Since it’s fashionable today for everyone on the planet to bash the United States on just about every topic, people have moved on to the pettiness of The United States of America and its commonly referred to name as America. They piss and moan that the United States is claiming superiority over other countries in North America by taking the terms America and American and claiming it as their own.

When you actually educate yourself, you’ll discover that Mexico’s official name is Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (The United Mexican States). They do not cal themselves the Mexican States of America.

Canada isn’t called The United Provinces of America. They are called Canada. Canada was proposed as the name to unite all the provinces in 1867. The Kingdom of Canada had been suggested but was considered too pretentious for a new country and they didn’t want to anger the United States so soon after the US Civil War in which Great Britain had supported the Confederate South. They settled upon being called the Dominion of Canada under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Other names that had been considered were The United Colony of Canada, The United Provinces of Canada, The Federated Provinces of Canada and The Republic of Canada. The Dominion of Canada was in common use until the 1950s when Dominion was removed from all official documents.

Brazil is the Republica Federativa do Brasil (Federative Republic of Brazil), not the Brazilian Republic of South America. There is also The Republic of Panama, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Honduras, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Argentine Republic. Are you getting the point yet?

These countries in South America are “South Americans” but you do not see them running around calling themselves that, do you?

I have heard and read that all the other people in North America are disenfranchised because the USA has stolen their identities. These people believe that the people from the United States of America should call themselves USians or United Statesers. Aside from these being ridiculous and idiotic sounding names, there is no reason not to call people from the USA Americans.

No one uses these terms except for the few fanatical people who are afraid of accidentally being labeled as an American. I have traveled to many different places and have been mistaken as French and German, yet I didn’t freak out because of someone’s misconception. I politely corrected them. It’s not America’s fault that the Canadians are so paranoid. Perhaps they should take to wearing jackets with a giant maple leaf on the back when they travel or wear t-shirts that say, “I’m Canadian, not American,” if they are so worried.

Are we not also disenfranchising the people from Mozambique, Lesotho, and Botswana when we call South Africans, well, South Africans, simply because those countries are also in a region called South Africa? No. They are called that because they are from a country called South Africa! The USA is The United States of America. It is shortened to America because it is simpler to use. No one walks around saying, “I am from The Federative Republic of Brazil” or “I am from The United Mexican States.” They always state, “I am from Brazil” or “I am from Mexico.”

Everyone in the world knows that when you say, “I am an American,” it means that you are from the United States of America. No one confuses you with being a Canadian or a Mexican or Brazilian. It is only in the last few years that this small nitpick has started to surface. If such petty differences are all you have to talk about, you should really try to get out more and see and experience the world. It is foolish stupidity to think that these semantic problems are all we should be talking about with all the bigger problems in the world.

Please, when you have figured out world peace and saved the world from starvation, then such minor things may be acceptable to argue about. If you wish to discuss the debacle that is Iraq or America’s ever over-reaching arm into everything, then, yes, that is a real problem to be discussed and debated. There are bigger things we should be worried about than a few people, sitting at home, hiding behind their computers, who constantly get their panties in a bunch because they were accidentally called an American.