Ode to the US

I am well aware of my nationality as a Swede and I am quite aware of the fact that Europe as a whole had a tendency of looking down on the US as of late. Me on the other hand have had this strange admiration of everything north American for quite some time now and even with the stereotype of an American thinking very little of us just as we try to think very little of them it just seems a bit unfair to me. How and why? Well bear with me and I'll try to dot down exactly what I mean as have been pondering over my own fascination of that large country with many states in the west a lot lately.

First off, what do I like most about the US on a personal basis? Well it just so happens that there are a lot of things that the average US citizen can enjoy as easily as taking a ride down town. I am talking about wrestling TV shows every monday and friday night, I'm talking about going to a comic book store that actually has the latest issue of Supergirl ready for me, I'm talking about going to the Superbowl and watch one of the biggest sports events known to mankind, I'm talking about paying half as much for twice as much gasoline and I am talking about the mentality of trying to make everything faster, stronger, bigger, badder, better.

At home? I have none of that, lest I go the extra ten yards myself to import some of it at ridiculous prices. So yeah, it's with no small hint of envy that I look across that sea and the border in the west. I don't know about the rest of Europe or even other swedes for that matter but it's no secret that there's a lot of people out there right now with an evil eye glancing in the same direction as I am.

So I try to put myself in the position of an average US citizen, and even though I am fairly biased like my above statements suggest, it's easy to put yourself into the situation of someone from a country so small that your state alone covers a wider area calling you something like "world police", "fascist" or "patriotic garbage".

With the three items in order I can see how you won't like being called "world police" when you're a member of one of the few countries in the WORLD that can actually do something that could drastically change the outlooks of an entire nation and everyone that lives there. Needless to say it must be so easy to just roll your eyes and say "hey, what did your country do for humankind lately?"

Fascist? Well naturally a country of such large proportions needs a pretty strong regime to hold it all together. Looking at other examples like say China or Russia it would only be natural for any US citizen to simply brush that one off since surely their nation and population are in great shape compared to those two.

And lastly there's the whole patriotism issue. As a swede I am taught from an early age that nationalism is pretty much the same as racism, and you don't want to be racist do you? It's gone so far that wearing the swedish national flag on your clothes will almost automatically label you a racist and before you know it somone will have a grudge with you.

In the US I imagine it's quite easy to get past this issue since there all kinds of people living there. White, black, hispanic or whatever, if you're born an American then you'll be just as much of a US citizen as everyone else. As such Americans have little to no reason to make nationality into a racial issue and can instead go on about their business and parade their flag as they please.

So with that I am hoping I've been able make a point on why I like to tune in on American shows, read American comics and buy American food without feeling guilty about it. Hey I do the same for Japan anyways, they're a great country too. So if you don't agree well then there's the freedom of speech allowing you to keep dissing any American that crosses your line of sight, just remember that they can do the same to you, just for different reasons.