I recently returned to college. My heart is not into it and so I am in a place I'd never thought I'd be. This degree I think might help, even if only for a little bit to help me move overseas. The return to school certainly gave me additional shocks. In on of my classes the topic of 'why do they hate us' came up briefly. People actually said 'because of our freedoms'. I was speechless...sorta. I did have to sputter some substance of thought in spite of my baffelment. It is shocking to hear first hand a large group of people choosing to accept such stupidity as a part of their 'thinking'. How self involved is our culture when our response to people HATING us is because of our independence!! AND HOW UTTERLY FALSE!! First of all Americans do not have the flag waving freedoms we think we have. Have ya checked out the Patriot Act and the Domestic Security Enhancement Act (Patriot Act II) recently?!?!? How bout the police state that is our reality? Look around. Second, has anybody even considered that they 'hate' us (in part) because of our support of their people's slaughter via the Nazi Israeli death camps called the West Bank and Gaza??