[Duckman2]

quote:

---

CAN'T we all just get along?
I vote for the golbal village. No more racial/sexual/cultural/national seperation and prejudice.

If an alien race attacked earth in a full on assault tomorrow, we'd all just refer to us as "us humans," and them as "dirty aliens."

So, let's pretend the aliens are coming, and we are just humans.

---

You said it

Thats what I was saying in a less descriptive way. Not because I was "Let Down". I'm just sick of seeing this shit about what country is better. Pretend that this forum represents a certain cross- section of what the rest of the world is like. If you analyze the behavior on a mass scale then no wonder we have so many fucking problems in the world. Sorry us "nerds" like to analyze things and not argue about shit that doesn't mean shit. Its good to see the forum has some smarter people than Roundeye.

[aquamire]

People suck. You all suck. I suck. Get over it. No country is an innocent little baby, not even Canada. Thinking your better or your country is better than anyone else is the first step to being an arrogant asswiping person of an arrogant country. So dont say the USA sucks and believe your country is better. You'll be making the same damned mistake.

The one thing I truly like about America is the fact that we take a lot of crap and criticism of our government, because its in our laws that allow people to do that. I can say our government sucks without worrying I'm going to be arrested.

The other thing would have to be our National Parks.

[strata]

gosh!

eck, I despise not having the internet at home.

Anyhow, just a minor response: I never said that Sweden was any better. There are LOADS of faults with Sweden, but again you don't really hear people bitch about it as much. Sure you're bigger. But is there no reason why Americans as tourists are pretty disliked all over europe while most other countries are not?

One would think that you would be interested in WHY this is...

And to say that America invented techno music... ehm. No.

[edraket]

Wow...

I think it is sad to go into details on how good or bad the people in any country are.
I also think it's sad to judge a country on actions it took in the past. You don't have to dig deep to find terrible things in any country. So we are all pretty much bastards.

But I think it is fair to judge a country on the actions it is taking right now internationally. And the US has been behaving rather obnoxiously.
For instance:
Withdrewal from the Kyoto treaty.
or..
Bombing the shit out of innocent people and then dropping food packages, little american flags and radios with pro american propaganda.
I mean..you can't do that and expect people to still like or respect you.
And you can't say I am generalising because you have done that. Not as an individual but as a country.

[strata]

ah, then we're arguing two different things... I'm arguing the individualism where you're arguing the nation... for me the individuals of the country can not be held responsible for the actions of the government as they do not really have say in the issues. This is of course not true in all cases, but in the issues mentioned =)

So yap... back to work.

[Lunatique]

Just to set things straight.

The UK dudes invented techno music.

The Americans, however, invented house music.

There.

[Steven Stahlberg]

quote:

---

Bombing the shit out of innocent people and then dropping food packages, little american flags and radios with pro american propaganda.
I mean..you can't do that and expect people to still like or respect you.

---

They didn't "bomb the shit out of" innocent people. Many were killed, sadly some were innocent, most of the dead were Taliban. Many more innocents were saved by the removal of those animals.

Are you suggesting that the food parcels were a bad idea, that they should have ONLY dropped bombs? Great. Take away the food from starving people, good idea.

There was propaganda, aimed at the Taliban, which are notorious for defecting and deserting, switching sides when it suits them. I'm sure the propaganda made some of them defect to the Northern Alliance, which would have reduced the amount of bullets flying through the air. Again, are you suggesting this is a bad idea?

Yes, I expect all fair, intelligent people to look at the war in Afghanistan and respect the USA for what they did there - a well executed military action that was successful on all mission parameters, with minimum loss of civilians and US soldiers, a fitting response to the biggest terrorist atrocity in history. Which also incidentally saved Afghanistan's collective ass.
I'm not american, I don't even like Bush, but I have to respect what they did this time. They could have nuked the place, feelings were running so high here. Instead they collected money and sent food and blankets.

