But still, even for all that, America actually fought real enemies there. One 1/4 its size and one half its size, sure, and with the rest of the world (Britain, China, the USSR) having already done the hard work - but still, Japan and Germany at least were clearly defined arseholes back then, and they had factories in which they built their own tanks and bombers.
Nowadays? Lol. They unfurl giant "Mission Accomplished" banners on carrier flight decks when the country that spends as much on weapons as #'s 2-18 on the defence budgets list PUT TOGETHER beats some third world sh*thole in the desert. And then sends mercenaries in to murder civilians. It's really quite risible - imagine a heavyweight boxer beating up a starving child and murdering its parents, and then prancing and preening like he had just beaten Klitschko for the championship.
But when you look at those comments, one thing becomes abundantly clear - the idiocy of uncritical, fanatic patriotism. And I am sorry to say, most of the civilised world is over that stuff, which is why people associate it with Americans. Why is that? Well, to say some dumb sh*t like those people, you need two factors. One: utter ignorance of the outside world. Two: the need to compensate for one's ignorance and insignificance by desperately latching onto something bigger than oneself.
Well, the average American has never been to a foreign country. The average American does not speak a foreign language, or know much of anything about foreign cultures. The average American, I am again sorry to say, is dumb as a rock. BUT, they are part of a great country, a country which has given the world some of its greatest minds, learning institutions, and economic paragons - the country of Melville, O'Neill, Jefferson, Sagan, Eisenhower, what have you. So what happens is that the greatness of the country consumes the insignificance of the individual. By attempting to get some small measure of this greatness by association, the latter becomes an American first, a human being second, because it's all his dumb arse has to distinguish itself.
It's really quite sad.
Now, I am by no means saying that ALL or even the majority of Americans are like this. Hell no. Half my family is American, and they're people with Dartmouth degrees and Stanford fellowships, who speak three languages and have been to every continent. But with some soul-searching, I think most Americans can admit that, alas, their country is home to an astounding number of people with the intellect, education and critical faculties of a f*cking rock.
