Monday, April 4, 2011

Perceptions of America

April 04, 2011
By David P. McGinley
American Thinker

Since 9/11, one of the big concerns of America’s ruling class is what the rest of the world thinks of the United States — hence the lamentation of “why do they hate us?” In fact, one of President Obama’s goals when taking office was to change the world’s perception of America. Of course, the ruling class is worried about only what its elitist counterparts think, not your typical citizen of another country.

So what does that typical citizen think?

Since moving abroad last year, I have gained some insight into answering this question. One recent discussion with one of my law students was quite illuminating. The student, who is from Cambodia, complained to me that the U.S. government was going to deport a Cambodian national who had been permanently living in the U.S. for over twenty-five years. The prospective deportee had moved to the U.S. in the 1980s to escape the communist killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. In those twenty-five years, he never bothered to become a citizen.

Recently, the man in question was convicted of committing a felony. Suddenly, the place to which he had fled that saved him from being massacred, the place that has provided him with a level of personal liberty nonexistent in his place of birth — even before the Khmer Rouge — is supposedly treating him unfairly.

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