Talk:Anti-Americanism/Archive 7

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The dangers of Anti-American sentiment

I believe that this sections failed to present a neutral point of view, by mentioning only terrorists and failing to mention that terrorists comprise only a small proportion of those with Anti-American sentiments, and only a small proportion of the problems with Anti-American sentiment. One could say that it is equating Anti-American sentiment with terrorism, although obviously the rest of this article does not put out this view.

I thought the most suitable way of fixing this problem was not to remove this section, but to expand it in order to point out that Anti-American sentiment very rarely leads to terrorism, and that Anti-American sentiment has more practical implications not only for America but for the rest of the world. For example, anti-American sentiment affects the ability of countries to trade with each other. Anti-American sentiment also contributes to America's dislike of other nations and polarisation of opinion within America.

Death penalty and Canada

Japan's population is 127 million, compared to 290 million in the US. Japan executes about 2 or 3 people a year, in the US it is dozens. At least 118 people are under sentence of death in Japan. There has been one execution in Japan in 2003. More than 3,600 men and women await execution in the USA, where more than 750 executions have been carried out since 1990, 56 of them this year. The USA has frequently violated international standards in its pursuit of the death penalty, including by using it against the mentally impaired, the inadequately represented, those whose guilt remains in doubt, and foreign nationals denied their consular rights. In the past 18 months, the USA has executed four child offenders -- those under 18 years old at the time of the offence -- the only such executions known in the world in this period. http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGIOR300082003?open&of=ENG-USA And I do not quite see what ethnic diversity has to do with capital punishment. Canada is ethnically extremely diverse and has no death penalty. Get-back-world-respect 07:40, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Canada is ethnically extremely diverse. That is a humorous statement. http://www.factmonster.com/spot/bhmhockey1.html mentions that the black population in Canada is a whopping 2%. This miniscule percentage is in a nation of 32 million people. The state of California alone has 33 million people, and there are 49 other states in the US. Do you really think that your most cosmopolitan cities (Toronto, Montreal) match the ethnic diversity of Los Angeles, New York City, or Miami? Just the Hispanic/Latin-American population in the United States is larger than the entire population of Canada (12.5% of 290 million people)! Don't like that source? http://www.canada.com/national/features/census/story.html?id=%7BC78A4458-7085-4FEC-AD57-45F3BA869561%7D has a listing the "top responses for ethnic origin" from the Canadian 2001 census -- the result is Canadian (39.2%), English (20%), French (15.75%), Scottish (14%) , Irish (12.9%), Italian (4.29)%, Chinese (3.69%), Ukranian (3.61%), and North American Indian (3.38%). If your census bureau is making distinctions between "Scottish", "Irish", and "English", and considering "Canadian" as an "ethnicity", then your definition of "diversity" is quite weak, since the United States would just lump them all together as "white".

Canada has nothing like the illegal immigration problem of the United States -- perhaps because people don't like the cold temperatures of the north? Illegal immigration into the United States begets wonderful benefits, but unfortunately (and realistically) problems as well, because there is no control over who is coming in, including criminals, people with non-law-abiding-tendancies , and a lot of economically depressed people who will be competing for jobs with the others already in the country.

Add to this mixture the tensions amongst different cultures, because different cultures have different values, and different viewpoints on "the way things should be". Just think about the tension between Anglophones and Francophones in Canada, where you have laws enforcing bilinguality, which some people strongly resent. In a state like Florida (16 million people, half the population of Canada), there is interethnic and intercultural tension amongst a segment of Hispanics, Latinos, Chicanos, and Cubans (it's complicated), despite a common tongue. Black Haitian immigrants, black Jamaican immigrants, and African-Americans don't always see eye to eye. Ethnicities usually reflect different cultures, different cultures have a different values, different values can lead to tensions, tensions mixed with economic distress can unfortunately lead to overheated violence, overheated violence can unfortunately lead to murder... and overheated murder can unfortunately lead to the death penalty under existing laws.

Interethnic tension is not limited to America; the massacre of the Tutsis by Hutus in the Rwanda massacre in 1994 was "racially" based, even though they look the same to me (both are black), while in Indonesia, Chinese businesses are attacked due to a combination of economic and ethnic tensions.

