So a friend pointed me at this yesterday:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/04/france/index.html

And I have to say that I simply love Bill Mahr. I don't always see eye to eye with him, tending to be a little too libertarian for my tastes, but he can be damn funny when he is right.

His piece in many ways is a reminder that America really needs to grow up and loose some of the patriotism.

American's tend to believe that "Were number one!" while waving a giant foam hand in the air, as if the hand and loud shouting makes it true. What we don't seem to realize is that the team who's fans bought all the foam hands STILL loses sometimes. Donning a foam hand and waving it about like a drunken idiot does not make us the best it just makes us look like immature idiots on a bender. America isn't number one at almost anything of import. We could be but we are too immature to actually make the changes that would really catapult us to greatness. Instead we wallow in mediocrity while shouting out to the world that we are the best with our giant foam hands to prove it. The trouble is everybody else in the world sees that we are just mediocre idiots with foam hands.

Being in Europe for awhile now it is clear to me that we are not the best. I'm not saying I want to give up being an American. I just think it is high time we stopped rejecting ideas because we didn't think of them and start looking for the best ideas in the world. I think that is a policy our French loving founding fathers could get behind. The French have good health care? Let's steal that idea. The dutch know how to build a bike friendly city with public transit that works? Let's steal that idea. My point is that just because something isn't American doesn't make it a bad idea.

All I am saying is let's grow up a little and try to develop some sense of objectivity instead of waving our giant foam hands around like they do anything more than make us look like morons!