Don't The Americans Seem To You Sometimes Like

do you have ANY proof of this?

 

the concept of "America" is another devisive construct developed by the families that run the world. They profit by pitting one group against another.


wake up and smell the coffee!

governments are puppets controlled by the ultra-wealthy.

I am not "American" tho' I have never been outside of the "United States." I am a living being on this planet with (apparently) a greater awareness than 99% of the other living beings here simply because I don't buy into these illusions.

I live on this planet; the US govt is a parasite feeding on me and many, many others here. Other governments do more or less the same thing. We are each and all in the same planetary boat, which is constantly in danger of sinking!

Love is the only hope. Love all life here and protect it! Don't believe anything you see or hear from any govt! We Are All One!

 

i refuse to be called american. i refuse to be the property of any government. i dont care what they say. i have freed myself. fuck the world

 

they all suck

 

from what you say, i think you dont know what it means to be american in the slightest.

pity, another example of why our education needs drastic improvement.

 

No, I didn't miss the point at all. you're implying that voting and paying taxes and so on are good things IN THEMSELVES.

I think that's wrong.

paying taxes can be a good thing only when you're absolutely sure that your money are spent to do only good.

voting is good only when you're 100 % sure you choose a man that will make the world better.

and you CAN'T be absolutely sure in none of these, unless you're able to "partake in the crude mechanics of the system". otherwise, you can just HOPE that what you give your money and your trust to is good.

'they ARE MEANT' is a crucial phrase here

here again your point of view is based on presuppositions that are not necessarily true in all the cases.

I even claim they're true oin very rare cases.

you say, the forces of government are there to keep our countries free. well, how many times has America been attacked during its history? JUST ONCE, on 9/11. what did the army and the police to stop that? NOTHING. they could never do anything to fully prevent every violent act, unless they learn to read the thoughts of every individual and know what s/he's up to.

my own history shows the same. the modern Bulgarian state, as it exists from 19 c. on, has been attacked on its territory just once. it's true, the army did great then, but it was an army hastily composed of ordinary people like you and me, cause it was just after our Liberation.

in all the other cases, it is YOUR CONTRY that engages in conflict outside its territory. that goes for the US, for Bulgaria, and, if you look closely, to any other country. armies don't defend us. most of the time their job is to look for trouble in remote places.

as to the police, have you ever been to police-free zones like some university campuses in the US and Europe, the Red Light District in Amsterdam, Christiania in Denmark? if you have, then you've noticed that the chance to get robbed or killed in such places is no greater than everywhere else, if not lesser (as also confirmed by the criminal records). the reason for this is that such places exist based on some free aggreement by their inhabitants and visitors, written or unwritten, that sets rules by itself, not forcefully imposing them to everyone. to live by such conditions means you have to have ETHICAL INTELLIGENCE, you have to have conscience, you have to know how to behave and not do damage to other people. and that is learned by the individual and instilled by the family. State cannot teach you what's right or wrong, your close ones and your own conscience teaches you. if you believe that state is there to teach us ethics, then you should support not democracy, but some form of theocracy when the ruling caste are some kinda priests receiving direct orders from God on what's right or wrong. and even suh forms of goverment can't guarantee on 100 % the morality of each and every subject.

I'm not offended by you being proud of your country. I just think you're proud of ity for the rwrong reasons

I agree.

yeah, you got me right. how do you determine who's greater? by the impact made on the world as a whole? that leads to some ridiculous results IMHO. being able to tell your message to more people is most of the times due to pure chance. a person strugling for freedom in a remote region and known only to a binch locals who look up to him is by no means lesser than a world leader that is known to millions. it is one's attitude that counts. you do what you have to do to make any part of the world within your reach a better place. if you can't save the world you can at least save your own village but that doesn't make you a more unworthy person just because you don't have global impact.

now we reach the question 'what does it mean to make the world a better place'. that's as tough to answer as it is important. IMO, that means simply 'live and let live', which is by no means just "sitting selfishly idly by". it is not struggling to impose what YOU think is good to the whole world at any cost. you should stop and think before doing something that you deem good for someone else: is that really good by his/her own standards? does s/he really want me to intervene? what are all the possible consequences of that and will it actually make people happier?
that means, sometimes you have to do something and sometimes you have to abstain form action. again, action cannot be a value IN ITSELF, just because it's action and not idle sitting. the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, you know.

I know, it's a bit relativistic, but being realtivist is way better and can do less harmthan being self-righteous.

 

P.S. sorry for the typos, I'm in a bit of a hurry here and my connection is a bit slow to preview messages before posting.

 

so why do americans vote anyway? its a joke really. "your vote matters" haha! shaaa right. tell that to the electoral college

 

Some people are speaking about "countries" like if they were living creatures. What does "country" mean? What does it mean to "make your country grow"? Who's growing when you let "your country grow"?

All I know is what characterize man is the use of symbols and language. Some people use a black flag, others use stars & stripes or red flags to confirm their social feeling of freedom and independence. Nations are also such a construction, so what does all that "for your country" really mean? And who benefit?

love and understanding,

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\/_( *)_( (_ */"" @@ (_) (_(* )_( .. )<,

 

Our money goes for lots of things, only meant for good.

Just because an individual may use it for evil purposes does not remove the intent of the person who donates taxes.

As i said though, it is a lot that makes you a good citizen, not just paying your taxes.

Are you going to argue whether a person who donates their time at a retirement home is a good citizen or not? You are sticking on one particular thing to try and prove a point.

Actually, we were attacked in 1941 at pearl harbor. We were attacked in Texas to start the mexican american war. You could argue that we were 'attacked' by british ships in the atlantic ocean to start the war of 1812.

