As for Florida, I didn’t say that there was no diveristy in America, and quite obviously there are regions of diversity, but there are large regions with little to no diversity.

Oh yes! That can’t be denied.

I lived for awhile in Durham, NC, where the African-American population was probably about 50% or higher. The rest of the population was white, with a small hispanic population. Sure there were people from other cultures that lived in the region – lots of major universities in the area- but those proportions aren’t, in comparison to other regions, very diverse. A city like NYC or Toronto with large amounts and high variety of diverse populations is has high-diversity. Any city with a college will have diversity due to foreign students, but if the populations of that culture are small, it doesn’t add much to the diversity.

I agree. But the university I went to in Miami was a no-name university. However, in Miami there is UM and FIU, and that does draw lots of people from all over.

Patriotism is always done at other’s expense. That’s what patriotism is. America is rife with patriotism. And, yes, Canada is too, I’m not denying that. I stand by my statement, though, that America is, as a nation, arrogant. I lived in America for over ten years, met many Americans, and the view of the average American on other nations is horribly arrogant. Hell, I married an intelligent, well educated, well traveled American and she had tendencies to be arrogant towards others as well.

I see arrogance too here. Americans can be arrogant. Not trying to excuse them (because arrogant Americans bother me too!) but we are a jaded society – which probably also is a result of and a cause for the rapid crime we have here. And when I say “crime”, I’m talking about all crimes including sexual abuse/child abuse and the like. We, in my opinion, are the most criminal in the developed world. This is unfortunate. And I think a jaded character is expected. But I, just like how some Canadians feel, do *not* like it at all.

It’s hard for the average American to fathom that people in other countries may not love America as much as Americans do, and that they may actually like their own country more.

Ok. This belief system, I have experiences… *gasps* with my own family. My family are neo-con radical Republicans. And this mentally is spread throughout the neo-con culture. I do agree. But.. only that it’s a neo-con-culture thing. Radical Liberals, however, detest America to the point of being a traitor. And we have many of them here. Normal liberals are those people who both are proud of where they’re from simultaneously having a thirst for knowledge, self-improvement, curiosity about other places, people, and languages, and will humbly admit the fault of their country.

Just like with diversity or the lack of, it depends on where you are in the US, as you said. At this very moment, I think that liberals and radical liberals are more widespread than the neo-cons and normal cons (at least above the 50% marker). And being that Bush’s approval rating is at it’s lowest low at 30% says a lot too. Suffice it to say, our electoral voting system sucks the big one! It’s truly not fair! It all depends on the political position of any person. Republicans (the more extreme ones) stereotypically are apathetic (toward other cultures/places) and patriot in an arrogant way. The poor opinions that some Americans have about Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world does exist, but as adults we are less likely than others to say it to the faces of those people we don’t like. I’m not going to lie. I have prejudicial biases too. But why start sheeeeet with people, unnecessarily?

I keep hearing time and time again of how traveling and curious liberal Americans are coming back from Canada and Europe with stories about how they were condescended to and mocked in public. This makes me disgusted. And I cannot understand this in that those who travel are typically those who are LIBERAL and ironically AGREE with the same people that hate them. Anti-Americanism is not about the individual; it’s about the *group*. I was debating with someone yesterday about the US. If I told this guy once, I told him about 3 times that I was disappointed with Bush, didn’t vote for him, embarrassed by him etc… nonetheless, he continued to say, “all you Americans………”. I couldn’t believe it? And that’s how I came to the conclusion that Anti-Americanism is NOT about the government, not about the individual, but about the narrow-minded/stubborn INDISCRIMINATE “hate by default” of any person that is American EVEN IF THEY ARE LIBERAL OR A RADICAL LIBERAL!! They hate ALL. It’s purely disgusting. I’ve actually become a bit more “red, white, and blue” in the process lol. -_-* *sighs*

This is a generalization, obviously, but it’s very true. I met many people who were exceptions to this, but I met many people who exhibit this trait. There are many factors that determine a persons view of course, such as education, travel experience, where they grew up, etc. Canadians aren’t immune to this either. I never said they weren’t.

I agree. Education and travel experience makes someone more tolerant and open-minded. But then again, you have to be tolerant and open-minded in order to take the step to travel and go to a university. Where you grow up too has much to do with it. Actually, those people who have family members in Iraq…… just don’t go there. They will automatically support the war, of course. But I find this with the Canadians that have their men in Afghanistan too. They too support both the war and the troops, generally speaking. I guess one never knows until it becomes a personal thing. So, … I guess it’s just that they don’t want to think of the possibility that their men are out there risking their lives over an unjust war.

And just because I think Americans are arrogant doesn’t mean that I don’t like America or Americans. I made many good friends everywhere I lived in America and enjoyed my time there.