An old friend of my wife's - still in Sweden - was going on in her emails the same way during the war, about how awfully the US was treating Afghanistan, murdering babies, then insulting them with food, blablabla, 100,000 kids risking to die from the war, blablabla, disrupting relief-efforts in the region, blabla, nothing the US ever did was good from her point of view, all bad. An old socialist of course, and I shouldn't really care what she said, except I know most other swedes have the same opinions, and I'm guessing, in fact most europeans do too.

It just pisses me off when people leave the facts behind because they see reality through a filter - in her case the filter was the Swedish/socialist/anti-american point of view. Fuck America, let them fall off the face of the earth, the world would be better off if they never existed. 9/11 didn't happen in our country, so why should we care?
Yes, she had the same old argument, "If it had happened anywhere else americans would not have cared..." There certainly would have been a reaction, but of course not so strong. So what?! Was she any better, did she care very much about 9/11? NO - because it hadn't happened in her backyard! But she couldn't see that this is human nature, she saw it as typical american contempt for the rest of the world. Newsflash to everyone living in a small european country: USA is so much bigger, generating so much more news, that people living in it WILL have a harder time following news anywhere else. You would too if you lived here.

Afghanistan is better today because of the war, people can keep songbirds again, listen to and play music (music was even forbidden at weddings!), women can hold government positions, men can cut their beards off if they want without fearing for their lives, no more kidnapping of teenage girls, etc etc... Be fair, give credit where credit's due even if you have a personal dislike for someone.

[elam]

Google: techno history

One of many:
http://music.hyperreal.org/library/machine_soul.html

[edraket]

Steven Stahlberg...
I guess europeans see things through a filter.
I just hope you realise that everyone does. Including you.
And I don't think anyone will know the whole truth about what actually happened.

So what explanation did they give you for walking out on the convention about the kyoto treaty?

[Tarandon]

Solution 1: If you don't want to get hit in the face with a dodgeball, then dodge it!

Solution 2: If you don't want to get hit in the face with a dodgeball, then make sure you get hit early on in the back and pelt all the people you hate.

Solution 3: If you don't want to get hit in the face with a dodgeball, your not a man, go play with the girls.


Those are my 3 cents, and to add a fourth, Canada schooled the Yankees twice at hockey in their own backyard. And it was Oh SO Sweet!

Toodles,

[balistic]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lunatique:
Just to set things straight.

The UK dudes invented techno music.

The Americans, however, invented house music.

There.

---

Techno was coined by Juan Atkins in Detroit to describe the music that started coming out of that city in the early eighties. The UK was one of the first countries to embrace techno, and a lot of techno labels are based there (mine is), but that's not where it started.

http://www.worldtechnonation.com/pages/DETROIT.htm


And regarding imperial measurement, we still use it because, whiles its more computationally clumsy than metric, its much more accurate. Its easier to write and remember:

3/64

than:

0.046875

[ February 28, 2002: Message edited by: balistic ]

[strata]

And in response to Stevens reply: Naturally I can only argue the opinions of those that I know, but I CAN tell you that we did NOT think America had it coming and whatnot. Of course it didn't have the same impact in Europe - as you said, it wasn't our country.
But no, most swedes do not think like that.

I have nothing against America as such, and I'm not arguing that either. What I AM arguing is why Americans are seen the way they are.

The truth is most of the people I know in Sweden have nothing against America the country, nor do we sit around and think americans are dumbasses every minute of the day. Noone here wants america to fall.

And no, most people in Sweden are contrary to what you may think - not socialists.

And just to clear myself of the afghanistan issue - I agree with you Steven, I think America made a wise desicion. They did what they had to do to get rid of Al-Qaida, and ontop of that they did whatever else they could do to ease the suffering. Fine and dandy.

[Queezy]

Having lived in the USSR in the past I really hated Americans. Good for nothing arrogant punks who deserve to fall of the earth, and then I moved to America. Funny how opinions change with experience.

