Arrogance

I was at Venice Beach yesterday looking for set dressings and ran into a political argument on the street between a black guy and a british guy...the black guy was saying, the US is the freest country in the world and if you europeans have a problem with it go back home. The british guy was telling him that he affects the world and he's arrogant and pig-headed. I actually didn't listen for too long because I was in a hurry and they were yelling loud and not listening to each other - but it still does not make sense to me, this european and middle eastern claim that the US (sic - we) are wrong because we're arrogant. What the hell is wrong with arrogance? I'd rather be arrogant and right, that humble and wrong. I'd rather know and feel like I was doing the right thing, behaving a moral manner, than be self-depreciating and fucking people over.

I don't understand this charge, why it implies that we should be opposed or deserve to be put in our place. It's as if they don't want to examine themselves and their own problems and like to project it onto us and the best they can come up with is not that we're evil or even bad, but simply arrogant. Pathetic.