[Yeti]

But this shrill, low-class public display against the French has just gone overboard. It embarrasses the American people more than it shames the French.

The French are anti-US, why should we be aquiescent to their contempt?

If they want to be against us, that's their choice. But it is really stupid for us to buy things from them. A boycott has been undertaken, and here is a matter relevant to that boycott.

A purchasing boycott is arguably the most polite and civil protest there is. You don't do anything hostile to them, you just stop profiting them.

What's shrill or low-class about that? The French aren't what they used to be, anyway. They don't deserve admiration today, although the region certainly contributed a great deal to civilization in the past. Today they are decadent, they represent social decay and intellectual pestilence.

Best not to support them in anyway, lest they metastasise more profusely.

And why deprive them of an opportunity to learn from their error by preventing them from feeling any consequence for wielding their endemic post-modern dada gestalt hostily against us?

[Hoppean]

I see your point about exercising one's choice not to buy from them. I suppose when it's put that way, it doesn't seem as irrational as making a public spectacle out of renaming "French Fries," "Freedom Fries."

Still, it seems somewhat petty, or beneath us, as Americans to give such weight to what the French "think of us." There likely is widespread anti-American sentiment there, but that's hardly unique to the French. Even the nations that support the current war, amongst the British population, for instance, you still find lots of anti-American sentiment expressed.

I'd hoped Americans felt more secure about who they were than to let themselves feel bothered by what the peoples of other countries think of them. What good is being a Superpower if one is so sensitive?