America bashing, love and pride.

by Norm 49 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  larc

  Cello,

  Yes, most people are apathetic about local government, but I think that would change if the Feds gave the resposibilty back to local government, then people would pay attention, and get involved.

  Let me give an example. Where I live thers was a major flood in 1913. Many homes were destroyed and lives were lost. Within ten years, the city had built a system of dams and levies, such that, such a tragedy will never occur again. Meanwhile, last year, in Houston, I believe it was, there was a major flood because the city never bothered to invest in such protection. The Feds should say, too damned bad, we are not sending you relief funds. Fix your own problems. Decisions like that would get people's attention.

  Now, as far as you and your father, and the mix up, that is a pain in the ass, but no big deal. My son in law, had a problem with identity theft, and it took months to straighten out, not that's a big deal.

  Regarding them controlling us, no, I control them. I use credit to my advantage. Credit is a tool. It is all in how you use it. I will tell you the details later, but I am tired of writing right now.
• 

  fodeja

  Ring,

  If you didnt have pride in your own country
  you wouldn't keep making threads and posts about
  why you personally think the U.S. isn't the country
  it's proud citizens believe it to be.

  your assertion is simply false, and it's quite a good example of black-or-white thinking. I don't understand nationalism at all, which is at least partly due to the fact that I grew up in more than one country and saw a bit of the world during my youth. Maybe you should dig out more of my old threads while you're at it.

  I am proud to live in this country. I dont need to
  travel to the Middle East or Africa to know I would
  rather not live there. I do watch the news.

  If you watch US TV news, "you don't know jack". In other words, nothing. Zilch. To begin with, TV rarely is a good source of information.

  Reminds me of the JWs who go around claiming to have examined all those other religions thorougly, while all their "knowledge" comes from a few paragraphs in WT rags. In fact, they're clueless.

  I would
  love to see one woman on this forum say she would rather
  live in Afganistan than the United States. Or maybe
  even a man perhaps?

  Well, you'd have to wait a long time for someone in Afghanistan to turn up here in this ex-JW Internet forum, don't you think.

  Guess what? It takes a lot, and I mean a LOT, to make people migrate. Most people just happen to like the places they were born in: their families, their language, their culture in general, even the mountains or the trees or the creek where they spent their childhood. So, yes, I am perfectly convinced that many, many men and women in Afghanistan want to stay there, as long as they can live in peace and earn a living.

  I have personally witnessed people in war-torn countries who had been robbed of everything: their dignity, their possessions and their families. Did they want to migrate? Most of them, NO (the few others just wanted to move temporarily). These people wanted to go back to their homes and build things up again. I'm guessing that's human nature.

  Didn't they tell you that on the TV news, right after sports and before the next commercial break?

  f.

  (added sentence)
• 

  larc

  Cello,

  When I responded I missed your last rant about business, government, and religion.

  Your thoughts were so disjointed and foolish, I don't know where to begin.

  It is late and I am tired, so I will only comment on one of your stupid statements. It is the statement about the business of business is to put you in dept. No, that is your job, to put yourself in dept, so don't blame it anyone else, because you did it to your self you dumb shit.
• 

  Norm

  Hi Comf,

  You said:

  And in Norway, Kent, how far do you have to travel to enter another country? Is it as far as, say, Oklahoma is from my home? Or Louisiana? How about New Mexico? To get to another country, do you have to travel as far as I do to get to Colorado?

  A good and valid point Comf, the US is enormeous. It takes me about an hours drive and I am in Sweden, another 5 hours Denmark another couple of hours I am in Germany, etc. But you in the US you have one big advantage over us. For a gallon of gas we pay about $3.60 and the cost of air travel is far lower in the US then here.

  Comf:I believe you would enter another country making a drive as far as from Dallas to Houston, my friend. We don't have to have passports for that kind of travel.

  COMF

  No doubt you would Comf, but now we don't need passports to cross Europe from Norway to Italy which will take us at least 15 hours non stop driving. Depending which route we go it will take us Through Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria.