But yes, mostly americans fight away from our homeland. So? Our defense goes beyond our own borders, as ww2 proved. We cant simply defend only our own land and expect to remain free; we need to keep other people free too.

I worry mostly about intent; i cant guarantee that no evil person will work for the US government and do something bad. However, if they do something bad in our name, i hope we will make him pay for it.

When did i say why i was proud of america?

Why cant india be proud of Gandhi and America of MLK? As for the 'how do you determine who is greater?' Well, not every country has a gandhi or a mlk.

Some countries have been found on the wrong side of history(germany and japan during ww2).

Countries should be proud of what they offer, instead of trying to say "no one is better than me!" as a reason for not producing great people.

There are some clearcut answers here: killing people = bad, helping someone = good. Obviously there is a huge gray area here. I do tend to take the 'live and let live' mentality too. I'd much rather people 'sit idly by' than rob or kill someone. However, i admire people who dedicate their lives to helping others. But as for the question, as i said, being a good citizen makes the world a better place. And before you go on about 'what if the government is evil,' i'll say that you're not being a good citizen if you allow such thing. German citizens were not good citizens for allowing the Nazis to do that in their name.

Ultimately, i'll do what i deem good. There are of course times that it is none of your business, but not always.

 

Good question, and i think this may answer a lot of questions.

The American flag means a lot to americans because it represents our ideals; not exactly the country. America therefore = our ideals: freedom, liberty, justice, equality, and so on. When i say "I love America," i dont mean i love george bush, it means i love our ideals.

my allegiance isnt to the government per se, no ruler or anything like that. My allegiance is to freedom.

 

Thanks Megara. But all people share those ideals: freedom, liberty, justice, and equality. But such terms are very broad, you know. They can be interpreted in several ways.
We're all brought up in cultural contexts that has very strong influence on the way we interpret these ideals. Ideals that americans might look upon as universal truths might be interpreted as pure oppression in another cultural context.

Thanks for your reply,
wolf.

 

I see equality(in freedom) as the perfect ideal. If another culture sees that as 'pure oppression' than i would seriously wonder about their culture. Ultimately, i would think that their culture has been dictated by kings, emperors, oligarchs or whatever to indoctrinate the people into believing that equality is a bad thing.

 

Well, when "equality" only mean economic equality, that could very well mean political and democratical unjustice.

Iraq was a dictatorship during Saddam Hussein, and probably most of all iraqis are happy to get rid of him. But it was a "socialist" dictatorship - the secular ideology was controlling the ecclesiastical power structures. When the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in march 2003 (when Rumsfeld in all his naiveté believed that all iraqi's would welcome them occupiers with flowers) they won their conventional war very quick. But we're still there.
And when the americans took over the country, they divided the population into "Sunnis" and "Shias". They fed different tribes and messed up all the traditional power structures that the dictator Saddam Hussein eliminated. Then the americans fired all of Husseins army + police. They're unemployed now. And they're angry now - surprise, surprise...
People have no electricity. People think it's very odd, since there are so much oil in the country, but iraqi's are not stupid: they know that all the oil is sold to private investors from outside Iraq. The iraqi's were being cheated for billions of dollars and now they have no water, no electricity, only diseases and death.
But that's the market, and the market is democracy. Do you wonder why they do not praise "democracy" in Iraq?

In 2006 the budget on defence will increase 5% compared to 2005 - to 500 billion dollars = 50% of the whole worlds budget on military. Iraq 30-40% of the american budget, and they say that "it only matters of a few naughty terrorists"??? BULLSHIT!!! The coalition is unwanted in Iraq - otherwise it wouldn't cost that much that the working class in United States nowadays has to live on conditions worse than during the 30's.
And if it was just "a few terrorists", the american army wouldn't have so much troubles to recruit. All americans with sense has realized that Iraq was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Today iraqis are threatened by a civil war, and they're threatened by a ultra-religious regime to take over, when the coalition within 1-3 years realize that they need to pull out. That's what I call to mess, and that's what I call to cause oppression.

love and understanding,
=wolf=

 

thats why i said equality in freedom

not sure where all the rest came from.

 

Then explain your definition of "freedom". That term is very abstract. I can take out various meanings of it.

 

do not judge americans by what you see on the tube.
love your country, fear your goverment

 

I think I love America more than I love Denmark. That's quite odd, since I've never been there. But I think I love the deserted landscape in the south-west, and I love the huge forest in the north, and I'm sure that I love the land between the Appalachians and Rocky Mountains. Some people are living in between those mountains, and they're just people. We're all people.
I don't believe that any civilization is evil. I don't even believe them governments to be evil. There are even more destructive forces at play. We created the global market to satisfie our greediness, but its flood will drown us all, unless we soon realize that we've created a Frankensteins monster that we must kill, sooner or later.

I consider lack of economic growth as progress. I wish that the price of oil will double.

love and understanding,
-wolf-

 

After reading that whole long argument I think the reason why a lot people have some "issues" with America was totally skipped I seriously think it is because they play both sides of the card. Many Americans I've met while travelling seem to want to prove that they are both the most loved and the most hated country ever and don't seem to sure which one they want more.

I don't think they're anymore nationalistic then anyone else either, I think it's just a matter of getting more news coverage.

The only thing that I really don't like from america is CNN, but that's just a personal opinion.

It's tripled here.

 

Okay okay please people do not fight... I'm French and I've been living in the U.S for a year and even though it's true, some people are very nationalistic here, they're not ALL like that, especially not here on the east coast. Much worse in Texas and south in general, but even there, they're not ALL like that -