My point is that interethnic tensions are a reality, even when the distinction between the ethnic identities is slight. That doesn't mean they are justified, or should be condoned. But if it happens, it is going to happen on a greater scale in the United States than in any other country, simply due to the sheer numbers of immigrants, the wider variety of countries of origin, and the size of the entire population in actual numbers. The situation is more complicated than in Canada, and hence requires a different way to handle severe problems.

Now, the United States could always let its Death Row inmates move to Canada and live with Canadian families. Would you like to host them in your abode?

The USA has frequently violated international standards in its pursuit of the death penalty, including by using it against the mentally impaired, the inadequately represented, those whose guilt remains in doubt, and foreign nationals denied their consular rights.

In the word "international", to which nations do they refer? Certainly not "all nations of the world", but just the ones that happen to agree with Amnesty International! The "standards" which Amnesty International mentions are not equivalent to enforceable laws, otherwise Amnesty International would be able to sue for wrongful prosecution, attempt to overturn verdicts, and declare retrials. To what court would they turn? That's not how judicial or legislative systems work. What members of Amnesty International feel about the verdict of a particular case is irrelevant; otherwise, they would be participants in the jury. They aren't. They don't participate on the jury, they don't necessarily sit in the trial or see the evidence first hand or hear the witnesses testimonies first hand, and they certainly don't sit in the isolated room where jury members alone discuss the merits of a case amongst themselves. Jury members may be presented with evidence not open to the general public, due to the gruesome nature of the crime. If a jury decides that somebody is "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt", then Amnesty International cannot be so presumptious as to blindly believe the defense lawyers, who are paid to convince others of their client's innocence, regardless of the truth. And the defense lawyers have an extra incentive in pursuing a case to the limit of endless appeals: their future reputation and hence future revenue depends on it! They will say anything, including lies. Remember: it's their job!

I don't think even Canadian courts would overturn their own verdicts merely to accomodate a press release by Amnesty International.

Japan executes about 2 or 3 people a year, in the US it is dozens. Japan has a very homogeneous society, without the scope of illegal immigration and additional problems of interethnic tensions that I discussed previously. A homogeneous culture means a more conformant culture. Everybody in Japan speaks Japanese. Practically everybody in Japan was born in Japan. Practically everybody in Japan has the same ethnicity. Japan does not have to worry about large numbers of poor immigrants pouring into their borders because they will escort them out very quickly! -- May 25, 2004

I had heard Canadians complaining about US citizens' ignorance towards their country, but the anonymous author of the above article seems to be a particularly striking example. The CIA reports about ethnicities in Canada: British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%. If you had ever been to one of Canada's metropoles like Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal you would have noted that it is hard to find a dominant ethnicity. Toronto is considered by many as the most ethnically diverse city of the world. "Toronto is home to virtually all of the world's culture groups and is the city where more than 100 languages are spoken."

By 2001, Toronto's visible minority population accounted for more than 50 per cent of the population. "The top ten source countries for immigration to Canada were China, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Iran, Sri Lanka, The Philippines, Taiwan, Russia and Jamaica in 1996." [1] When I lived in Toronto I was impressed by how welcome Canadians made foreigners - like me - feel and how much they cared for people with different cultural backgrounds getting along with each other. Multilinguality is only one sign for that. In Toronto you can find signs for the names of streets in Chinese and Korean. After only a few years immigrants are generally accepted to be "Canadians", wherever they had come from, and newspapers frequently report whether efforts to give immigrants equal chances on the job market were successful.

"International standards" are for example treaties the US signed guaranteeing foreign citizens the right to access consular services. The International Court of Justice has ruled in several cases that the US violated the treaties it signed, but the US simply ignores the rulings although it sends judges to the court. Another case was the Reagan supported terrorism against Nicaragua where the US simply declared that the court was not entitled to rule upon the case, even when the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution where only Israel and El Salvador voted with the US.

Would you also say that Sudan does not violate international standards when thousands of civilians die in massacres, just because no one enforces the standards?

If for you ethnic diversity means that there are many blacks or that the number of millions of inhabitants matter for the concept of diversity I think you have a problem. And in my eyes someone who argues that the USA needs the death penalty because of its ethnic diverse population shows nothing more than what an utter racist he or she is. Get-back-world-respect 23:32, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

You are an excellent example of Canadian ignorance and stupidity. You did not read carefully the links that I gave you.

