Top Ten Livable Countries

Illegal aliens from Taiwan? Or maybe Australia?

Mexico is not on the top of the most diserable list and our proximity has a great deal to do with it plus our citizens don't want those jobs.

Bush doesn't want us to get rid of them -- he wants to find a way for them to stay. You're skirting around the issue. Of all the people in the world, what percentage actually are dying to come to the U.S. to live?

Craven

This country is under attack from all sides but that is not what I fear. I fear most of all a moral decay from inside and I believe we as citizens should not contribute to our own demise by constant criticism. It is so easy to criticize and tear down but very difficult to build a society on solid ground. The constitution gives us the solid ground and millions of good men have died to maintain it.
I just think it is not useful to constantly find fault. I can think of
many, many faults of US citizens and the failures of our gov't but
what earthly purpose would be served by voicing those criticisms.

On a lighter note there is one that I will voice-----The millions of gas guzzling SUVs, all driven by young chicks whose only goal in life is see how many citizens they can intimidate on their way to work.

LW
Right off the top I can think of 40 million Iraqis, then add another
40 million Iranians----is that enough?

perception,

There is little need to criticize what is correct, and I think that the only way we can have any sort of "decay from inside" is when blind jingoism becomes the norm and our improvement stagnates because we are too sensitive to criticize the areas of our country that we need to work on.

Criticism (of the land our forefathers left) is what founded our country, it helps build and I think that your notion that it "tears down" our nation to be patently false.



Perhaps to try to ameliorate our land? I'd rather hear criticism than live in stagnation.

It's our nature to vociferate about the negative (as we'd like to have it changed) than the positive (as this can stay the way it is). I criticise every nation I know anything about, every now and then I try to counter it with a round of applause for the things they do right but it's nothing new that the things that need to change will draw more attention than the things that don't need to.

Please cite your source.

24,001,816 << (July 2002 est.) population data for Iraq.

<minor adminitrative interruption> Craven, Please check your PMs!

Carry on! Nothing to see here!

Craven
We as thinking citizens are well aware of this countries faults just as you are well aware of your faults as an individual. What happens when you are constantly criticized for your faults? If it's constuctive criticizm you probably don't mind once in a while but when it's constant.................! I don't harbor any illusions that I can persuade any of you to change your minds.............in the process why don't you have a little flag burning ceremony?

That's all I will say so no need to respond.

Maybe greatness, or at least, quality of life, would include a ratio of immigrants to emmigrants.

Nope, wouldn't work. But were it possible factor in the ease with which some countries can be entered, and the difficulties involved in leaving others, we might have an objective measure.

perception,

Of course there is a need to respond, I think flags are stupid and would not bother to burn one. It's a piece of cloth and the only respect flags (of any nation) deserve is that overly patriotic people have an emotional attachment to the little cloth.

I'll soon start a thread of positive/negative. For every postive or negative point the converse must also be stated.

What happens when I'm constantly critiscised? If I'm sensitive I get angry but it also spurs me into actiopn, and if they are indeed faults action is prefferable to no action.

Please don't be petulant, come back and respond to the can you opened (like your hyperbolic stats on Iraq), I have not engaged in nation bashing for the sake of it, any issue I raise is one I care about an want to see an improvement in.

True patriotism isn't shutting your ears and stomping your feet if someone says something bad about your country, true patriotism is wanting your country to be the best it can be.

I wonder if Ireland would be a good place for me to move to. I've had it here. Buy a small pub and name it???

While perception is busy adjusting his rose colored classes and has trouble with his math, I suggest that we have a culture of complaint because we set our expectations too high and fantasize that everyone wants to pull up roots and move to the U.S. In complaining that there is too much criticism, you're failing to prove anything. Suggesting that we should burn the flag? Another diversion. Nothing in evolution ever improved and advanced unless mistakes in design were recognized and changed. Anyone that belives that the forefathers believed that they had the final answer and believe the constitution is not a living document that should evolve hasn't read what these men said about the Constitution. I also suggest we look back and realize why the immigrants came to the U.S. and what they expected. Did they all get what they desired? Did they stay here for the money?

So far, nobody's come up with a legitimate reason why were aren't at the top of the list. Repeated cliches and platitudes won't bail you out.

Well, I must admit to a fondness for flags (and pennants) but if there's one thing silly about the flag-burning issue, it is that the only right and proper way to get rid of a flag is to burn it. Anyway a flag is only a symbol... if a flag is a symbol of freedom, than it should stay that way, not become a focus for stupid rules.

I also think that the "moral decay" is widely exaggerated. There is a decay, and it is a decay of freedom, a decay of really believing in the Constitution and really believing in the Bill of Rights. When every president proudly holds up his ACLU card, then maybe we'll have gotten somewhere.

When people have agendas, it is terribly easy to snipe (for example, at young "chicks" who drive SUV's, while kowtowing to a government regime that insists gasoline and private cars are the only way to go). It is very easy to ignore the elephant in the living room if that elephant is the symbol of your party. Maybe you don't even mind how badly it smells.

By the way, I think I'd like to live half the time in Scotland and the other half in Spain.

I've been going through some pictures of Ireland -- their problem in the past was in being an isolated island but maybe it's truly close to a paradise for different reasons then our minds want to comprehend. The United States is a grand experiment but it's still in the stage of being an experiment. Puffing up our chests and constantly trying to convince ourselves and others that nothing else compares is shameless egotism. It also doesn't make other nations around the world believe we have their best interests in mind. All the good people are not solely in the United States. Horrible thought for some of you but that's not my problem.

BTW, if you've seen Eddie Izzards's hilarious references to flags on the HBO comedy special, you'd be pretty close to what I believe about flags. If you wave them violently enough, they do cause quite a breeze.

Craven

Yes I will respond-----first I apologize for the incorrect population of Iraq----I shot from the hip

I don't however apologize for believing that a National flag is essential and I happen to think that we have a beautiful flag and I'm very proud of it. I was of the opinion that every citizen had a similar feeling of pride-----I'm just disappointed you don't share my feeling.

I still happen to believe that a code of patriotism is just as important as a code of ethics or morality to maintaining a strong sense of nationalism and allegiance , thus insuring our survival as a nation. Statesmanship is long dead-----is patriotism doomed to follow it to the grave? When that happens you can turn out the lights on the USA.

I don't think patriotism is what makes or breaks our country. Patriotism has it's purposes (as does a pep rally) but our nation is greater than simplistic patriotism.

patriotim that counts = wanting what's best for your country

Patriotism that doesn't matter = caring about the simple symbols

Me not caring about the flag, anthems etc is not an indication of lack of pride or lack of patriotism. Just a distain for simplistic patriotism that is based entirely on territorial instinct and symbol worship.

If we had the ugliest flag on earth I'd still feel the same about my country, the flag doesn't make the nation.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Craven
So you think all those white tombstones are simplistic and all those
bodies underneath were simpletons when they were alive.

Gosh it must be wonderful to be so intellectual and superior-----pardon me if I DON'T want you on my side.

perception,

I never said anything about the people who died for our country. It's crass to put words in my mouth. A pathetic cop out.

As to your last sarcastic line, the feeling is mutual. But I'm not going to resort to low blows and balk at defending my opinion just because our opinions differ. That tends to happen every now and then (differing opinions).

I ask once more, please stop being petulant and argue the issues. I never showed any disrespect whatsoever to those who died and you are just trying to avoid having to defend your position once more.