アメリカ合衆国 United Statesコミュの「英語」FOR AMERICA HATERS!

I worked at the World Expo in 2005, and had to deal with some really ignorant anti-American sentiment. I still dont understand why everybody hates America, and I suspect it's because they simply dont know the facts. Here are some interesting articles I found earlier, while talking to a Japanese friend who was convinced that Japan spends more money on humanitarian aid than America. (not even close, it's $0.006 to $0.234 a day per person, actually)

I was wondering yesterday, where all of my god damn money goes when I sign almost a third of my pay check to the US Government. I found a couple really interesting articles.
The first being
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm
Where the second article entitled "U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know" by Tom Malthaner talks about how much money we give to Israel (something that really kind of pisses me off personally). It ends with "making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen." which is crazy, when you consider how much money America wastes on all the people who live in Tornado alley and on the coasts getting hit by Hurricanes. The south of America spends a lot more federal money than it pays, but that's another story.

Then I saw http://www.hooverdigest.org/051/berman.html which is a great article about why Europeans hate us. This particularly concerns me because of all the complete assholes I met at the world expo, calling me names because they don't like my president's foreign policy. (Nevermind the fact that France doesn't help it's own citizens (read: immigrants) but immigration issues are another story). That page also has an interesting critique of the social welfare myth, that is often used by Europeans and Canadians to talk about how awesome their respective countries are.

That article is interesting, because watching the recent Canadian elections was an exercise in pure indignation control. Their ads were literally "don't vote for this man, because he's an America-lover." Canadians.. but that's another story.

Then I also saw this article http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001805.html
Which has an interesting chart about how much America (the largest provider of humanitarian relief aid total) spends PER PERSON.
America is 9th on the list with $0.234 a day. Japan is 20th with $.006 CENTS a day. .006 cents, that's like what in yen? ALMOST NOTHING.
And Japan is the SECOND biggest economy in the world. The next Japanese person who tries to tell me that Japanese are peace loving humanitarians compared to the "horrible Americans" is going to be greeted with a blank stare.

Especially if you consider all the people coming in to America illegally from Mexico, Costa Rico and everywhere else.. Americans dont even think twice. We say "hey, you're an illegal alien, but whatever. Please, leech off of our system."
Japanese on the other hand villanize foreigners as causes of crime and problems when in fact, per person Japanese still commit more crimes, particularly violent ones.
That's so annoying. I shouldn't read 2ch, because all it does is piss me off. But that's another story.

Even I'll admit, especially after voting for Kerry in the most recent election, that America doesn't always work like a team on the world stage... but I really think people's hatred for America is unfounded. I'm not saying America is always right, but we're also not always *wrong.*
Being the largest economy, and the victim of blatant cultural theft on a scale other countries dont even have to deal with, people should be a little more considerate of the average American's contribution to the world.

*deep breath*

I feel much better now. Maybe some of you other world travelers understand my feelings. It only takes getting stopped at customs in an airport because you're american, to really piss you off at the world's anti-american sentiment. If anybody wants to talk about my "other stories" feel free ;)

In conclusion. I love America, Japan, Italy, South Korea, and several other countries. But there is a serious lack of understanding among the general population.