[maxwellp]

"What's not to hate?" I married a Cuban out of Castro's Cuba after the revolution. I'm a born-in-America American and while I love America with all my being, he showed me things Americans take for granted. He always says "Only in America can you go into a supermarket and see a great big aisle filled with every variety of dog food, cat food, dog toys, cat toys, kitty litter, dog bones, etc.". Driving on the New York State Thruway through a mountainous area he says "I love America - they see a mountain and construct a great road right through it". When he sees Barney and Spot, President Bush's dogs, getting so much attention on TV, he says "Only in America will two dogs get so much attention - and this is what makes America a great country." And when he watched the Iraqi war on TV he said "I'm so proud to be an American."

[Dutchgirl]

I spent my childhood in Taiwan where there were no stray dogs. It looks so easy, to have access to every material possession. The hard part is not to lose your soul...and America hasn't been doing so well in that department. Hollywood is the America that the word sees...not Frank Kapra, but Roman Polanski. If America were really what she is portrayed as being, I would hate her too.

Instead, I see the America where my neighborhood mosque is unmolested, where my fellow citizens have banded together to minister to the weakest members of our society and where, for three hours a day, I can listen to Rush while my sister listens to NPR and then we vote to decide...and sit down to Thanksgiving dinner together.

I have heard the stories of how prisoners in the Gulag rejoiceed to hear Reagan call evil by it's real name...and the more that we Americans are intolerant of repressive regimes, and less willing to support the hypocrisy of the UN, I believe that free nations will love us, while tyrants will hate us...and that is the way it should be.