[ms. cellany]

Cheers to Randal and Choppie for voicing the other side, I have to agree. Hatred gets us nowhere, and usually just ends up causing more problems.

Every day I appreciate the fact that I was born somewhere like the U.S. where no matter how bad things can seem sometimes, I still have more luxury and ammenities and freedom that most people ever will. I can understand people wanting to immigrate here- we've blasted the world with our "American image" (via tv, movies, music, etc), of course it looks inticing.

However, I think we can all admit (well, maybe not all, I can at least) that the U.S. still has problems: we stick our fingers in any country's business if it's going to benefit us (just because we have the power doesn't mean we need to abuse it... not that we don't use it for good as well, we often do), the amount of fatal violence that goes on within our borders is unparalleled in other first-world countries, United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care....

I think that if we could turn our energies away from hatred and distrust and focus it more on improving our own country, we could bring about some changes for the better.

This is, of course, my opinion, and everyone is intitled to their own. I too am not lambasting anyone in this thread, but we can all appreciate the right to voice our thoughts, right? Just putting mine out there.