IGNORANCE

[Lunatique]

quote:

---

Originally posted by elam:
Google: techno history

One of many:
http://music.hyperreal.org/library/machine_soul.html

---

Hmmm. Looks like I was wrong about the UK kids inventing techno. It was only RELEASED there first, but made by the Detroit dudes.

So, basically, The Detroit guys invented both house AND techno.

But without the Germans paving the road, it never would've happened.

[Steven Stahlberg]

edraket, yes I have filters too, I know. I haven't listened to any explanations about the Kyoto crap, nothing Bush could say could convince me it was a wise decision in everybody's best interest. He was got to by big business, that's all. That doesn't mean he's evil, just another average world leader. Actually as world leaders go, maybe a bit better than average.

Strata, good to hear, I haven't been back there in a while, so all I had to go on was my wife's crazy friend.

[edraket]

BTW. I apologize for putting my opinion on the whole afghanistan thing like that.
Eventhough I do not agree with what has happened the way I phrased my opinion was rather harsh.

[mannyp]

A couple good thing the Canadians invented for those unfamiliar:

-Television (debatable that its a good thing)
-Electron Microscope
- The lightbulb (originally invented by Henry Woodward, patent sold to Edison)
-The electric car (North America's first)
-electric wheelchair
-the canada arm
-the hydrofoil boat
-IMAX
-Walkie Talkies
-JAVA Prog. Language (James Gosling)
-the zipper
-the pacemaker
-the snowblower (er, I think that was a give-in)
-Superman
-THE TELEPHONE (which, by proxie, would make the internet possible thanks to A.G.Bell)
-Washing Machine

and last but not least -- The Stanley Cup.

[Frost]

Roundeye: Are you not the patriotic one my brother. =]

[Duckman2]

Well Roundeye I'm thankful of you'r brother for helping to protect the US Canadian border, just be thankful he's guarding a peaceful border instead of the North/South Korean DMZ or peace keeping in the Balkans. However it doesn't give you the lisence to be an asshole.
I don't think alot of people realize how big the World Trade Center was, Living near New York City, I had the oppourtunity to visit the trade center many times, each time I went I was awestruck that people could build shit that big. The terrorists couldn't have picked a target that would have had a larger collective impact in terms of economics, sheer destruction, loss of life, and defenseless. How many other places can you find over 100,000 people in such a compressed space? Pictures just didn't do it justice, you simply can't grasp the magnitude of what happened unless you've actually spent time there. Not to mention the Pentagon, the nerve center of US military operations. I simply can't put into words how BIG these attacks were. Thats why they provoked the response that they did. I happen to think that we practiced incredible restraint militarily, we could have steam rolled Afghanistan like the USSR did in the 70's. We gave them plenty of time to give up without bloodshed, but no they had to be arrogant, they( Al-Qaeda and Taliban) insisted on digging their own graves. They sure as hell didn't give us the luxury of letting us know that they were going to destroy the single largest peice of real estate in New York City.
I think alot of you are being extremely hypocritical. In essece writing off an entire population as being below you're standards is being arrogant and ignorant, which is what you are accusing Americans of.
To me people are people wherever you go, everyone has dirty hands.

[Returner]

We are all homo sapiens. And in my opinion there is a 80/20 rule everywhere there is living homo sapiens. 20% are ambitious, good hearted and smart normal functioning people. And the rest are not for some reasons.
Its the same everywhere where there arehomo sapiens. And the outcome of how a homo sapien will turn out when it becomes an adult is made out of 2 factors.
They are genetic reasons and upbringing/society.
So all the trashing of other democratic countries seems ridiculous and unnecessary on one level. We are all free people with a mind of our own that we are allowed to use.(unless someone on the forum is an iraq man with a laptop browsing the web against saddams will)
What we should be focusing on is making the whole world democratic and free. Free from religous hauntings and dictators etc.
And I do support US fully when it comes to making the world more free and democratic.

