Is it in the water or in the gene pool, or what? Any explanations?
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Yes, I've noticed the same thing. But how widespread is it really? I'm not sure.
...
During the run-up to, and in the first weeks following the invasion of Iraq, I spent a good amount of time reading the now defunct iraqwar.ru (sponsored, we were told, by Venik Aviation and featuring reports on the order of battle from Russian GRU...or so the story went).
The site attracted readers from around the world. Almost without fail, posters from the US offered pious declarations, keyboard relayed shouts, insults and threats of falling bombs in response to the usually more calmly reasoned contributions of people from other parts of the globe.
The venom coming from Americans was so over the top and strange it quickly became a topic of debate unto itself. I remember one Russian commentator predicting, based on the attitudes displayed in the iraqwar.ru forums, that the Americans' war plan was doomed to fail because, despite all the massively destructive weapons and high technology at the US' disposal, its tendency towards wild, easily aroused, unreasoning hatred (as shown by the near constant yelling from Americans at the site) suggested the emotional "discipline" required for a smoothly executed imperial project was beyond this current generation's capacities.
Well, that's certainly true for some Americans but how many? I don't know.
Perhaps only the loudest, craziest and least emotionally mature feel a compelling need to patrol the planet's blogs and chat forums in search of people besmirching the good name of their beloved nation state. Perhaps many more people couldn't care less and instead of visiting iraqwar.ru et. al. to, once again, call that guy in Finland a "wingnut", spend time with friends and family, watch tv, play computer games, worry about their marriages and children and how they're going to make the mortgage/rent...
.d.