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It is not hate. It is fear inspired by jealousy.

We initially did it right, but now we are letting Obama and company screw the entire country up.

Just my not-so-humble opinion.

America is having a crises of identity (has been for the last few decades.) While fighting against the Soviets and Communism we were willing to compromise on the values we supposedly stood for in their defense (Mccarthyism for example where we defended free markets and property rights, but at the cost of free speech.) Then when the Soviet Union fell, we lost the enemy that we had come to define ourselves through.

We had forgotten that freedom is an uncompromising mistress, and will not share our reverence with any other principle. It is easy to see why other nations can lead their people to dislike or even hate us. If we are to stand for a principle, then we must first hold ourselves accountable to it. Shout, "Freedom!" and then take people's property through government and people will call you a liar (Obama.) Shout, "Freedom!" and then detain people without trial and people will call you a hypocrite (Bush.) If we as Americans want our country to be loved, then we need to ensure that it's a country worth loving, which means holding ourselves to the standards of our ideals.

papadawg, what is the source of all this Obama hatred?

Not hatred, just a vehement disgust of his Marxist agenda.

This country was founded as a Constitutional Republic, and now Barack Hussein Obama and all of his cohorts are desperately trying to fundamentally change it into a communist dictatorship.

For some reason you younger generation think that would be just hunky-dory.

You have no idea what you are buying into.:@

Based on studies measuring the desire of people to move to another country, I'd say that if other countries are teaching people to hate us, or even our government, they're not typically doing it very well. We're still the overwhelming #1 choice by volume of immigrants or expatriates (Singapore kicks our butt per capita, but they don't have as much room as we do). Maybe DPRK does pretty well at this (they seem to hate everybody there, not just us), but I'm not impressed with the propaganda campaign of anti-Americanism being as systematic and entrenched as it was during the Cold War.

More properly our problem is not the other countries campaigns of hatred that don't exist or aren't apparently working if they do, but the things we do, or our government does, that inspire hatred or fear and move people to act aggressively against us. Like detaining people at will and whim without trials and basic civil liberties, torturing them, bombing other countries without declarations of war or international justification, etc. And naturally some of our freedoms give us plenty of rubbish that we have to put up with internally (I think rightly so if we wish to have and celebrate the freedom of speech as opposed to restricting such opinions) that apparently much of the world looks down upon, such as defamation of Islam or Muslims, which doesn't exactly help us come off as lovable and tolerant people. These are, to some extent, justifiable reasons to be angry with American foreign policy and anti-terrorism policies in general, because they are hypocritical, intolerant, and small-minded expressions of hatred.

Not to mention often counter-productive. When we get some NGOs or governmental policy shifts that are less hypocritical and embrace things like freedom of conscience and religion or defend the rights of oppressed peoples by the governments we support abroad, or don't round a bunch of Muslims off into black sites never to be heard from again without any formal accusation or ability to defend against such accusations (which have very often turned out to be false), it's suddenly a lot harder for such groups to recruit their foot soldiers and gather ideological cover from theological harangues about some sort of cosmic struggle between Islam and America.

While I agree that Obama isn't the best thing for us, I'd also like to point out that all this 'America hate' couldn't have just sprung up in the year since Obama was elected. It's been declining for a long time- and Bush the Imperialist really didn't help our standing with other nations. Perhaps they're not just jealous of our freedom, but scared we'll attack them next?

I largely agree with Sun Tzu, above.

There's one important thing to be said here- countries don't just irrationally hate us, anymore than individual people ("terrorists") do. They will have reasons, and I think a lot of those reasons can be found in our imperialistic foreign policy and our arrogant, snobby, utterly nationalistic views of ourselves and our not-so-perfect country.

Are other countries taught to hate America? Nope, it just comes naturally.

And I suppose in your eyes other countries are perfect? If that is what you believe, then have a nice trip and enjoy your new country . . . I do not believe anyone should be forced to live where they do not want to or in a country that they fundamentally hate.

"Imperialistic" implies that we have an Emperor. Who would that be? Obama? I don't think so.

In my view we deserve to be nationalistic, after all we ARE a nation. And as for the rest of your snide remarks, well I just consider the source. FYI – Obama is on his way out and will go down in history as one of the most despicable presidents in the history of this great nation . . . alongside Carter.

No, I do not think other countries are perfect. But I don't live in other countries, I live in America, and as an American, I'm going to spend more time thinking about my own country's flaws than others'- just as I should probably spend more time thinking about what I, myself, do wrong and trying to fix it than thinking about my next-door-neighbor's indiscretions. "Imperialistic", in the sense in which I was using it, means that we act in such a way that we have a virtual "empire". Britian was imperialistic at one time, yet they did not have an Emporer. Many of our policies (preemptive war, being the world's policeman) are imperialistic in that we think we are somehow ordained to be head over all, and to exert control over an empire-like organization.

To be nationalistic is to be of such a state of mind that in your eyes, your country is, quite literally, It. The communists of various countries and the Nazis were famous for employing this kind of thinking. Arabians of some countries (Arabia and Iran are especially bad) also do it. And sadly, so does America. When a certain set of the population is said to be Nationalistic, it means that they believe their country is supreme over all others- that it is better, superior in every way, to every other country. This mindset is also distinguished by the way its proponents (either unwitting or willingly) almost fanatically hold themselves to the belief that their country can do no wrong, and it is all other countries' fault for what is happening. Their country cannot have done anything wrong, because their country is Special. And just so you know, I'm not an Obama supporter. If he doesn't win the '12 election, I'll hope we get someone better (who hopefully isn't just from the opposite side of the Partisan Establishment, but is instead someone outside of it), and I'll be glad to see him go. Perhaps. Unless, of course, the next person we get is worse.