I just hope that there wont be a big nuclear war in the next 200-500 years that will wipe out homo sapien entirely (or whatever we are then) before we can spread trough the galaxy and establishing a more safe existence for ourselfs. An existence where we might not risk wiping ourself out on the pure push on a single red button.
Thats a bit science fiction yes...but it will happen!! (i hope)

Shit that was almost poetic..I gotta sleep now

peace everybody

[ March 02, 2002: Message edited by: Returner ]

[The Magic Pen]

Manny most of the stuff you listed where created by people living in america so that doesnt count

[mythwarden]

posted March 02, 2002 05:30 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well said Returner. ;-)
You don't have to worry about a nuclear war bro. We aren't gonna nuke anyone. If we did, then we're dead ourselves. The whole world would go through nuclear winter.

This is why we dropped the pact with Russia over the anti-ballistic missile treaty. We hit a state of comfort with the Russians. We no longer hate each other...though I can't recall ever hating them anyway.
We knew we no longer had to worry about a powerful country attacking us with nuclear means...what's the point? We'd all be dead.

However...there are those who don't care if the world goes down in flames and those are the ones we have to protect each other from. That�s why we dropped the pact in order to create anti-ballistic defenses. 9-11 showed us we had no other choice.

Personally, there isn't a European Country that I wouldn't love to visit. So much history and culture.

All Americans are made up of people around the world who came together for a common dream.

No more...no less.

You may not like us, but God knows we care about the rest of you. We wouldn't throw out 30% of our hard earned paychecks to taxes...in which a lot of it goes to helping other countries.

We're also the largest supporter of charities around the world. You can't say Americans don't have big hearts. Most do just like the rest of you. We're probably a lot more like you then you think.

So ease up all. Relax and try to enjoy life for what it is.

-myth

Lost in Kira : The Art of Brian Stokes

[FatPenguin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by mythwarden:
You may not like us, but God knows we care about the rest of you. We wouldn't throw out 30% of our hard earned paychecks to taxes...in which a lot of it goes to helping other countries

---

How much of the US budget goes to foreign aid? I thought it was a lot less than 1%

[mythwarden]

Penguin,

I'm not sure my friend. I do know this though...we have 1/20th of the worlds population...and yet we have 40% of the world's military spending.

I don't say this to sound like a war monger or that I'm proud of that. I say it because it's far past the necessity that the United States needs to help itself. We pay all that money so that we can send our soldiers overseas to aid other countries in training and for their protection and for our own defense.

That does count towards throwing tax money into the world pot right? Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like that would be fair to say it does. And that itself isn't what I was originally talking about. That's just an example.

If you tell me we are just trying to take over the other countries...then likely you'd just sound biased. We have no interest in taking over any other countries...if we did, then we would have done so long, long ago. Americans are happy with what they have here in the States.

When you ask for our help...we're there for you more often then not. Truly it is because we care man. It's not because we think we're getting some great deal out of it.

So yes...I think its safe to say that a good portion of the money is used for other countries.

And no we aren't perfect, but who is? I thank God the US leads the world. If it wasn't the US it would be another and who knows what kind of wars you would see then.

You don't see too many wars from us. ;-)

We have a system that works that run by the people themselves...and those people are made up of each and everyone of you in some ways.

We're a good natured people who take are children to school each day, work, then come home to be with our families and friends.

Is this very different from you? ;-)


-myth

Lost in Kira : The Art of Brian Stokes

[Lunatique]

Bottomline:

Yes, the United States gets her nose into other countries' affairs. Yes, that gets on some people's nerves. Yes, the United States might not be right in their actions 100% of the time.

Now, anwser this:

What country in the world has done right 100% of the time, and WHERE is this utopia?

What country in the world has FREQUENTLY helped--and I mean, basically saved other countries from becoming completely overtaken on a regular basis?