I find you credible not just because you have experience living here, but also because the tales you tell I’ve seen myself. I’ve had my fair share of living in diverse/liberal areas (Miami and LA) and conservative areas (TX) (although the town in TX where I live now has a HUGE gay community (a good thing), lots of international restaurants, and more variety – but nothing compared with Miami and, of course NY (aaaaaaah I’m in LOVE with that city and think it’s the best next to Miami in the US. Tokyo? Aaaaah that’s for another day, but Tokyo is ‘MAZIN’. (!!!!)

Anyway, I don’t think we entirely disagree, we’re just looking at things from different sides of a border.

Yes, I see that.

And I wouldn’t take Facebook as a pool from which to draw conclusions. Facebook is, ultimately a minor and insidious tool which shouldn’t be used to gauge true opinion. For every punk kid with a facebook account and anti-American sentiment, there are intelligent people with other opinions.

Ya think so? This is where I feel as if I’m on a bumpy road as I have asked myself the same question: “Are people that join FB on crack?” lol (Oops, that means me too -_-*) I don’t know, but I am open to that possibility. On the other hand, I find all sorts of ’stuff’ on the net, in general, that mirrors the ’stuff’ I find on FB. “What a jaded and sad world this is”, I think to myself. I have this idealistic view of how things SHOULD be rather than accepting things as they are. But maybe this is a pattern that I’ll eventually get bored with later. It comes to no surprise the amount of Americans who’d rather live in denial and apathy. Because on the other extreme (where I am now), is very painful and sad to see the shape things are in world-wide in regards to hate and collectivism. Maybe the apathetic are happier? Perhaps, a healthy balance is better, though.

Personally I believe we should get rid of borders all together. Get rid of federal governments and keep politics at a local/community level, and then we can avoid crap like this altogether.

Interesting. I don’t have an opinion on that. I don’t know if it would incite more hate or decrease it. Hmm… In any event, us neighbors SHOULD be friends, man… really?! That said, though, even Americans hate each other (ie North vs South // Rebels vs Yankees).

By the way, I am patriotic. In one of my latest posts I defined it the way I see it. I am simply just proud of where I’m from and defend my country and the people. However, a true patriot, in my opinion, will ALSO question their country, when needed. I am NOT happy with the way things are now from the most serious (Bush) to the most petty (no dildos in Alabama —- wtf???). Actually, I think EVERYBODY (regardless of where they were born/live) SHOULD be proud of their country too. This is not a bad thing. It only becomes bad when it’s used as an vicious attack against another country.

I will also say that after 9-11, we all bonded together, and hell… my husband and I even had the flag on our car! It’s like a way of saying, “We are one nation and we will have each other’s back – and not let those people get the best of us”. I think ALL country’s misinterpreted this behavior post-9-11 as “arrogance”. Anti-Americanism hit an all time HIGH following 9-11. But it’s not arrogance. Look at it this way. At least I know in the US, if someone’s house gets broken into and/or a crime is committed against a person in that neighborhood, the entire neighborhood becomes closer and unites. Acquaintances become friends. We’ve got each other’s back and look after one another. Generally speaking, if Americans feel threatened (with the exception of the radical liberals), we will unite.

It was amazing that after 9-11, all the southern towns that typically hate NY came over to help out after the mess. It truly touched me. I will never forget how bonded we all became. But, sadly, after our decision to go to Iraq, we once again, divided up. In my opinion, I believe the US is at a virtual civil war with one another. It’s even sad for me to see how much we Americans hate EACH OTHER. Canadians should NOT feel intimidated by the flags on some houses/cars ect. It’s not meant to be offensive at all. And I know for a fact that some people put a flag up outside their home to represent their son/daughter in Iraq. And they have every right to use the flag as a symbol of warm wishes for them. I mean, it’s family, after all. So, I think that needs to be respected.

Anyway, thanks so much for your time and patience with me. I know I have a tendency to ramble a lot, eh? ))) And nice to meet you, as well. It’s always a pleasure to have a stimulating conversation with another person.

As for Florida, I didn’t say that there was no diveristy in America, and quite obviously there are regions of diversity, but there are large regions with little to no diversity.

I lived for awhile in Durham, NC, where the African-American population was probably about 50% or higher. The rest of the population was white, with a small hispanic population. Sure there were people from other cultures that lived in the region – lots of major universities in the area- but those proportions aren’t, in comparison to other regions, very diverse. A city like NYC or Toronto with large amounts and high variety of diverse populations is has high-diversity. Any city with a college will have diversity due to foreign students, but if the populations of that culture are small, it doesn’t add much to the diversity.

America has pockets of diversity, but as a whole, isn’t diverse. Same with Canada.