As a matter of fact, they are.

What does Obama have to do with what she said (or I said)?

Nationalism is associated with some of the most repugnant habits of foreign policy and domestic efforts, it's somewhere behind only communism or fascism for its destructive power historically and carries little if any productive powers. I draw a distinction between this and patriotism, which can be useful and more useful harnessed by nation-states. Blind faith affection to a nation-state is foolish (what nation ever loved you back anyway), but openly seeking to improve it or improve its discourse in politics, is perfectly fine.

Imperialism might imply we have an emperor, but the Romans were going around conquering people and places long before they had one too. And the Brits were doing it long after their monarch was limited and reduced to an expensive status symbol. If you want an idea where that power might be coming from, it might be the War Powers Act, specifically granting a great deal of war-making power to the President and Executive branch rather than the legislature and popular representatives. Obama would hardly be the first such executive to abuse this Constitutional farce.

Statistically, "America hating" went down, at least in the rest of the world, when Obama was elected anyway. I haven't seen any reasons why that should be really, but it's at least a measurable effect.

Hey, good to see you back Sun Tzu.

Incidentally, I'm not so sure that most of the world has much of a concern or hate/fear reaction with the property rights issue you raised. At least at the margins where property is taken by some central authority for some supposed purpose that is perceived to be less corrupt than seizing property for the purpose of enriching the leaders directly as might happen in their home country. Europe and Canada are still pretty popular destinations as well despite having these sorts of technocratic, public use seizures of property more commonly than we do them (Canada's actually more popular than we are per capita as well; Europe isn't generally speaking). It makes it pretty hard to argue that public works and government are unpopular in principle such that taking money or property for such things internally would be deemed inappropriate by people in other countries. If we are running around seizing the property and assets of people without cause in foreign countries, then yes, that would be a problem. Typically we just blow it up or invade though.

I would agree things like the forfeiture seizures within the drug/terrorism laws are a serious problem anywhere they're used, simply because they're so easily abused. I'm not so sure that anybody other than hardcore Austrians, Rothbardians, and Objectivists care all that much about taxation in principle beyond "lower is better" considerations.

Right, which is why Singapore, Australia, and the US were more popular than Europe.

Still, I don't think most Europeans sit around complaining about these things either, at least consciously as a problem, given that they often seem content with the public services their taxes are seized to pay for (as are, unfortunately, many Americans).

Pretty obviously most emigration is coming from countries further down the totem pole. And obviously in that case, the difference between having the people in charge seize your stuff just because they can and having them seize it so they can build a school or a road or provide some public service (if at times, somewhat less efficiently) is rather extreme. It's primarily why people here got so exercised about blight eminent domain seizures to provide land to enrich private development companies rather than serve some recognized public function.

Though as the world is getting more crowded and competition is becoming fierce for resources, the greater birth rate of immigrants and their disproportionate use of public services is causing people to become less amenable to the welfare and public ownership programs. It's sad, but it looks like the contention over private property rights is often in line with an overtly racial view of the world.

Well with poor nations to developed nations I shouldn't think it matters too much. Where property collectivism would be evident is in the immigration from developed nation to developed nation.

I don't think that they're taught to hate America (as that is not good for trade relations) but rather to hate democracy, like in china where they have to do everything for their country. I think people really envy American freedoms, not hate it.

I am not a American. I live in China and go to a middle school here. (Actually I have lived here almost all my life) But I'm not Chinese. With my experience, I would like to state that children here naturally do have a bad impression of the US. In their middle school history book you can commonly find lots of things criticizing the US, and even sometimes undirectly sometimes the teachers would criticize democracy and other religions. ( Not all) As you all know China isn't a entirely free country. Despite of the oppression(such as violence) caused by some teachers. The children simply are taught not to talk about such subject related to Taiwan or Freedom ect. (I am not criticizing the them, because in every country there are a existence of conscious ,honest , and respectable teachers) I have never heard one classmate of mine talk about the freedom of speech. The chinese government is practically just hiding everything from the people. But as everyone knows that's just isn't possible because actually China isn't a 100 percent communist country .The citizens are allowed to share information on the internet (but controlled).

Everyone has different perspectives of America, but these opinions don't come from the government. Because time will reveal the truth.

So once I secretly asked one of my friends about what they thought of the chinese government and freedom. I was pretty impressed by his reply. He said that everyone knew that the chinese government were blocking them from doing lots of things. He also said that they knew that the chinese education was so unmodern and so immature. He said they didn't have freedom. HE SAID that they also were willing to have their rights of freedom. He said that the government were brainwashing them to believe that America was a corrupted country that hates China. He said they knew that they had stereotypes about america, he said that they were formed by how the chinese government described china in the media and news. But he said that no one had the guts to stand out and shout for freedom. He said that chinese education was feudal and was ready for change to be made. This reply not only surprised me but also amazed me….;; I felt they were desperate

…..(Even in the end-of-the-year exam there was a problem that gave information about Obama (Some information based on personal opinion )stating he was a anti-chinese and was unpolite. It asked what they thought about Obama . Then my friends answer some kinda defended him. So,, in resul she got a B. That was awful and unrighteous of our politics teacher. So I think that some country educate their students to hate america. But the children would commonly not think in such way. Because it's the 21 century! What would they expect???

I wonder what all the countries think when theyre teaching in their history classes about how America kicked their butts in "this war" or losing the 13 colonies, or losing pearl harbor! And if any of them tried to invade us, we most likely would win because we have Red Necks here who have guns, and not the small pistols cops carry around, but Shot guns, and other big guns!