And in my eyes someone who argues that the USA needs the death penalty because of its ethnic diverse population shows nothing more than what an utter racist he or she is. Once again, you show your ignorance and stupidity. That is not what I said. I said that an ethnically diverse population, compounded by illegal immigration, leads to a different set of problems that justifies a different way of handling the problem.

When I lived in Toronto I was impressed by how welcome Canadians made foreigners - like me - feel and how much they cared for people with different cultural backgrounds getting along with each other. My own case is similar -- my parents emigrated to the United States from China. One of my sibilings is married to a Hispanic. Many of my cousins have marriages to other races. But since you do not bother to read the links that I gave you or to ponder the information that I wrote, and are obviously stubborn in your point of view and wanting to bash the United States all the time, I see no need to continue the conversation. I have visited Canada many times, including Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax, and your definition of "diversity" just doesn't cut it. May 25, 2004

Quite telling that first of all you still do not dare to sign your messages, second, you try to insult me, which says more about you than anyone else, third, you still think I was Canadian which I am not, fourth, you are still refusing to accept that Canada's population is ethnically extremely diverse, fifth, you keep telling us that the death penalty was a way of handling problems with immigration, sixth, you accuse me of bashing the United States although I never did that but criticized certain political decisions and you personally for racism. As is mentioned in the article, anti-Americanism is just a label some people try to batch on everyone who criticizes US politics. Most people are not anti-semite either, and still the United Nations would have passed dozens of resolutions condemning Israel's violations of human rights if there had not been continous US vetos. About half of the US population is extremely critical of some of George W. Bush's actions. Do you think half of your country's population is "anti-American"? Sadly enough, continous violations of human rights and international agreements, most prominently in Latin America and now in Afghanistan and Iraq, have created a lot of hatred and indeed something like anti-American racism. But many US citizens seem to be most worried about Europe, where most people can still distinguish between the politics of a government that takes a lot of decisions that are controversial even domestically, and the people, many of which are very popular all over the world. Get-back-world-respect 11:43, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Er what has levels of ethnic diversity got to do with the death penalty?. I'm struggling to see a connection here. G-Man 12:06, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I guess the anonymous who tried to spread prejudices against Canada was the same as the one who started the discussion above. No one ever said that Canada was more ethnically diverse than the US, I only said that Toronto is regarded by many as the world's most ethnically diverse city and that other big Canadian cities like Vancouver and Montreal are ethnically very diverse as well. You may want to be informed that, as with so many things on earth, ethnic groups as well have more shadings than just black and white. Get-back-world-respect 19:12, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Dear anonymous editor, as you could have concluded by now, I am neither Asian nor do I live in Canada nor do I try to hide the truth. Why do you not register and explain yourself here rather than engage in stupid edit wars? Get-back-world-respect 12:10, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just as a point of fact, I don't know how you define "ethnically diverse," but I doubt Toronto is more diverse than New York City. -- Cecropia | Talk 17:57, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Where is the fact in your statement? I lived in Toronto for a year and read that statement in a travel guide. Given that there is no ethnic majority in Toronto, I lived in a Jamaican district with many Portuguese, on my way to university crossed the Korean district north of one of at least three Little Italies and China Towns, and came along restaurants from more than thirty countries I do not find it hard to believe. Get-back-world-respect 20:38, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Protection

The page was protected because an anonymous engaged in an edit war about the mentioning of the frequency of the death penalty in the US compared to Japan. In case she or he can explain the reasons here, please do so, otherwise please refrain from deleting the sentence and allow unprotection. Get-back-world-respect 12:54, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Would anyone object to protection being lifted? If not, I'll do so today. Yours, Meelar 15:27, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Introduction to Possible causes of Anti-American sentiment

I do not like that part. "Anti-American sentiment is a broad term" is a non-information. I find hard to see that any reasonable person would honestly claim that any racist sentiment could be "legitimate", and those who allegedly hold it - I deleted them - are probably spread all over the world - I know that there are many in Korea and Muslim communities in Asia and I find hard to believe that there are none in Africa. The opinions parts of this article connect to "anti-Americanism" are widespread in the US as well. Plus, it is ridiculous to put emphasis on left-wing intellectuals. Intellectuals per se are not more racist than average people, and have no doubt that Neonazis hate the US as much as any "evil commie". Get-back-world-respect 21:55, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

