Good point but… I wonder how they will collect.

"It is an illusion calling the USA the land of freedom and democracy, when you are called an idiot just because you dared to say something different from the majority in an educated manner."

What illusion? That's exactly the greatness of our freedom and democracy: that we have the freedom to call the lowliest person to the President an idiot. When we are on the receiving end of criticism, most of us are thick skinned enough to deal with it, and those who aren't will have to suck it up.

Yet we find here in Korea there is an effort to criminalize public criticism on the Internet because a few people harmed themselves over it. Not to be stereotypical, but that seems like evidence that American society is much more able to tolerate critics than Korean's.

I prefer our version of freedom and democracy.

Now, something I have noticed reading Americans expat’s blogs is how Americans are unable to tolerate critics.

It is an illusion calling the USA the land of freedom and democracy, when you are called an idiot just because you dared to say something different from the majority in an educated manner. Most of criticism toward the Zaitun unit here are based on emotional arguments rather than rational, and I was just trying to show it.

Oh, I see; I read you wrong. You meant Dr. Yu. I thought you were talking about me. Actually, I'm a veteran with an American flag hanging on my wall. My thought is that if the U.S. is not welcomed in Korea, we can always do what we did in the Philippians—pull out. Fortunately, there are a lot of Koreans who do not share Tom's view. I'm hopeful that Tom will change his view as the years go on. My guess is that he is still pretty young.

Leon, it's not worth trying to understand them; it only leads to vexation. However, I have read Dr. Yu before. I do not think his view of Americans is quite as negative as Tom's. However, I think he is very proud of Korean.

You are probably right about Tom. However, you are wrong about me; I do not hate the United States. You are reading too much into my statement about U.S. troop withdrawl from Korea.

Fortunately, Bush signed an executive order, “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq,” to confiscate the assets of US citizens and organizations who “directly or indirectly” pose a risk to US operations in Iraq.

This seems like a perfect time to apply this. Maybe we can put some of the war protesters in the poorhouse, too.