  Norm
• 

  ring

  fodeja,
  If you dont understand nationalism, how can you even
  begin to assume that I dont? I take pride in the fact
  that I live in the United States, plain and simple.
  How can you even begin to assume that "all" my information
  comes from T.V.? There is so much news about what is
  going on in our own country, that your right, we dont
  get to hear all the happenings in your little neck of the
  woods.
  The example I used of not wanting to live in Afganistan,
  is based on the fact that of all the "enemy" they captured
  there, there was only one American that had joined them.
  It doesnt seem that our whole country is defecting to
  Afganistan to live. You dont see people fleeing this country
  because of the attack on Sept 11th. You seen this country
  band together and help one another.
  If I am so uneducated about the country in which you live,
  perhaps you could tell me which country it is that I know
  nothing about.
  The one thing you stated that I agree with is "IT TAKES ALOT
  TO MAKE PEOPLE MIGRATE" yes thats true. this country is founded
  on that very thing. People came here because aparently their
  "homeland" wasnt the greatest place to live.They moved here.
  And guess what, they didn't move back.
  so, you witnessed in war-torn countrys. Sounds like a
  great place to live.Tribes and villiages fighting with
  each other. People being robbed of everything. Sounds
  like thats a hell of a great country to live in. I'll
  have to plan a trip there someday. As soon as the television
  news lets me know its safe there, and of course, if I can
  manage to pry myself away from sports.[8>]
• 

  gambler

  I think I am lucky to have been born in america but I admit its not perfect.Here are my 3 biggest complanints.#1, we are way too overworked in this country.We get a pathetic amount of vacation time compared to other countrys.I was told by someone that in germany people get three months of vacation a year, is this true?And how much do you other countrys get?#2, we are extreamly sexualy repressed compared to europe and other countrys.#3, we need to do more as a country in the area of altrenative feul and energey but with our current government that is out of the question.
• 

  hillary_step

  Hello,

  What follows are generalizations, but they are perceptions gained by experience.

  Having been born in Europe and yet lived in the US over the years a number of times, I am always amused by the differing attitudes that these national blocks have toward one another.

  For example, I do not think it would be misleading to say that many Europeans reserve a special kind of cynicism for the US and what is perceived as the quality of its life style. ‘Typical American' is a common phrase uttered by the average European, normally accompanied by a strange sort of scowl as if a dog has mistaken a leg for a lamppost.

  Yet Americans have nothing but good to say about Europe and its people, despite British cooking, French fears of deodorant, a Yorkshireman’s obsession with himself, and German...well Germans as we well know are a singular class! Please note how I deftly avoided mentioning the strange Norwegian folk-tale culture, Hvidebjørn Kong Valemon and other cold white bears….LOL

  Why is this? Can it be that the jealous perceptions developed during the 40’s and 50’s in Europe of the unattainable US ‘land of plenty’ and ingrained in us by our parents who survived a scouring war, are still alive and kicking?

  My own experience, for what it is worth, is that I have found the many Americans that I have met to be warm, kind, trusting and giving people. I am frequently overwhelmed by the generosity of folks I bump into, who open their arms and homes to complete strangers without the batting of an eyelid. Wonderful people, I like them.

  It has to be said however, that the US political foreign policies are normally dominated by a stunning ignorance of the mindset of non-Americans. Historically they have not learned the lessons of their failures and it seems that there is a difficulty in understanding anything in the international sphere that is not shaped like John Wayne.

  I hope I have been general enough, I could actually generalize further if requested, but I have to show some restraint…..LOL.

  HS
• 

  Amazing

  HI HS: Enjoyed your good points. You concluded aith this:

  "It has to be said however, that the US political foreign policies are normally dominated by a stunning ignorance of the mindset of non-Americans. Historically they have not learned the lessons of their failures and it seems that there is a difficulty in understanding anything in the international sphere that is not shaped like John Wayne."

