When They say "I hate America", what do you think They mean?

McGentrix

Quote:

In my opinion, it only makes you look like one of those loonie liberals everyone speaks of. Way to be that stereotype...

Do you not see that with the statement you just made about liberals you are doing the very thing you accused IronLionZion (long name) of doing and every other "liberal?"

What exactly does the terms liberal and conservative mean if we attach it to every thought or belief expressed under the sun? In American politics I thought it meant just that conservative believe that conserving money is better than spending money on programs and the term liberal meant that one who believes that you should spend money on programs. But now the meanings seems to have expanded beyond recongnition and no one can express an opinion without being put into a label that in effect dismisses that opinion as just "oh, he is just one of those loony liberals" or the other way around, rather than discussing the merits of the statement.

We "liberals" are just as guilty of that as you "conservatives."

I think it is a fair bet to say that our country is divided rather than united-I guess Bush didn't fulfill another one of his promises, he "flipflopped." He was for uniting the country then he divided it. Now he is even dividing the country even more by bringing up the "stupid" constitutional ban on same sex marriages in the middle of an election year just to distract the country on the miserable job he has done as president. Without getting into the issue, you have to admit if you were not thinking from your "conservative box" that just bringing up the issue is sure to cause division and the issue itself divides a group of people and forbids them from things that other people get to do for no other reason than just who they are. But I know, I am just a "liberal" so what I say does not amount to a hill of beans.

I know that clinton and a lot of other "liberals" believe that gays shouldn't be allowed to get married, so I guess that makes me an ultra liberal, oh! but wait, I am against abortion, so now I am not so liberal...

0 Replies

Heywood wrote:

**Insert buzzing sound here**
Sorry, McG. Try again. ILZ was not calling Americans stupid "en masse".
Here's what he said:
I would submit that it is dissenting voices, such as myself, that are the collective instigators of progressive change. On the other end of the spectrum are the conservatives who - like most people, in most times, in most places - are bound by an irrational blind faith in thier country.

So (correct me if I'm wrong here, ILZ) he was talking about the types of people "at either end of the spectrum" when it comes to these things. On one side are those who look more critically at these things, then there are those who refuse to see anything past what blind nationalism will let them see.

Do me a favor and read what he wrote again, with the "hardcore conservative" glasses removed if you can.

Before you go around playing *Insert Buzzing noise here* you might want to remove your own rose-colored glasses and read the posts in the context they were written in instead of moving things around to meet your own agenda.

McG's post was referring to an earlier post from ILZ were ILZ said:

IronLionZion wrote:

Nobody said Americans were bright. And anybody who did, somewhat paradoxically, wasn't very bright. I remember a National Geographic poll last year showing that less than 20% of Americans could even locate Iraq on a map - an this as we are waging war on them!

"Nobody said Americans were bright" sure looks like a comment that covers ALL Americans. Now were exactly in there was he referring to people "at either end of the spectrum" in there? Maybe you should put your glasses back on so you can find that somewhere...

0 Replies

What Fishin' said.

0 Replies

I don't think any of the North Americans here can point with too much pride to how smart we, or our countrymen, are ...

Quote:

"If our young people can't find places on a map and lack awareness of current events, how can they understand the world's cultural, economic and natural resource issues that confront us?" John Fahey, president of the National Geographic Society, said in a statement.

Among the survey's findings:

-Forty-seven per cent of the Canadians surveyed correctly answered a question about the size of the U.S. population. Only 25 per cent of the Americans gave the correct answer.

-Only about one in seven American students could find Iraq. The score was the same when students were asked to find Iran, an Iraqi neighbour. Only 17 per cent could find Afghanistan on a world map.

-On the world map, Americans could find on average only seven of 16 countries in the TAB Quiz. Only 89 per cent of the Americans surveyed could find their own country on the map.

-In the world map test, Swedes could find an average of 13 of the 16 countries. Germans and Italians were next, with an average of 12 each.

-Worldwide, three in 10 of those surveyed could not correctly locate the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest body of water.

-Thirty-four per cent of the young Americans knew that the island used on last season's Survivor show was located in the South Pacific, but only 30 per cent could locate the state of New Jersey on a map. The Survivor show's location was the Marquesas Islands in the eastern South Pacific.

The international survey was conducted for the National Geographic by RoperASW. The results are based on face-to-face interviews with at least 300 men and women aged 18 to 24 in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Britain and the United States.

The questionnaires were in the local language, but the content was universally the same.

link

I found this quite distressing when I first read about it. I'm not liking it any better now.

0 Replies

the national geographic link

0 Replies

Geography just isn't important anymore. I do agree that the results are distressing though.

It's too bad that the US has to spend so much money on defense because of people like Bin Laden and Hussein. It would be encouraging to spend a bit more on our education system. Maybe when peace reigns throughout the globe it will be possible.

0 Replies

I think that Geography is an important area of study, as do a lot of other people, (you'll see if you follow the link, that more students are taking it now than a decade ago). Context can make a lot of difference to our understanding to what is going on in the world. It's one of the reasons I enjoy reading, and talking to, Setanta. He's interested in almost everything - and can put things in context. What was going on when something else happened. Where were they, where were they going, who paid for it, what physical/financial/political/religious obstacles were there? That good old 'no man is an island' thing. No country is an island either - and we need to know who's near who (among other things).

Now, this is very digressive from the original question, but ... I went to a fascinating concert a few years ago. It was a concert, and associated lecture, reflecting the music Marco Polo would have heard on his travels - and it gave me a whole different understanding of his trip. Its purpose, its meaning - and the effect on a number of cultures. As a result, I started re-reading the diaries of his travels, and that has given me a new perspective on what's happening in the middle east right now. What's happening now is not happening in isolation from the history and geography of the region.

0 Replies

Quote:

It's too bad that the US has to spend so much money on defense because of people like Bin Laden and Hussein.

It's a shame we spent money on them when we shared mutual enemies...

And as far as that goes, I wouldn't place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the educational system. Most of our televised news does a poor job of contextualizing events, as well. Coverage of Iraq, for example, devotes some time to explaining what's happening where within the country, but I've seen next to nothing to put it in a larger geographical and historical context. Really, how useful is today's footage of American troops standing around when they've been showing similar footage every day for months. How about bringing in a historian to look at the resources available to the country, their trading patterns historically and presently, events in neighboring nations, how modernization has impacted Iraqi culture -- for that matter, what are the Iraqi cultures? We hear a lot about "the Kurds," but we never see much of them or their culture. It's realluy very uninformative. All we get a sense of is how our military action is proceeding, completely decontexualized, as though it were a video game.

0 Replies

I got all the sample questions correct. I am even more concerned now that I have seen some of the questions. I do have to note two things:

1. Whatever they are doing in Sweden really needs to be studied and exported.
2. More Americans knew where the Pacific Ocean was than did the Swedes. Cool

0 Replies

Must resist ... cannot allow American pride to overwhelm brain ... no Fedral, don't do it! ... can't fight it anymore!

Yes! Only 25% of our young people can find places like Iraq on a map. (I weep for the future too.) But 99.982% of our smart munitions can find those places and blow up enemy targets there. Even if our youth can't point to those locations, our weapons are smart enough to find them on their own.

Whew! Sorry just had a bad moment there channeling Curtis LeMay.

0 Replies

and thus the joke from the first iraq war: "our smart weapons are to valuable to use. from now on, we're going to drop american high school students on our targets."

0 Replies

fishin' wrote:

Before you go around playing *Insert Buzzing noise here* you might want to remove your own rose-colored glasses and read the posts in the context they were written in instead of moving things around to meet your own agenda.

Nobody said Americans were bright" sure looks like a comment that covers ALL Americans. Now were exactly in there was he referring to people "at either end of the spectrum" in there? Maybe you should put your glasses back on so you can find that somewhere...

No, "nobody said Americans were bright", in the context of the statistics I was discussing, was a jab at the American worldview. Depending on how loose the criteria you use is, Americans as a whole really aren' that bright. For example, we routinely come last in measurements of educated nations. Again, THIS IS A FACT, not a mere opinion. Are you going to dispute the truth of my statement, or continue to skirt around the issue?

0 Replies

Fedral wrote:

Must resist ... cannot allow American pride to overwhelm brain ... no Fedral, don't do it! ... can't fight it anymore!

Yes! Only 25% of our young people can find places like Iraq on a map. (I weep for the future too.) But 99.982% of our smart munitions can find those places and blow up enemy targets there. Even if our youth can't point to those locations, our weapons are smart enough to find them on their own.

Whew! Sorry just had a bad moment there channeling Curtis LeMay.

Heh. That was actually quite funny. I am tempted to put it in my signature.

0 Replies

IronLionZion wrote:

Are you going to dispute the truth of my statement, or continue to skirt around the issue?

My comment wasn't directed to you nor do I owe you a damn thing.

0 Replies

McGentrix wrote:

Geography just isn't important anymore.

What planet are you living on??????

0 Replies

Fedral wrote:

Must resist ... cannot allow American pride to overwhelm brain ... no Fedral, don't do it! ... can't fight it anymore!

Yes! Only 25% of our young people can find places like Iraq on a map. (I weep for the future too.) But 99.982% of our smart munitions can find those places and blow up enemy targets there. Even if our youth can't point to those locations, our weapons are smart enough to find them on their own.

Whew! Sorry just had a bad moment there channeling Curtis LeMay.

Read this and you may feel differently about American military weapons. It was a story 60 Minutes did this past Sunday.

The Patriot Flawed?

0 Replies

McGentrix wrote:

1. Whatever they are doing in Sweden really needs to be studied and exported.
2. More Americans knew where the Pacific Ocean was than did the Swedes.

1. They likely devote more money per student than what governments here do. (And I include both American and Canadian governments in this.)

2. Not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is reflects sadly on anyone. But I would hope if it was only between the Americans and Swedes that the Americans would know because

a.) one of the 50 states is located in the Pacific Ocean
b.) there are several American military posts on islands located in the Pacific Ocean

and

c.) there is a lot of American history located in this part of the world

0 Replies

...and as to why some folks outside the US get pissed off at the US...

How about this? The mayor of the little town you live in comes a'knockin at your door. He talks about his long-standing friendship and respect, and he's hoping you'll help him out with this...idea...he has, and he's really hoping you will because nobody else on your street is behind his idea. And you tell him you want to phone your wife and your dad and talk to them about it. Then you offer to make him some coffee, and you return to find he's now bugging your phone.

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/international/europe/26BRIT.html

Quote:

British spies were bugging UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's office in the run up to the Iraq war, former UK cabinet minister Clare Short has claimed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3488548.stm

0 Replies

caprice wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
1. Whatever they are doing in Sweden really needs to be studied and exported.
2. More Americans knew where the Pacific Ocean was than did the Swedes.

1. They likely devote more money per student than what governments here do. (And I include both American and Canadian governments in this.)

2. Not knowing where the Pacific Ocean is reflects sadly on anyone. But I would hope if it was only between the Americans and Swedes that the Americans would know because

a.) one of the 50 states is located in the Pacific Ocean
b.) there are several American military posts on islands located in the Pacific Ocean

and

c.) there is a lot of American history located in this part of the world

1. I believe that whatever is being done in Sweden is working because:

2. Knowing where the Pacific Ocean is, was the ONLY question out of 20 that the US scored higher on than Sweden. Thus I was making a joke.

0 Replies

Blatham,

Are you suggesting that we are the sole, original, or even the most aggressive, practicioner of such intelligence collection activities? History does not support that view.

Caprice,

Complex weapons systems often do have flaws, or, as is more likely in the incidents reported in the 60 minutes piece you cited, lend themselves more readily than foreseen to human errors. I can even recall an event in which a Canadian naval vessel collided with a U,S, ship - imagine that! The event took place in the Pacific, but it never occurred to me to suspect that a deficient knowledge of geography on the part of the Canadian captain was the cause. Perhaps they were spies.

I repeat an earlier question I posed here. Why are some Canadians so agitated about the many flaws of the United States? Cause and effect seem far out of proportion, and the complaints either insubstantial or vague and far reaching. Have you reached a state of such perfection that all this really matters so much? Are there no windmills in Canada for you to tilt?

0 Replies

When They say "I hate America", what do you think They mean?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know