Well about how to learn control on such issues as "someone else's understanding of your country", I was just lucky to be a member of the original fuckfrance.com when it started, shortly around the beginning of the war in Iraq. I first went there by curiosity, but ended up fighting verbally with the most conservative republican pricks in the world. Ex-marine officers who hated arabs and French people. Average joe schmoes who didn't hate anyone in particular but still believed that France was evil. French people who agreed that France was evil and who were totally pro-Bush.
To fight them I had to turn into them, it was very ugly. But one day, bam! I managed to make peace with some of them, and that day I started liking the place.
(but shortly after that a new wave of idiots joined and started harrassing again and at that point I left, too tired to have to go through the same stuff over and over again).
One thing I learned over there, is how to get people annoyed and angry. It's actually very easy to get people on the defensive. You, for example, can 1) gang up. This consists of teaming up with another person or two and start claiming that "you just owned the other guy haha what an idiot we really got him haha", when in fact the person you're attacking has been carefully arguing, documenting his claims. this gets carefully debating people very angry, particularly when you on the other hand have just been superficial and insulting. Or 2) claim that you've already been through this and that the person in question is boring and invite him/her to re-read everything on the forum. etc etc
And learning all of this, makes you more prepared for it.
I don't recommend this website, if it still exists, for people who are nice, gentle and who think that all of humanity can just get along. It's not full of harmless people. Some people over there really hated our guts and were ready to bomb the shit out of France. Some French people there hated America so much they were ready to go all-out nuclear with them too. A really ugly website. But a good place to learn how to take it easy.
So in essence, you were screwed. Either you retaliated and were no better than them. Or you tried being calm and you were a French surrender monkey.
It took me a few months to find the middle path. Which consisted of ignoring the ones in it for a fight, and trying to settle differences, in a calm manner, with those not in it for a fight. But like I said, I eventually quit because the ones looking for a fight kept on coming, and coming and coming ... endless masses of adversaries. Way too much to handle. The ratio was like 1 Frenchman against 10 Conservative Republicans, and in such circumstances it quickly gets too tedious.
disclaimer: I'm not zen at all, I'm just beginning to get good at knowing how to avoid getting into trouble.
