To Kill An American

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Neb: Yorick, you can't get any reacion from me by saying stuff about Denmark. [img]tongue.gif[/img] The only opinion I have on my homeland is that this damn place should be nuked for the good of the world. And even if fact is that you ARE better than someone then it's not really polite to go around telling others so. Don't people ever consider the virtue of humility? If the US was humble then perhaps they wouldn't recieve accusations of considering themselves better than others [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Show me the part where it says America is better than Denmark and I'll agree with you. All I read was an article saying what was good about the country. The only competative language was the 'prosperous' one. Which again is a statement of fact.

If you have problems with your own nation - which statements suggesting nuking the place suggest - then I suggest you get over it, and learn to love YOUR country instead of whining when others love theirs. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Anyhow, you could be writing a piece extolling Europe soon couldn't you? That would actually be similar in scenario. People from different creeds and races declaring love for their unified land.

[ 07-04-2002, 06:08 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Neb: If the US was humble then perhaps they wouldn't recieve accusations of considering themselves better than others [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Anyway Americans get their fair share of bloody Aussies raving about how good Australia is. Every opportunity we get.
And Sydney is the best f%$#ing city in the world, right Memnoch?

[K T Ong]

Originally posted by Yorick: KT, where does it say "All Americans are this"? It's generally referring to the collective whole. Where it speaks about an individual, it's still speaking about the country and not making a statement of falicy, that all Americans are thus. The only instance of that is "an American is generous", but then clarifies with a statement of the collective action, not the individuals. On religion alone, the world is far from being a place where you can worship as freely as in America.

I missed this post.

Well, if you want to say what you said above, then I can say that it should be perfectly fine to substitute 'American' with 'human' in LadyZekke's great speech. After all, by your logic, I can argue that it is not speaking about every human being, but about an ideal -- a vision of what the human race can be as a collective whole, of the best the human species has to offer...

As for freedom of worship, we have plenty of that in Singapore, too. Certainly I don't know of any religion being outlawed by the government of Singapore.

BTW, thanx for your appreciation of Chinese culture.

[ 07-04-2002, 06:17 AM: Message edited by: K T Ong ]

[Neb]

Originally posted by Yorick: quote: Originally posted by Neb: Yorick, you can't get any reacion from me by saying stuff about Denmark. [img]tongue.gif[/img] The only opinion I have on my homeland is that this damn place should be nuked for the good of the world. And even if fact is that you ARE better than someone then it's not really polite to go around telling others so. Don't people ever consider the virtue of humility? If the US was humble then perhaps they wouldn't recieve accusations of considering themselves better than others [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Show me the part where it says America is better than Denmark and I'll agree with you. All I read was an article saying what was good about the country. The only competative language was the 'prosperous' one. Which again is a statement of fact.

If you have problems with your own nation - which statements suggesting nuking the place suggest - then I suggest you get over it, and learn to love YOUR country instead of whining when others love theirs. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Anyhow, you could be writing a piece extolling Europe soon couldn't you? That would actually be similar in scenario. People from different creeds and races declaring love for their unified land.[/QUOTE]Let's see now..... "The most prosperous", besides that there's a claim that they're generous, there's also that they accept all cultures, nationalities and religions.... You don't have to say "Better than you" in order to suggest it [img]tongue.gif[/img] If all of those things were true for the rest of the world, why would he say them? He wouldn't. So of course he's saying stuff that's good about the US but not true for the rest of the world.

Sorry Yorick, I can't be bothered to learn to love this xenophobic hellhole. I'm fleeing as soon as I can, being 16 gets a bit in the way of my plans for doing that at the moment. I don't fit in well enough with the culture here, I'm mocked at almost all times for being "different", so it's a bit hard to love this place or it's population.

I COULD be writing a piece extolling Europe, yes, and if I do then I will happily accept all criticism and consider it. But fact is that I'm not, and currently I'm offering my opinion on someone else extolling the virtues of the US. And Europe isn't a unified land, far from it. It might be, sometime in the future, but it's still a good distance away.

[K T Ong]

To Neb:

Hans Christian Andersen was a Dane. You Danes do have something to be proud of. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[johnny]

Originally posted by K T Ong: To Neb: Hans Christian Andersen was a Dane. You Danes do have something to be proud of. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Exactly, and what about Michael Laudrup ?

[Melusine]

Of course [img]smile.gif[/img] And there's much more to be proud of.
I think abhorring your country, ALL of it, is as stupid as being overly patriotic. And Neb, I think you'll find that being shunned for being "different" is something you will find everywhere. Rather than fleeing the country, perhaps it requires a change of mindset to overcome it, or you'll just end up disappointed.
Anyway Yorick, the comparison with Europe doesn't really work because I think it's undeniable that American patriotism is something unique to that country. There are many other countries (I'd count most European ones among them) who do not think in such terms. Not saying either of the two attitudes is better or worse, just that they're different. It's a cultural difference, and therefore it's hard for some Europeans to understand American patriotism, and hard for some Americans to understand the European take on it. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Neb]

Originally posted by Melusine: Of course [img]smile.gif[/img] And there's much more to be proud of. I think abhorring your country, ALL of it, is as stupid as being overly patriotic. And Neb, I think you'll find that being shunned for being "different" is something you will find everywhere. Rather than fleeing the country, perhaps it requires a change of mindset to overcome it, or you'll just end up disappointed.

Sorry, I've had it with Denmark, I don't fit in with the culture here. And doing so would require greater personal sacrifices than I'm willing to make.

Melusine, what's "different" varies from place to place. What I'm shunned for being in Denmark might be accepted other places.

Besides that, I can't really think of anything to be proud of about Denmark, possibly the H.C. Andersen thing, but I've never really considered him anything special.

[Neb]

Originally posted by johnny: quote: Originally posted by K T Ong: To Neb: Hans Christian Andersen was a Dane. You Danes do have something to be proud of. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Exactly, and what about Michael Laudrup ? [/QUOTE]I hate soccer [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by K T Ong: As for freedom of worship, we have plenty of that in Singapore, too. Certainly I don't know of any religion being outlawed by the government of Singapore. BTW, thanx for your appreciation of Chinese culture.

Actually it's quite restrictive. You can't publicly prosytetise for one thing. If your religion demands publicly prosyletising, you are not free to follow your religion.

Try telling Christians in India and Pakistan and China for example, that they have freedom of religion. We've just covered over 2 fifths of the world just with those three countries.