If "anti-Americanism" is taken to mean criticism of American foreign policy or culture, it isn't racist. Nowhere is it claimed that racist sentiment is legitimate. I'm fine with no singling out any particular groups in the intro, in fact I'd prefer it — I just didn't want to make too radical a change from the previous version. It is certainly informative to say that anti-Americaan sentiment is a broad term, because it's important to know that no-one agrees on what exactly it is, or whether the term is even meaningful. Cadr 22:01, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

If "anti-Americanism" is taken to mean criticism of American foreign policy then we have to start articles about "anti-Indianism", "anti-pakistaniism", "anti-Saudiism", "anti-Japanism", "anti-Libyanism", etc., etc. Words ending on -ism and describing an attitude usually label a strong, nearly fanatical conviction of something, like marxism, jingoism, anti-semitism. Hence when connected with "anti-" and a particular country they are racist. The problem is that many try to label criticism of policies as anti-...ism in order to defame and downplay it. Get-back-world-respect 01:41, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately we can't change the meaning of the word in order to make it easier to write articles on it. Many people who criticize American government policy only, and actually praise other aspects of America (e.g. Chomsky) are frequently labelled as anti-American. True, this may be deliberate exaggeration in order to dicredit such people, or there may be people who genuinely believe (wrongly, IMO) that strong criticism the government during a war is anti-American. The article needs to take into account the whole range of POVs. I do agree that "anti-Americanism" looks like it ought to mean fanatical and irrational dislike of anything American, but the fact is that so many people who aren't like that at all are labelled anti-American that we have to be a bit more flexible about what the word means. Still I would be welcome to see a careful distinction between people/things that are accused of being anti-American and people/things which almost undoubtably are anti-American by any reasonable definition of the word. Cadr 12:54, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

It's not important if neonazis hate america just as much as commies or more. The important part is that historicly propaganda spread by the Soviet Union has greatly increased antiamericanism across the world. Earlier propaganda by the Third Reich was much less spread and has been almost completly forgoten.

It is your opinion that:

* "Soviet propaganda" was propaganda.

* It increased anti-Americanism (whatever you take that to be).

We cannot state these things as facts in the intro; it's too controversial and POV. Cadr 12:54, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I think no one would reject that there was anti-American propaganda in the Soviet Union or Islamic countries and that it increased anti-Americanism in the countries of the Warsaw Pact and Islamic countries. What we should not do is pretend that legitimate criticism of the US could legitimately be labeled anti-Americanism or that this kind of racism was more widespread in Europe than elsewhere or that leftist intellectuals had a greater tendency to it than working class nationalists. Get-back-world-respect 16:47, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I mostly agree with you here. However, we should not call anti-American propaganda in the Soviet Union propaganda, because calling anything propaganda is inherently POV. Of course, if we had any specific examples of such propaganda, we could certainly point to information showing it to be false — a far more NPOV aproach. My issue with your argument is only that "anti-American(ism)" is frequently used to label people who are clearly not racist or reflexively against anything that has any association with America, and this useage of the term (even if it has its origins in hyperbole and smear-tactics) should be mentioned and discussed in the article, since it is so widespread. Othwerwise, the article is in danger of implying that lots of (potentially) legitimate criticisms of America are anti-American. If we really want to describe anti-Americanism as a form of racism, we would have to remove all mention of criticism of American culture and foreign policy from the article, since such criticism could not have anything to do with anti-Americanism in this narrow (racist) sense. (NB: I do not regard criticism of specific aspects of a country's culture to be racist, which may be moderately controversial, I don't know. In any case, my point about foreign policy still stands...) Cadr 17:53, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I live close to the former Berlin wall. That wall was called "anti-fascist protection fence" by the government of the GDR. Do you think this should not be called propaganda?

