[Tsuwabuki]

I'm an American. I'm proud of America. I don't live in America because the economy sucks right now and my job opportunities are elsewhere. However, I do send money home, thousands of dollars in fact, so I'm doing my part to help the economy. I feel we are on the verge of a serious American political shift. If Hill and Bamarama can figure out who gets to be the Democratic nominee, we're talking a Democratic President with a Democratic Congress. The policies will be very, very different than they have been under Bush and the GOP. Why must you confuse political decisions with America as a whole?

Oh and, I'm also Irish, so technically, I'm a European too. Let's talk about Europe, shall we? Let's go in reverse. Cold War Soviet Superpower run by a real Megalomaniac who regularly killed his inner cabinet out of paranoia? Thank You, Stalin. Hrm, responsible for both world wars, thank you Prussia/Germany? Hitler, only responsible for millions of civilian deaths including Jews, Homosexuals, Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses, the handicapped or mentally ill. England's subjugation of Ireland and Scotland? Yeah. English, French, Dutch, Spanish colonialism? Yeah. Hundred Years war. Kicking the Muslims out of Spain. The Inquisition. The crusades. The barbarian hordes. The Byzantine Empire. The Roman Empire. The Greek city states.... I just went back oh, several thousand years. America has, what, 250? And our bloodiest war was one we had with ourselves!

I would also like to clarify that the reason we are getting our ass handed to us in Iraq and Afghanistan (and I'm no supporter of the war in Iraq's case certainly) is because on the whole, we are acting a lot a better than we have in the past, and certainly better than the governments of those countries we toppled. We may have gone into Iraq without UN support, but we do not have wanton violations of human rights. We refuse to fight on the terrorist's terms. Every time a US Service member is found to have acted in a way that was inhumane, he or she has gone on trial. In most of the publicised cases, they have been convicted, and are now serving nice, long sentences in Levenworth. I dare you to look up the British Military's numbers. The numbers are quite smaller, owing to the huge disparity of US vs. other coalition troops, however, if you look at the percentage of tried and convicted service members versus acts of torture or inhumane treatment of enemies, the States leads all.

Oh, yeah, and who started the United Nations and the League of Nations? Who poured money into Europe, Japan, Korea to rebuild them after war? Who has a slumping economy because of building projects in those two Middle Eastern countries? Imagine if the US had gone isolationist after WWI or WWII and told Europe and Asia, "Sorry, guys, it's over, we're going home now and taking our toys with us."

I'm not a mindless nationalistic American. I know there are problems with America. As a liberal Democrat, obviously, I'm none too happy with many of the decisions being made. However, I still know my history, and I do believe that an active America has been better for the world overall than an inactive America would have been. If Japan had never attacked Pearl Harbor, Europe might look very, very different today, even if Hitler was eventually stopped. Probably by Stalin.... And that's a scary thought too.