America EARNED the Right to Be Arrogant

American Spectator/The Lid ^ | 4/8/09 | The Lid

[Shellybenoit]

President Obama's comments describing Americans as arrogant were both true and disgusting. Since we entered WWI, the United States of America has been saving the necks of our European Allies, or helping them rebuild.

About twenty years ago, I was attending a buisness luncheon in a French Restaurant in Manhattan. The lunch menu was entirely in French and having taken Spanish in high school, I couldn't understand one single word. When I asked the waiter to translate the menu, he snapped at me in his French accent, " You Americans are so arrogant, you never bother to learn foreign languages." I pulled the waiter down by his tie so he was at eye level and said, "Listen to me buster, if it wasn't for us Americans, your Eiffel Tower would be a Wiener Schnitzel stand. Now tell me what's on the freaking menu."

I will admit it, Americans (myself included) tend to be arrogant about our European allies. But hell, we've earned it. This country has spend much of the last century protecting their European asses, and all we have ever gotten in return is a kick in the chops:

[Ev Reeman]

Much of the world has always looked to America to protect them or get them out of the messes they were largely responsible for getting themselves into in the first place. Frankly I am sick and tired of the rest of the world how much they hate America because it is largely unwarranted. We have saved many countries of the world by sacrificing either blood or treasure. And this is the thanks we get. Some gratitude. We have little if nothing to apologize for and I’m sick of Obummer going out of his way to denigrate and apologize for our country. I think we should refrain from saving countries anymore even if they ask or beg for our help. Let em go hang.

[ontap]

We should apologize for our current Whitehouse resident!!

[silverleaf]

imagine a narcissist like obama apologizing for america being “arrogant” ......

[JimRed]

We won France from the Germans fair and square, twice in the last century. That we gave it back instead of keeping it as spoils of war is on us; dumb move.

Next time Germany gets to keep ‘em.

[PoliticsAndSausages]

We don't even know anymore what we wanted with it, it's full of the French after all.

Anyway, people here are getting mighty upset about that speech, while I as a European had the feeling the arrogance thing was only to soften the blow that came next, accusing a lot of Europeans of unreflected Anti-Americanism (which is definitely right, yes we have a lot of stupid assholes here, same as everywhere else I guess).

And convincing yourself that you have the right to be arrogant is never a good idea for an intelligent person. Repaying rudeness with rudeness, I can see that. It's not mature, but it's definitely what the gut says.