larc,
We don't care about the rest of world. Well, why should we? The Roman Empire and the British Empire didn't care either. Such is life.
OK so you're saying... what? That 2 regimes of history, neither of which had its moral capacity tuned even close to what America's is today, didn't care about the rest of the world, so neither should we? Huh?
Again, why should we? After all, the US is bigger than all of Europe. So, if I learn about Michigan and Indiana, living here in Ohio it is like you poor saps learning about your neighboring countries. So what is the big deal? If we divided up the United States as the world is divided, that would create another 50 countries.
I'm sorry, but this argument is just sad. You can't possibly believe that there is such a wealth of cultural diversity between, say, Louisiana and Texas as there is between, say, Spain and Portugal. If we divided the U.S. into 50 countries, what would we have? 50 little America's, each with its own regional "flavor" to be sure, but each essentially the same, culturally. When we in America learn about folks one state over from us, we're not exactly "gettin' to know a whole 'nother people"...
Do we really care about what you think of us?No.
And this proves what? Similar to the point about not caring about the rest of the world, I think. Not that we should do everything "world opinion" dictates, but why blind ourselves to our own attitudes & actions that have brought world opinion against us? We continue to shamelessly produce consumption, using many times more than our share of the world's resources and pretending pollution doesn't exist, while most "developed" countries (much smaller countries, as you pointed out) in Europe are cutting back and looking for ways to reduce pollution. We don't care about them or what they think about us, and, hey, that's cool. Do we care what we think about ourselves? About our kids, and their kids? Do we want them to be smarter than our parents, or do we want them to piss on the rest of the world and keep saying "everyone wants to live in America, because things are better here than their part of the world"?
Would you like us if you met us one on one. You bet. We are nice people, just like you are, so get off our back.
This is true; individual Americans are nice people, and I think that's been pointed out here quite a few times, but the thread (I thought) was about what other countries think about America, not about individual Americans. And the original post asked for people's opinions of America, so if their opinions include some criticism, get off their backs. Those opinions were provided to the original poster to help with an assignment, not to imply to you "The rest of the world hates YOU, LARC, because you are an AMERICAN."
SpiderMonkey
Edited by - SpiderMonkey on 23 June 2002 1:20:3
