Illustration by Cody Angell

This summer, hundreds of UA students have trekked off to England, France, the Netherlands and other areas in Western Europe to get a taste of something new. Overall, the experiences of different cultures, peoples and even foods will be memorable and positive.

But theyâll also be served a heavy dose of something not quite as healthy: anti-American propaganda.

Western Europe has compiled a list of grievances against the United States ever since our country has become the economic and military superpower it has been for the past century. And they despise us exactly for the reasons we have become so great: low taxes, a lack of absurd environmental regulation, and most significantly, the belief in the ability of the individual.

Western Europeans have convinced themselves that our nation has become so successful out of plain, pure greed: We consume more natural resources than they do, so we must not care about the environment as they do. Our taxes are lower than theirs, so we must not care about the poor as they do.

They just feel sorry for us.

Their governments help to reinforce these ridiculous ideals. ãLower taxes? You donât want to be greedy like America· do you?ä Or, ãYou want to drive to and from work instead of using public transportation? You donât want to destroy the planet like America is, right?ä Keeping up the anti-America rhetoric is essential for Western European governments to control more of their own citizensâ money. Hell, the Netherlands has even gone so far as to legalize practically every drug under the sun, so as to create a nation of people who put up with insanely high tax rates because theyâre too coked up to care.

They say, ãItâs not your governmentâs fault that America is more financially successful than us; no, we donât have as much wealth simply because weâre not as greedy as them.ä

But zipping back to reality, they would find that the reason America accounts for 40 percent of the worldâs wealth is because weâve learned that government can do more by doing less. By staying out of the way, individual risk has been encouraged and our countryâs prosperity has become unmatchable.

Obviously, not every European loathes the United States. But too many do. Otherwise, their taxes would be lower, their nationâs economies would not be crippled by this absurd Kyoto Treaty, and they just might have the guts to support us in the war on terror. (They criticize us for consuming too many natural resources, but wonât condemn the Middle East for acts of terror because theyâre even more dependent on foreign oil than we are.)

Consider the following analogy of Tucsonâs attitude toward Phoenix. Phoenix and the surrounding suburbs have created a fantastically prosperous area where businesses boom and transportation problems are few and far between. Generally, the same cannot be said for Tucson.

Phoenixâs city sales tax is lower than Tucsonâs, which has the dubious distinction of leading the state in that category.

But how does Tucson view Phoenix? As a money-grubbing, anti-philanthropic, self-absorbed city that doesnât have the same values and compassion as we do.

Try and guess which city best represents Western Europe.

If Europeans could trade their nationsâ economic successes with Americaâs, theyâd do it in a second. But they canât (or they wonât), so they decide to hate us instead ÷ itâs just easier that way. Likewise, if Tucsonans could swap our cityâs economic success and development with Phoenix, most of us wouldnât hesitate to do so.

At the end of the summer, a bunch of over-emotional, idealist-driven college students will return from their three-month tour of Western Europe with ãlessons learnedä about America. They will come back with a renewed sense of loathing for our country, their hunger for anti-capitalist hypocrisy fully satisfied, their drive to bash the U.S. government and military wholly renewed.

Itâs not healthy.