Quote Originally Posted by Oneironaut View Post
What is it, exactly, that makes someone Anti-American, vs. Critical of "America (meaning its flaws, whether its government or its cultural aspects)"?

Where is that arbitrary line? If I imply that I "fucking hate" America's policies, as set forth by government, does it mean I hate my country? If I condemn foreign policy, and make a case for 9/11 being a byproduct of that foreign policy, and have countless things about how "what goes around, comes around," when discussing the terrorist attacks, does that mean I hate my country? Or is "anti-American" just a semantic argument, like when Sean Hannity uses it, every time someone says something about the U.S. government?

If one can be damning of the American government's policies, and express awareness of atrocity that was brought on by those policies without being "Anti-American," what makes them fit the label of "Anti-American?"
The line is between hating certain policies and hating the country itself. When somebody says that using nukes to end WWII in 1945 creates some strange magic that makes the United States achieve a moral debt from the gods or whatever so that people working in the World Trade Center in 2001 had death coming to them and says, "God damn America!" (not ..."certain American policies"), he is anti-American. When I say that the war on drugs is fucking terrible and has got to go, I am merely expressing strong disagreement with a specific policy.