Patriotism is always done at other’s expense. That’s what patriotism is. America is rife with patriotism. And, yes, Canada is too, I’m not denying that. I stand by my statement, though, that America is, as a nation, arrogant. I lived in America for over ten years, met many Americans, and the view of the average American on other nations is horribly arrogant. Hell, I married an intelligent, well educated, well traveled American and she had tendencies to be arrogant towards others as well.

It’s hard for the average American to fathom that people in other countries may not love America as much as Americans do, and that they may actually like their own country more.

This is a generalization, obviously, but it’s very true. I met many people who were exceptions to this, but I met many people who exhibit this trait. There are many factors that determine a persons view of course, such as education, travel experience, where they grew up, etc. Canadians aren’t immune to this either. I never said they weren’t.

And just because I think Americans are arrogant doesn’t mean that I don’t like America or Americans. I made many good friends everywhere I lived in America and enjoyed my time there.

I also met many Americans who were fed up with America’s antics, especially under the Bush regime. This has been a pretty popular stance amongst the more liberal of the population, so you have to take the attitude with the proverbial grain of salt, but some people were lucid and serious.

Anyway, I don’t think we entirely disagree, we’re just looking at things from different sides of a border.

And I wouldn’t take Facebook as a pool from which to draw conclusions. Facebook is, ultimately a minor and insidious tool which shouldn’t be used to gauge true opinion. For every punk kid with a facebook account and anti-American sentiment, there are intelligent people with other opinions.

Personally I believe we should get rid of borders all together. Get rid of federal governments and keep politics at a local/community level, and then we can avoid crap like this altogether.

You’re confusing quantity with quality. Just because there is more of something doesn’t mean it is very diverse. NYC is diverse. Portland, Oregon, not so much. Mid-west? Not really. I suppose it may depend on what definition of diversity you are using. No place, other than NYC that I spent much time in, in America was very diverse, and I pretty much lived in the four-corners. If you want diverse, come visit a city like Toronto where almost 50% of the population wasn’t born in Canada. I doubt even NYC has that level of diversity.

This is a list of all the languages spoken in the US as of 2000 as a whole. Here is a total breakdown as of 2005. In Miami alone only the minority speak English at 25% and 66% speak Spanish and a percentage of all other ethnic groups can be found on that map as well. That’s quite an interesting site, and you can use it yourself to get the breakdown for both states and cities individually. If you look at this site it says the following:

“Far from being monolingual, the U.S. is a highly multilingual country. The number of languages spoken in the United States is 311. Of these, 162 are indigenous, and 149 are immigrant languages. An indigenous or autochthonous language is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples.

According to the Census Bureau, in 14 million U.S. households people speak a language other than English. One in five people over age 5 speaks a language other than English. The large number of foreign language speakers in the United States is a consequence of recent immigration.”

I grew up in Miami, FL. In my university, I saw people from literally ALL over the planet. I heard multiple languages being spoken around me. I had friends that were S. American, Caribbean, Cuban, African, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, German, and so on. However, on the flip side, there is far more intolerance here as opposed to a lot of other developed nations due to the fact that we, again, have such a huge population.

What most people in Canada rail against is the arrogance of the average American. Having lived in both American and Canada I can speak to this. The average American is an ignorant creature when it comes to anything non-american. The average Canadian isn’t much better, but I guarantee you the average Canadian knows more about America than the Average American knows about Canada.

We don’t learn about Canada that much in our schools. My guess, and this is just a guess, is because you all aren’t too different from us culturally. Many Canadians don’t think that’s fair. But how are we supposed to help that? Why is this a reason ‘rail against’ us? And I wonder why Canadians would be offended by that? From the Anti-American Canadians, I hear myths often being spoken about us, and that’s not TRULY *learning* about America. The facts unknown about us is outstanding! Even American history that you guys learn in school is very biased… just like ours.

Actually, I believe that we all come out of school with these misconceptions about a lot of countries. Truthfully, I’d rather learn nothing about a particular country than come out of a classroom with a bunch of incorrect data in my head. Easily brainwashed people will learn to hate the “evil neighbor” and chances are they will never take the opportunity to explore for themselves. You can see here that there’s a definite flaw in your system. And I can just see that on a daily basis on Facebook alone! But like I said, America’s the same in that regard. Textbooks will always try to make the country that you’re in the best country. It’s basically teaching Patriotism. And every country does this. The only reason I get frustrated when Canadians come up with all these distortions about America is because they accuse America of the very same thing. If you look at it reasonably, we don’t know jack poop about each other.

Most Canadians who make disparaging comments against Americans wouldn’t actually have any problems with the average American. Most of the frustration that others have with Americans is the general ‘I’m better than everyone else’ attitude of AMERICA. This doesn’t relate to individual Americans – who are people just like everyone else in the world – but as a concept, America is arrogant.