Where would the world be if the United States didn't sacrifice so many of its own people to interfere in the World Wars--not to mention many other minor wars?

What living conditions would Europeans be in if the United States didnt' carry out the Marshall Plan?

In most circumstances, the United States expressed affection and respect for most of the world, yet we get hostility, disrespect, ridicule, and hatred back. If it's from the countries we had fought, it's understandable. But from countries we've helped?? Something doesn't seem right there.

The next time a cruel, crazy, powerful war monger decides to swallow the entire Europe, before asking the Americans for help, think about how much you hate us. And the U.S., even knowing how much the rest of the world hates us, will still send in our troops to stop Europe from being conquered.

When you see the first American soldier waving to you and coming to your aid, your hatred will turn into tears of joy.

Then decades later, people will become forgetful and ungrateful.

The cycle starts all over again.

What a wonderful world we live in.

[Returner]

Valid thoughts mythwarden.
But when you think of it someone with Osama bin ladins intelligence, money and other resources can easily destroy anything he wants after some planning. And i dont think a missile defensive system can defend you against anything but direct missiles.
It wont protect you from small atomic bombs hidden away somewhere where you least expect it.
A mind is a terrible thing

In some time the european union will be as powerfull and important as the US on the global arena...we are closing in on you! (felt for some European patriotism even though it wasn�t any connection)

[ March 03, 2002: Message edited by: Returner ]

[collin]

Alright I'm finally a member of the forums because of this discussion. I'm only a Junior right now in an American highschool, but here's what I think. First I might as well talk about the main topic. I don't think dodge ball is much of a problem in schools, I love the game and it's fun to smash a rubber ball into someone's face. It's not really a problem, because in most schools they give you a choice what you want to do. You can either play dodgeball or do some other sort of physical activity.

Now for the subtopic that seems to be bigger than the normal topic. For everyone who disagrees with the fact that America is on the top of the world, they are wrong. Just look at the economy and the standard of living. I don�t hate Canada or any country really, but I don�t think I would want to live anywhere else other than America(Maybe Ireland). Now you could go on about the good and bad things about any country for hours(except maybe Lichtenstein), but it�s pointless.

I�m only going to argue with Coaster and a few others right now. You listed the bad things America gave the world the first one was Slavery. What the hell are you thinking? Slavery has been around in the world for over 3,000 years. Slavery existed in America until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the civil war and slavery ended once the war was over. Now others will talk about the KKK or other hate groups like the Pale Faces. These were started by poor white Southerners who were mad about their loss of the war. Hate groups will always exist in every country but look who�s in them. The members of these groups are mostly people that a country is ashamed of.

As for the group saying that Education is crappy in America. I think it�s what you make of it. I hate school, always have, but I�m not an illiterate dumb fuck. I can tell you that everyone at my school has learned about every war, depression, and presidential election in America history.

[ March 03, 2002: Message edited by: collin ]

[Poxin]

Hey everyone! *slap slap* wake up! it's all a dream!

No war is a good war

All life on this planet is one and the same. We all breath the same air, drink the same water, and relax under the same sun.

The sooner we all remember this the better things will be.

thank you

[ March 03, 2002: Message edited by: Poxin ]

[The Magic Pen]

colin American education is # 1 in the world. We have all the best teachers and school .when you hear people saying that crap it's total propaganda. Let me point out a few

Harverd
Yale
MIT
Brown
Washington U
Notre Dame
Princeton
Cal Tech
Pepperdine
many many others

Other countries like England have 1-2 good schools at best . Rich people send there children to school in America the world around for a reason.

[Steven Stahlberg]

quote:

---

but I don�t think I would want to live anywhere else other than America(Maybe Ireland). Now you could go on about the good and bad things about any country for hours(except maybe Lichtenstein), but it�s pointless.

---

I feel pretty sure that if you travelled a lot, learned new languages and met new friends, and I asked you again 20 years from now, you'd have a very different opinion about the rest of the world.