse somewhere...

Well, the above few paragraphs should have been enough to send echelon into a tailspin. In some way, I wouldn't mind seeing the CIA come after me for this. Of course, if you have more brains than the average candlestick then you might realise that that paranoia would actually prove my point.

As I've said before, it is pretty much the Dutch national sport to insult other people (and even ourselves, but apart from that, we're quite friendly). So, that's what I've been doing here. If you don't agree with what I've written above, let me know. I love discussing stuff like this and I welcome a challenge...