It shouldn't be called propaganda for the reasons I gave above. It's fine to explain why it is usually preceived as propaganda, though. Cadr 20:30, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Propaganda just means that the information was presented in a way to fit the ideological preferences of the one who uses it. It is overdone if you always avoid the term propaganda. The "Country of Evil" term is clearly propaganda, as were Soviet terms used towards the US. Get-back-world-respect 20:36, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Calling something propaganda implies that it isn't true, which is POV in the case of subjective statements such as "X is evil" or "X is Fascist". Easier for everyone to avoid using the P word in such circumstances, or at least explain who thinks that it's propaganda and why. Cadr 20:43, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I think it is legitimate to write that anti-American racism exists, that "anti-Americanism" is often used to defame and downplay legitimate criticism of the US and understanding those legitimate criticisms is vital for understanding "anti-American" racism because the negligence to distinguish between criticism of particular aspects of a country and hatred towards the country as a whole is what makes the difference between racists and critics. Get-back-world-respect 20:25, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree with what you say, but it's still POV. Anti-Americanism is often used to describe non-racist sentiments. This is possibly owing to exaggeration on the part of the user of the word, but it might be because they actually think that certain criticisms of American policy or culture are inherently anti-American. For example, flag-burning is not racist by any stretch of the imagination, but people who indulge in the practice might well be described as anti-American by commentators on the right. In my opinion, this is because they're using smear-tactics — labelling people who make legitimate protest as anti-American when in fact they are not, but this is just one POV. We can't promote this POV in the article, because it isn't NPOV to imply that large number of right-wing commentators are duplicitous in their use of the word. Cadr 20:43, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I think when foreigners burn US flags that is usually racist. Get-back-world-respect 20:46, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Well I completely disagree, and so would a lot of other people. You can't promote that POV in the article. Cadr

Also, you keep picking out peripheral issues in my comments and not responding to any of the arguments in them. Cadr 20:57, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I do not see a need to discuss the propaganda thing at large because the article can remain as it is with us agreeing to differ. Get-back-world-respect 21:44, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

The sentence "Anti-American sentiment" is a broad term, and opinions vary greatly on what constitutes anti-American sentiment, whether it is legitimate, who holds it, and what can be said to cause or explain it. is obsolete after the introduction. If you want to keep parts of it move them to the top, it does not make sense to define the term twice.

I do not want to keep the Muggeridge quote because it makes seem as if anti-Americanism was mainly based on envy which I doubt very much and that explanation is described above already. Get-back-world-respect 20:40, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Not sure I quite agree on either point, but you can have your way on this one. Cadr 20:45, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

For an American to understand why so many people hate America, all they must do is walk into their local Wal-Mart (especially the food section) have a look around and think "Half the world is in poverty and dying of hunger." That should explain it.

Greece presiding over EU, US media hatespeech and singled out anti-US regions and individuals

As I exlpained in the edit summaries, the mentioning of Greece presiding over the EU during the outbreak of the US war against Iraq ads nothing here but could be misinterpreted because Greece was not presiding over NATO and it had nothing to do with the previously mentioned Greek dictatorship.
The US media hatespeech is not my POV but factual and sourced.
Regarding the singled out alleged "anti-Americanists" see above. And do not revert before checking talk. Get-back-world-respect 03:24, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Pro-American sentiment

That article was voted to be deleted. I find it a good idea to include valuable parts of it in this article as another user suggested. Get-back-world-respect 17:45, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

At GWBR's request, I undeleted the mentioned article long enough to extract the contents. It is at Talk:Anti-American sentiment/Pro. I support his desire to include appropriate material from that article in this article and rename this to something more appropriate and neutral. Does anyone object? -- Cecropia | Talk 15:27, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. What do people think the new name should be? Some ideas:

• Attitudes toward the United States of America

1. Cecropia | Talk 04:55, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
2. Get-back-world-respect 17:13, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

• Views on the United States of America
• Opinion on the United States of America
• Criticism of and support for the United States of America

My vote's for the first of these options. The original articles were (putatively) about sentiment, and so I think that "attitude" best mirrors the original conception of the articles. --Atemperman 20:16, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The first one is also the one that I suggested to Cecropia. We should not have titles like "anti-" at all, they are inherently not neutral - except for antibiotics and such 8^p I do not like the fourth variant because this article does not only deal with criticism but also with racism. Second and third are to wide because one might start to sneak in opinions on a whole bunch of things that are not connected with the topic - like they have the best baseball team, the most beautiful vice president, the greatest camping areas or whatsoever. Get-back-world-respect 22:24, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Would you criticize an title like "Pro- and anti-American sentiments" as much? I think "anti-American" is a word of such wide spread that it is merited to be put in a title. It's nothing Wikipedia has made up. It's one important aspect limiting the posibilities of many a democratic US-friendly government (and some undemocratic also, I think).

--Ruhrjung 05:08, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I regard it as sufficient to have a redirect. Just because a smear term is used a lot does not mean it needs to be in an article title. Get-back-world-respect 17:12, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)