He’s accurate but there are other forces at work as well which sway some even on the right in Europe as well as Asia to have some anti-American undertones.
(Historical baggage)
When you pound a nation in WWII into the ground, as we did the Germans, despite their denial today, there still are some hard feelings that bubble up. Coincidence that the topic Dreded periodically is MSM news to them? Even though they started the war, started the bombing of civilian targets in Great Britain, and we were extremely benevolent while they were near ruthless occupiers bringing the Einsatzgruppen with them into every conquered space, there remain feelings about those B17 and B24 bomber formations pounding them.
(Envy)
Envy is earned someone once said. Everyone wants to be number one, but when you have any dealings with the US others are almost always operating from a second tier position. We are the leader of NATO, we created the UN, we define global trade today. From our economy with a volume five times that of Germany, the largest EU economy, more than twice that of Japan, the second largest global economy; to our near unparalleled capabilities in defense or even the dominance of US culture, it is simply annoying for some that we are on the horse, and they would love to see us fall, just because we are up there, even though we are an inclusive society, spreading democracy, benevolent, transparent etc. Some out of shear envy would like to see us bleed or be damaged and often those people are even on the political right. Do you think there might be a reason why a cancer patient Lance Armstrong is spat upon in France? Why by law in France they restrict foreign made radio and television programming?
(The call for action: 911) The one that fueled much of this today
The US after 911 called for help and more or less said $hit or get off the pot. Many of our allies decided to get off the pot. The US is prodding, pushing along, at times nearly coercing others to do something that should be coming of free will. Many nations, and unfortunately Germany is an example, simply want to mooch but do nothing anywhere, ever. May it be pirates off the coast of Somalia, the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, and even Afghanistan, they are being pulled along and anything they do is nearly pressured out of them. Us pushing causes rejection by them. Like an older kid living at home, they dont want to do anything if allowed to get away with it. Like parents who push these kids to sweep, mow the lawn, do their own laundry, or take out the trash, Germany points the finger at us and cries how bad they have it and how evil we actually are. Austria is another example and they even try to mooch off other European states. They dont want to do anything, even though their little rear was bordering on a nation that imploded in the 90s that set off a humanitarian crisis with refugees etc. They would ideally claim neutrality even though thats complete nonsense. They would like to do nothing while others clean up the Balkans or deal with people who executed dissidents in Vienna in 1982 and today are generals in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (Iran). They also dont want to pay for missile defense, nor do they want to do anything about pirates that attacked five ships in one week off the coast of Somalia. Unlike their larger German counterpart who also tries to do as little as possible, they can hide and stay off the radar screen very well because of the histroical context of their nation, while Germany the third largest economy globally and largest within Europe cant completely dodge the bullet as they can. If you push them, the reply is ALWAYS the same. They will feed you pre-canned moral relativistic gibberish as a justification for why we are only taking action to serve ourselves, our so called interests (Something DeGaulle liked to talk about), why it is morally the high ground to be neutral, and of course as we saw with Iraq, they are full of Schadenfreude sitting back and after the fact try to rationalize their inaction with our blood sweat and tears. And thats not only on the left; that even includes many on the right!
(Ideology)
What Dennis Praeger talks about is the ideological gap which also exists even within the US as it does between the US and Europe. Europe is far more secular, far more socialist, and yes far more nihilist than we are. You see this with capital punishment as he suggests and our view of personal culpability, their dying churches which are only frequented by the old and sick, elections that place into limited power political parties that in part are hard line communists in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. What Praeger addresses is very true, but its only a single aspect and it looks predominantly at the left, explaining their behavior. However, youll see even some on the right who more or less despise us, and they are usually full of envy and rejection for us having pushed them along when they would rather do nothing and simply watch as we tangle with AQ, rouge states, and a generally volatile Middle East. I think hes completely correct and he hit the ideological points of contention, but hes incomplete in that there is historical baggage, envy, and simply a resistance to our call for action following 911 that is also at play.
humorous! and it rings so true. thanks.