I disagree with you there. This is what’s so incredibly frustrating!!!! I cannot even begin to count how many times I’ve seen Canadians preach how much better they are compared to the states. And they flaunt their pride all throughout Facebook. And most noticeably, I see that so many Canadians cannot have pride or identify themselves without comparing themselves to the “evil white Americans” next door. Americans have pride and sometimes flamboyant patriotism too, but we don’t do this at your expense like some of your people do to us. Now, that’s arrogant. Canada is probably just as obnoxious about it – if not worse! Just skim through my posts and you’ll see what I mean. I reckon that the friends you choose to be with are intelligent and you’re intelligent yourself – so the idea that your own people could do this would be absurd, but it DOES happen and more than often.

You’re confusing quantity with quality. Just because there is more of something doesn’t mean it is very diverse. NYC is diverse. Portland, Oregon, not so much. Mid-west? Not really. I suppose it may depend on what definition of diversity you are using. No place, other than NYC that I spent much time in, in America was very diverse, and I pretty much lived in the four-corners. If you want diverse, come visit a city like Toronto where almost 50% of the population wasn’t born in Canada. I doubt even NYC has that level of diversity.

I’m not denying that some Canadians say some pretty nasty things about Americans – then again I heard some nasty things from Americans when I lived in America because I was Canadian, not much and not often, but it did happen.

What most people in Canada rail against is the arrogance of the average American. Having lived in both American and Canada I can speak to this. The average American is an ignorant creature when it comes to anything non-american. The average Canadian isn’t much better, but I guarantee you the average Canadian knows more about America than the Average American knows about Canada.

Most Canadians who make disparaging comments against Americans wouldn’t actually have any problems with the average American. Most of the frustration that others have with Americans is the general ‘I’m better than everyone else’ attitude of AMERICA. This doesn’t relate to individual Americans – who are people just like everyone else in the world – but as a concept, America is arrogant.

Oh really? How many of these supposed countries have you been to, or are you just capitulating to American propaganda.

If THIS is propaganda, then I reckon so?

Yes America is quite diverse in some places, but I doubt it’s the more diverse than ‘any’ other country.

Well, it actually IS. But it’s not like that makes us any better. It’s just that there are more people (300+ million) over here, so naturally, we’ll have more of a variety.

Calling ‘my’ press agenda-ridden isn’t exactly being uncritical and fair. How much Canadian press do you actually take the time to read or watch? Canadian press is as ‘neutral’ as American press.

Our press is agenda-ridden too. While we don’t teach Americans to hate Canadians, listening to talk-radio here can give you the idea that hating Muslims is a good thing. So, with that being taken in consideration, we are equal, as you had mentioned, with respect to the media. I guess, the point I was trying to make is that from a young and vulnerable age, our school system does not teach us to hate other groups. Our TV media also doesn’t teach us to hate other groups of people. See, we keep getting accused of being brainwashed… and indeed there are just as many brainwashed Americans as there are Canadians. And that’s another point to my blog. My agenda is to show that, at the end of the day, we’re all the same kinda creatures.

In my last response to you, I left a link to where you can actually see Canadians saying exactly what I’m saying here. 95% of my research is based on what the Canadians are saying, themselves. Heck, maybe even YOU can help me with that!

I hope that clears things up. And please also understand that I don’t think the US is the best country in the world either. I think we have, clearly, more problems than Canada, by a long shot. So, don’t read too much into things – rather, just click on my links.

Thank you for replying.

“At least we all don’t think alike here in the US unlike some other countries where those that have a different opinion are out-casted.”

Oh really? How many of these supposed countries have you been to, or are you just capitulating to American propaganda.

“We are clearly more diverse than any other country (yes, and even the ‘evil whities’ don’t all think alike), but your press tells you that we’re all alike. This problem is not with your agenda-ridden media as much as it is with YOU that chooses to believe everything that you’re told. And you have the nerve to tell us that we’re not “free”?”

Yes America is quite diverse in some places, but I doubt it’s the more diverse than ‘any’ other country. Calling ‘my’ press agenda-ridden isn’t exactly being uncritical and fair. How much Canadian press do you actually take the time to read or watch? Canadian press is as ‘neutral’ as American press.

“Your teachers and media are frighteningly biased.”

Again, how can you make this judgment of another country? Upon what basis do you make this judgment? Do you really believe that American media and teachers are not biased?

Additionally, if Canadians themselves are making this much a fuss over Anti-Americanism, then I think it gives more weight and credibility above my own personal experiences. Plus, if I really were out to get you (the collective you), I wouldn’t make any mention of Canadians that are against Anti-Americanism.

Obviously, I’m not talking about YOU. I made that point quite clear in my “about me” section. This blog is devoted to those who are Anti-American whether you’re from Canada, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, or even America! That’s it.

=My advice? If you’re going to have an opinion about the US and want to sound intelligent and “morally superior” at the same time, KNOW what the hell you’re talking about,

You should probably take some of your own advice.