Via the Marmot’s Hole comes the latest article in the Korea Times by the controversial Jon Huer that decides to take a few shots at the US over this Independence Day holiday:

With the Fourth of July coming up and bases getting ready to celebrate our Independence Day, I am beginning to have second thoughts: Maybe it was a mistake, a costly one, for the colonies to have fought and won the War of Independence against Great Britain. Maybe we should have stayed with England and we would be much happier and more peaceful. Before anybody gets mad at me, let me give my reasons.  [Korea Times]

If you are wondering Jon Huer is a Californian that got his Ph.D in sociology from UCLA and is just another example of a California liberal hating his country.  He could definitely “talk about interesting things at dinner” with Gwyneth Paltrow.  Anyway he goes on to explain his dislike for his country.

His first complaint is that he wishes the US lost the Revolutionary War to Britain so the US could be happy nations like Australia and Canada. For countries that are allegedly so much more happier than Americans, how come both Canada and Australia have nearly the same suicide rates as the US?  Huer goes on to say that everything in Canada and Australia are better then the US mentioning things such as crime rates.  First of all statistics in different countries are gathered in different ways.  So if the statistics are not collected in the same way then they are useless.  However, just to further shoot down Jon Huer here is an exerpt from the 2008 Australian Crime & Safety Report:

Australia’s urban crime rate is on par with most large cities in the United States that have medium crime rates.

As far as Canada they allegedly have a violent crime rate twice that of the US:

Gottlieb cites an article by Canada’s National Post columnist David Frum where he revealed that “Canada’s overall crime rate is now 50 percent higher than the crime rate in the United States.” Moreover, “Since the early 1990s, crime rates have dropped in 48 of the 50 states and 80 percent of American cities. Over that same period, crime rates have risen in six of the 10 Canadian provinces and in seven of Canada’s 10 biggest cities.”

He also cites the most recent complete data available from both countries that shows that in 2003, the violent crime rate in the United States was 475 per 100,000 people; while up north, there were 963 violent crimes per 100,000 people. The figure for sexual assault in Canada per 100,000 people was more than double that of the United States: 74 as opposed to 32.1; and the assault rate in Canada was also more than twice that of the states: 746 to America’s 295 for the people.

Moreover, he cites research that showed the figure for sexual assault in Canada per 100,000 people was more than double that of the United States: 74 as opposed to 32.1; and the assault rate in Canada was more than twice that of the United States: 746 to America’s 295. Also, in 2005, Toronto had 78 murders; that’s a 28 percent increase in homicides since 1995.

Remember what I said before about statistics, but obviously both Australia and Canada are not the low crime paradises that Huer makes them out to be.  Huer makes a huge leap in logic by claiming the US would become free and independent in time like Australia and Canada if the colonists did not launch the Revolutionary War.  For having a doctorate degree in sociology Huer definitely doesn’t know his history considering that the British learned from their experience fighting in the Revolutionary War to better manage their colonies so they would not have to fight another expensivie revolution.  There is absolutely no guarantee that Canada and Australia would have evolved the way they did if it was not for the American Revolution.

Next Huer goes on to complain that Americans do not pay enough tax like the Canadians and Australians.  Well if you look at the income tax rates for the three countries they are all nearly similar overall:

Huer then claims that American tax payers are not paying enough taxes for public schools.  I paid $2,800 in property taxes last year for the public schools in my area and Huer doesn’t think I am paying enough?  I don’t even have any kids in school to get anything out of that tax money.  In fact when I have kids that are of school age my wife and I will put them in private scholl instead of the substandard schools my $2,800 tax bill go to pay.  I have to wonder if Huer owns in property in the US since he is living in Seoul?  If he doesn’t he has some nerve claiming people like myself are not paying enough in taxes for schools. Plus if you look at the graphs in this report provided the UN, the US is one of the world’s leaders in education spending that tops both Canada and Australia.

Huer then goes on to complain about massives deficits but earlier in the article he complaining about the lack of universal health care in the US and more funding for schools that would only further increase the deficit.  Probably the most outrageous claim by Huer is that it was a “national humiliation” to have assistance from the French during the Revolutionary War.  He tries to tie the French help to the US-ROK SOFA agreement being a humilation for South Korea.  What is especially ironic about this statement is that Jon Huer is dependent on the US-ROK SOFA considering he teaches at the University of Maryland extended campus on Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.

The article is filled with plenty of more crap, but I think everyone gets the point by now because Jon Huer isn’t worth any more of time responding to.  Isn’t it incredible that this garbage is worth a Ph.D from UCLA?