  I have heard this "John Wayne" stereotype from people of European background before, but always felt that it was another generalized misconception. Would you expand on how this view is developed in many Europeans? On what is it based? Thanks.
• 

  hillary_step

  Hello Amazing,

  I have heard this "John Wayne" stereotype from people of European background before, but always felt that it was another generalized misconception. Would you expand on how this view is developed in many Europeans? On what is it based?

  Yes, I have actually used the phrase a couple of times before on the Board, I actually thought that I made up the phrase, I hope I do not owe any royalties to someone....LOL

  What I am referring to amazing, is the failure of the US diplomatic corps to correctly read situations outside of its own boundaries, and then have the tendency to view itself as the cavalry coming to the rescue of the rest of the planet.

  Certain examples spring to mind. The studied roots of conflict in such places Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Cuba, El Salvador, Peru, Taiwan for example.

  Where the US expresses an interest in an international concept there is a general misreading of the situation, due imho to them not being able to think like the people that they seek to unify, or perhaps trying to make thm think like Americans. Kissinger, the closest I believe that the US ever had to a qualified Foerign Secretary, wrote an excellent book called 'Diplomacy'. Though it is a general history of foreign diplomacy, he focuses often on this type of repetitive failure of US foreign policy, blamimg not so much the policy but the method of implemenation.

  I understand that Bush consulted closely with Kissinger on the Afghan situation, and it seems more than a co-incidence that he subsequently has left much of the over-the-table negotiations to the French and the Brits, who imho have the most 'clued in' diplomatic corps in the world.

  Kind regards - HS
• 

  COMF

  Hi, Norm! You said:
  

  It takes me about an hours drive and I am in Sweden, another 5 hours Denmark another couple of hours I am in Germany

  I drive twenty or thirty minutes every day from my home in a North Dallas suburb to my office in the heart of downtown Dallas. :)

  I thought it would be interesting to compare some of my own travel figures with the ones you quoted. I don't know these distances off the top of my head; I turned to Yahoo Maps for help.

  A few years back I dated a woman who lived in Mena, Arkansas. I lived in San Angelo, Texas at the time. She drove to meet me first, and then we took turns either driving back and forth or meeting halfway (in Dallas). The distance from one place to the other is 565 miles, a 12 hour drive.

  I drove up to Mena to pick up the cutie, and together we drove to Tennessee to attend the Appalachian Folk Festival. 1000 miles, 18 hours.

  I spent a week with a girlfriend at her family's cabin up in the Rockies, at Eagle Nest, New Mexico. 585 miles from San Angelo, a 10 hour drive.

  A band I was in once drove from Houston to Wisconsin to play at the wedding of a relative of one of the band members (a labor of love). 1385 miles, 26 hours (if you drive nonstop).

  About twice a year I fly from Dallas to Seattle, Washington to visit my son and his wife. Yahoo lists the driving distance as 2,464 miles... but of course, it's a little straighter than that as the 747 flies. At any rate it's half a continent away from Dallas in two directions, as it's due northwest.

  A couple of weekends back I drove down to visit my mom and sister in Kerrville, Texas. 326 miles, 6 hour trip. Slipped on down into San Antonio to go skating while we were there. Tack on another 30 miles.

  This coming Friday morning my girlfriend and I are taking a long weekend (four-day) trip to visit her parents in Missouri. 600 miles, 10 hour drive.

  I've been to Canada via International Falls, Minnesota. From here in Dallas it would be 1,280 miles, a 24 hour trip. But I made that trip while I was living in Hermitage, Tennessee, so it was actually only 1,100 miles.

  Well, I haven't said anything about my trips to Mesa Verde and Durango, Colorado, or to Mount Rushmore, or how I bought the mother of my children a ring made of "Black Hills gold" when I was in the Dakotas, or lost my virginity at the age of 14 in Mexico. But maybe I've made a point without all that.

  Still and all, though, Kent is right: I don't have a passport.

  COMF