The Real Reason Why America Is So Hated in the World

One of our visitors asks How is it that Europe with it's rich history of tyranny values freedom so cheaply? and Can someone please tell me why we are considered the greatest threat to peace by these same people now?

Part of the answer lies perhaps in the following:

Any time there is a more democratic government in existence, the less democratic government (however many levels "less" that is) will feel threatened (to the extent that it is less free), and spend time and energy dissing, undermining, and castigating the freer society's freedom as bogus, hypocritical, and/or (ultimately) counter-productive to the well-being of its citizens and, indeed, to the well-being of the entire world.

Because the freer society is more open — precisely because that society is more open — the less open society has plenty of ammunition to draw upon for the castigation.

Speaking, and acting this way, as I have written before, is eminently self-serving, as it makes both the governments and the élite, on one hand, and the common citizens, on the other, feel better about the society they live in and about all the choices they (or their government) make(s), not least those to ensure more power for said (type of) government.