Southwestern College Collegian

Issue date: 3/26/08 Section: Editorial

America used to be a nation that other western countries looked up to in awe. America used to be a role model. But since around the year 2000, this has not been the case. Instead of being jealous of the people living in America, western countries have started feeling more sorry for Americans than they do for the starving kids in Africa. It's the American way or no way. Many Americans believe that things can just be done one way, and that is their way. The way other countries' government is built up is an example. They are by far not as good as the American government. America is no longer as popular of a country as it used to be. According to a survey by Brian Knowlton in The New York Times on June 14, 2006 we can see that there are significant drops in America's popularity. In 2005 the people of India had a 71 percent support rate for Americans. That number decreased to 56 percent in 2006. There was a similar drop from 2005 to 2006 in Spain, where America's popularity went from 41 percent to 23 percent. What happened? The Iraq war happened, a new president happened, and America's popularity-especially in Europe-went straight down. You wake up, you eat breakfast, you go to school, you get a love letter, and you're having a great day. Then at 3 p.m. you find out that you failed a test, a very important test. This destroys your whole day, and that's what you remember in the evening. You remember the bad things that happened, not all of the good things. Thousands of soldiers could do good things every day and we'll never remember it, or hear much of it. But as soon as one does something wrong everyone will know and that's what we'll remember. America has done great things the past few years, and there are actually grateful people down in the Middle East, believe it or not. But we never hear much about them. The impression the rest of the world has gotten of America is that Americans think they are the center of the world. Countries outside of America wonder if Americans think that they are the only ones in this world who matter. The media in the rest of the world has been very helpful in portraying this image of America. When you're 18 years old in America, you can buy cigarettes, you can buy porn, you can participate in porn, you can go to war and get killed, you can kill people, you can get put in jail, and you can even be put under the death penalty. But going out to the bar and drinking a beer is illegal. Youth and adults in other countries sometimes have a big problem understanding this law. Americans get their reputation from those people who always seem to have a solution for everything, like weight loss. If you want to lose weight take some pills and your sorrows will be over. Changing things so that candy and fast food would be a luxury and not a necessity because healthy food is too expensive would maybe be a better idea than to sell and swallow pills. Americans pay a lot of money for things they could get from their own sink. Voss water from Norway has a price of $332 for a case of 24 bottles, and has been popular in America for a long time. Why I find it funny that Americans pay for this water is because this is the same water as some Norwegians flush their toilets with, take a bath in, and drink, and they do all this for free. Who knows, someone might even have taken their small kids swimming in the water a lot of Americans pay to drink, and everybody knows what small kids sometimes do in water. America gets a bad name because of some people who live here and reflect the country. Try not to be one of them. Think about what you do. Inger Marie Furholt is a freshman majoring in journalism. You may e-mail her at inger.furholt@sckans.edu

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools