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Is America a greedy country?


angel_mage

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Ok I know there'll be a load more posts by the time I post thus but Im gunna find sources..

 

About US friendly fire..

 

[link]http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/10/us-friendly-fire-justice-iraq[/link]

 

[link]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/american-troops-friendly-fire-iraq[/link]

 

[link]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8082525/Wikileaks-Pentagon-logs-show-how-British-troops-repeatedly-came-under-friendly-fire.html[/link]

 

 

In my small amount of research it appears America do not give figures on incidents like this, it is very hard to determine. Oh and it does appear from the figures released that US and UK have same rates.

 

Mistratment and deliberate misinformation during Iraq

 

[link]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9325702[/link]

 

[link]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks[/link]

 

(by the way plenty of information about British bad behaviour aswell)

 

Us bombing Laos, aking it the most heavilly bombarded country per capita in the world, even though it was not involved in the Vietnam war particularly. Also continuing bombing for 2 years after the end of the Vietnam war.

 

[link]http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/334937,50000-laos-survey-finds.html[/link]

 

Detailing that 50,000 Laotians have been killed by the US.

 

[link]http://www.olive-drab.com/od_history_vietnam_laos.php[/link]

 

On the US forcing the Shah back into power and telling him to shooot on peaceful protesters = oh noo radical Islamic country that hates the US. So the US puts heavy sanctions on it making the country even more poor. Nice move guys keep the poor poor..

 

[link]http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BUE/is_2_139/ai_n17214766/[/link]

 

ah [bleep] im bored.

 

ok this doesnt show very much at all really. sorry lol.

 

edit:

 

oh i'm not saying anything bad against americans. im saying america. its hard to debate this, i think britains foreign policies are fairly atrocious. but yeah the standard brit, what can he do? same with america.

 

but the patriotism in america is a bit weird i find.

 

although people who say its the msot patiotic country.. dont know very much. no offense.

in Thailand the national anthem plays hourly in train stations, its ilegal to show disrespect to the king and they're in a war with Cambodia over an ancient temple. Cambodia is also a very patriotic country.

 

this is a siilly argument, but its just the fact the the US government and military make out like they're doing everythiung for the good of the world when in actual facts, they're not.

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Just to clarify on the whole friendly fire thing, even though it is off topic:

 

The reason WW2 cannot be compared to modern warfare is because tactical technology is much different. In WW2, if you saw somebody 100m away, if you didn't have some form of binoculars allowing you to see their uniform, they could have been an enemy or an ally, you would have no idea. Add in that it was a total war which lead to organisational structures in the middle of battlefields braking down, it was ripe for friendly fire on both sides. Communication often broke down in the heat of battle.

 

Compare this to modern conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, you have much slower combat which allows for communication to stay strong (in theory). With technology such as GPS, when you see somebody 100m away, you should know if they are an ally or enemy. Add in to this much more regulated warfare in which there are many targets which you must not shoot, battles will often not break down and keep organised.

 

That is why you cannot compare them.

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When I say government buildings i meant libraries, schools, hospitals all that stuff. Not just government head offices.

 

But whatever you spin it you can't deny America is a highly patriotic country compared to most and that does have its knock on social effects, however slight.

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What's wrong with displaying flags on public buildings? You've proven nothing.

 

It's strange to us Europeans.

 

None of this has proved America is selfish, I don't think you can prove something like that.

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I never said it was wrong.

I just used as an example of a typically patriotic feature of day-to-day life that is markedly visible within the US.

 

The UK and other european nations are not patriotic as such and you barely see our flags anywhere, because displaying them all over the place is part of patriot behaviour

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It was cited further up the thread. Patriotism is know to have social effects due to wanting to see the country as great and mighty all the time. News from the rest of the world gets ignored or overlooked leading to ignorance and news that reflects badly on the country is skewed or ignored.

 

I mean you can clearly see it with hindsight from britian's patriotic days where we believed we ruled the worlds and had the empire and wanted to stamp out the "savage" cultures of people we conquered and viewed their people as "other" and had a general public ignorant to the abusive conditions faced by the empires subjects after we colonised them in their far reaching palces. They only knew of exotic foreign lands.

 

Granted it nowhere near such a pronounced effect these days, but patriotism still does have impact on society in terms of ignorance, or at least willingness to accept ignorance.

You can easily argue it has good side effects too, but in this threads context, particular relating to the picture of fb status, the negative side effects are the relevant element; heck you can even see the patriotic sentiments oozing from some of the status in there, especially the ones with historical inaccuracies.

 

Edit: Ah it's Marco's post on first page that nicely covers what the patriotic ideas and ideals are and their negative effects and he's citing from surveys and such.

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I never said the majority were extremely patriotic.

I just said I thought America was probably slightly worse due to the higher presence of patriotism; its kind of a standard day-to-day thing, like the flags everywhere that is part of patriotism and to someone outside a patriotic society its a bit odd and unusual. To someone inside it is just the norm, but still the presence of the flag helps to imprint the flag and thus the great nation as a day-to-day thing and thus making it a day-to-day part of lives for everyone, whether they are actively patriotic or not; the foundations of patriotism are still there and instilled in them from birth as part of normality.

 

Heck it works in ways most american's probably aren't even aware in terms of world news thats widely broadcasted elsewhere. I certainly talking to american's, who are generally quite well informed, have hit world news events they just have not come across at all in tv, papers or anything because the patriotic influence on news broadcasting didn't see it as relevant the same way other nations do.

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I never said the majority were extremely patriotic.

I just said I thought America was probably slightly worse due to the higher presence of patriotism; its kind of a standard day-to-day thing, like the flags everywhere that is part of patriotism and to someone outside a patriotic society its a bit odd and unusual. To someone inside it is just the norm, but still the presence of the flag helps to imprint the flag and thus the great nation as a day-to-day thing and thus making it a day-to-day part of lives for everyone, whether they are actively patriotic or not; the foundations of patriotism are still there and instilled in them from birth as part of normality.

 

Heck it works in ways most american's probably aren't even aware in terms of world news thats widely broadcasted elsewhere. I certainly talking to american's, who are generally quite well informed, have hit world news events they just have not come across at all in tv, papers or anything because the patriotic influence on news broadcasting didn't see it as relevant the same way other nations do.

 

Moi aussi., i was with some 2 americans and an australian for a while (good times) but one of them didn't know about the boxing day Tsunami in 200(5?)! also about the recent Pakistan floods and the Australian foprest fires. It seems some stuff just isn't news over in America.

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I have to agree patriotism is fairly strange for us in the UK. It's just not something we do. The only time you ever see flags up is when the football or rugby world cups are on :rolleyes:

 

Such blind patriotism is strange to us. I admit that in certain Murdoch papers (ie, The Sun, our version of Fox News, Sky News would be that if there weren't regulations on neutrality), there's an attempt to bring that sort of patriotism to the country, but it's still a fairly uncommon concept.

 

As much as I lean more towards my dislike of America, there isn't much difference between an American who learns everything from Fox News than a Brit who learns everything from The Sun.

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I have to agree patriotism is fairly strange for us in the UK. It's just not something we do. The only time you ever see flags up is when the football or rugby world cups are on :rolleyes:

 

Such blind patriotism is strange to us. I admit that in certain Murdoch papers (ie, The Sun, our version of Fox News, Sky News would be that if there weren't regulations on neutrality), there's an attempt to bring that sort of patriotism to the country, but it's still a fairly uncommon concept.

 

As much as I lean more towards my dislike of America, there isn't much difference between an American who learns everything from Fox News than a Brit who learns everything from The Sun.

 

Brit who learns everything from the Sun says mate all the time and says 'bloody bozzas!'

 

ive done a lot of construction site/laboring jobs and some of the blokes there are so funny, like properlly quoting the sun and jeremy clarkson. but id always argue that tv is more powerful than an obviously taccy paper. i read the sun everyday cept sunday (lol?) for 5 months at work, had a choice of the telegraph, the sun and the mirror. The mirrops just as bad btw. But the politics doesn't come across that much in the Sun, there's generally a 2 page spread for 'our heroes' which is fair imo. Some of the articles are a bit dodgy but I personally don't think it's anywhere near as bad as Fox news.

 

Its good to know most Americans don't take Fox seriously :thumbup:

 

EDIT: also i've been travelling a lot lately and I've come to realise, I AM patriotic. I think every Brit is, but in a different way. Our little traits and such, our slang, our conversations lol. I love Britain, but it seems different in America. It's also not a patriotism for the Government or any particular policy (although I am damn proud of the NHS and housing benefits). It's patriotism for the people :thumbsup:

 

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What's wrong with displaying flags on public buildings? You've proven nothing.

 

It's strange to us Europeans.

 

None of this has proved America is selfish, I don't think you can prove something like that.

I'm not gonna jump into this debate, but i see flags quite often in my European Union forced country.

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What's wrong with displaying flags on public buildings? You've proven nothing.

 

It's strange to us Europeans.

 

None of this has proved America is selfish, I don't think you can prove something like that.

I'm not gonna jump into this debate, but i see flags quite often in my European Union forced country.

 

Fair enough, where do you live? I've only been to 6 Euro countries tbf. maybe i should change it to brits. but the way you talk about the EU makes me think you might well be a Brit :P

 

Do you not like the EU? I love it!

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You haven't shown that this has a knock on social effects or whatever you said.

 

 

Do you honestly see no social problems with patriotism..?

 

Ah, I don't know.. Maybe it's because Britain has already had its "day" at ruling 1/4 / 1/3 of the world and so we know that the legacy our old empire has in some of our former colonies is really not something to be proud of. Then again.. America has done its fair share of oppression around the world in the last 100 years, so you would've thought its citizens might not be so in love with the country, especially after Vietnam.

 

 

Paw Claw may not have a problem with it, but I would be shocked if I started seeing the English flag in the corner of every school, library, police/fire station, hospital etc, or having our nation anthem played out at every domestic sporting opportunity, or it being somehow 'wrong' to criticise the country, or worse still for it to be almost a necessacity for the end of every public speech to end in "...and God bless England."

 

The problem with instilling this sense of extreme pride of a country in citizens is that it leads to a sense of self-righteousness and arrogance. If you've been brought up to believe that your country has some kind of divine right over others then you're not exactly likely to respect the thoughts and wishes of the people that you believe are below you. If anything it makes it easier for a country to oppress another if its citizens, instead of chastising their government, are happily justifying it. Any act of aggression gets people so riled up with the desperation for retribution that they will make sure that someone pays in blood. Just look at how the reaction to September 11th differs with the reaction of other countries who have also suffered a major terrorist attack.

Maybe it's because Britain is such a secular society now, I don't know. I think I'll leave out the relationship between patriotism and the willingness of citizens to believe in a deity, because that's a whole can of worms that I'd rather not open.

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Moi aussi., i was with some 2 americans and an australian for a while (good times) but one of them didn't know about the boxing day Tsunami in 200(5?)! also about the recent Pakistan floods and the Australian foprest fires. It seems some stuff just isn't news over in America.

Just saying this: News around the world gets here, you just have to look for it or pay attention to the news. Mainly the latter.

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What is it my eyes see?

 

 

Freakyhair, you're confusing the government's power to dominate the political world with those of it's citizens; you're going through both of them back and forth you clumping them together. We did not vote in our last voting poll to use drone attacks nor did we discuss the methods of which to install a puppet regieme. Democracies are very tyrannical in their function; for having multiple people passing through the executive offices of the military, security, defense, etc, is highly unreasonable. Believing we have control over those positions is even more unreasonable.

 

Is it safe to assume, judging from your location status which I don't understand but I'm going to guess anyway because I like to be right, you're some Israeli patriot who kills Arabian babies and tortures their parents? You just give off such an aroma you just have to be.

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Moi aussi., i was with some 2 americans and an australian for a while (good times) but one of them didn't know about the boxing day Tsunami in 200(5?)! also about the recent Pakistan floods and the Australian foprest fires. It seems some stuff just isn't news over in America.

Just saying this: News around the world gets here, you just have to look for it or pay attention to the news. Mainly the latter.

You mean the former? Lately Charley Sheen has gotten more air time then the Libyan situation and Japan.

 

By the way, I thank Voltaire for the completely relevant and appropriate quote, which seems to just resonate with the American attitude: "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

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Moi aussi., i was with some 2 americans and an australian for a while (good times) but one of them didn't know about the boxing day Tsunami in 200(5?)! also about the recent Pakistan floods and the Australian foprest fires. It seems some stuff just isn't news over in America.

Just saying this: News around the world gets here, you just have to look for it or pay attention to the news. Mainly the latter.

You mean the former? Lately Charley Sheen has gotten more air time then the Libyan situation and Japan.

Also depends on which news corporation you watch.

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London_BritishLibrary.jpg

 

What is it my eyes see?

 

 

Freakyhair, you're confusing the government's power to dominate the political world with those of it's citizens; you're going through both of them back and forth you clumping them together. We did not vote in our last voting poll to use drone attacks nor did we discuss the methods of which to install a puppet regieme. Democracies are very tyrannical in their function; for having multiple people passing through the executive offices of the military, security, defense, etc, is highly unreasonable. Believing we have control over those positions is even more unreasonable.

 

Is it safe to assume, judging from your location status which I don't understand but I'm going to guess anyway because I like to be right, you're some Israeli patriot who kills Arabian babies and tortures their parents? You just give off such an aroma you just have to be.

 

HAHA! It was my dicing location, dude I can totally see how you can think that.

 

Thats a pretty weerd comment tho tbh. I got pretty strong views on Israel as well if you wanna here them :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

Nah I do get that it's not really the citizens fault, i think I wrote that somewhere. And on a personal level I've never disliked an American over political reasons. Same with Israelis since you bring it up. I hate the Israeli government, but as I said I've done a lot of travelling recently and met a load of Israeli's I [bleep]ing love em lol. Ive chatted about Gaza with them aswell and genrally it turns out they disagree with me but whatever..

 

Also well done, you found somewhere in the UK with flags. None of us said there wern't any but it's damn rare. I hardly ever see flags about, when I do they're usually cornish flags/English flags not UK flags. Oh Welsh flags aswell (I don't go to Scotland or N Ireland V often)

 

But yeah America especially has a bad democracy (no offense) in the way it works. People don't really get any say at all.

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What's wrong with displaying flags on public buildings? You've proven nothing.

 

It's strange to us Europeans.

 

None of this has proved America is selfish, I don't think you can prove something like that.

I'm not gonna jump into this debate, but i see flags quite often in my European Union forced country.

 

Fair enough, where do you live? I've only been to 6 Euro countries tbf. maybe i should change it to brits. but the way you talk about the EU makes me think you might well be a Brit :P

 

Do you not like the EU? I love it!

Suecia. Same with the other Nordic countries when i've been there.

But i admit that i haven't seen many in UK or Germany when i've gone there, altho i haven't been looking for government buildings when i've been there hehe.

Anyways, this is getting a bit off topic.

J'adore aussi le sexe et les snuff movies

Je trouve que ce sont des purs moments de vie

Je ne me reconnais plus dans les gens

Je suis juste un cas désespérant

Et comme personne ne viendra me réclamer

Je terminerai comme un objet retrouvé

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I've been watching CNN and it's all been on Japan and Libya, mostly Japan.

 

But here I go defending my country, oh no.

 

I know I'm not as informed on world news as I should be. I'm 17, I just need to establish habits and gain an interest. I know plenty of adults who don't have an interest for knowing what's going on in the world around them, but I also see people like my government teacher, who would use class time to make sure everyone was informed and make us discuss what the news means, or my mom, who watched the news on the nuclear plants for hours last night and looked up nuclear facilities in the US out of plain interest in curiosity. This thread is filled with generalizations and people arguing when the OP asked if America is a greedy country. I think people are taking the high standard of living and highly vocal citizens to be signs of greed and ignorance. If I'll say one "patriotic" statement, it'll be that the US is filled with 300+ million individuals. You could say they're all greedy, but maybe that's part of the culture of the "American dream", where you want the next generation of your family to be better off than yours. The government could be labeled as greedy, but... Yeah there's a lot of nasty debt and I'm 17, which GENERALLY younger people are more liberal and I fit in there so I won't elaborate on the greedy politicians or the sketchy dealings between the government and oil company executives or anything.

 

Basically I'm saying there's nothing to say the whole country is greedy or not. For the people who have said people don't open doors for each other anymore and other such things, I'd say cultural shift. Young people are stupid. We just have to grow up. Even when people do grow up, they make mistakes, and people who do bad things seem to get more attention here than those who do good. There's no angle to look at this discussion from to get a solid answer.

 

Unless you believe what someone just said on CNN about how Japanese people aren't looting because they love their country and do best for it, while Americans love their country and do what's best for themselves.

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I watch a lot of American TV shows and it becomes annoying overtime how everybody feels the need to point out that something is American. Even the Scots aren't this bad. Thankfully I've grown mostly immune to the annoyance.

 

 

Oh look, I'm eating this ALL-AMERICAN pizza with my PROUD AMERICAN fingers!

This pizza was made in AMERICA!

AMERICA is the BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD! The BEST pizza in the world!

Oh GOD I love this FREEDOM-LOVING 100% PURE AMERICAN pizza!

Did You Know That Pizza Was Invented In AMERICA?!

Oh my GOD BLESS AMERICA!

IN AMERICA!

 

I really wouldn't call it patriotism at this point. It's masturbation. I guess that's one of your quirks.

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Moi aussi., i was with some 2 americans and an australian for a while (good times) but one of them didn't know about the boxing day Tsunami in 200(5?)! also about the recent Pakistan floods and the Australian foprest fires. It seems some stuff just isn't news over in America.

Just saying this: News around the world gets here, you just have to look for it or pay attention to the news. Mainly the latter.

You mean the former? Lately Charley Sheen has gotten more air time then the Libyan situation and Japan.

 

By the way, I thank Voltaire for the completely relevant and appropriate quote, which seems to just resonate with the American attitude: "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."

 

Charley Sheen was getting a lot of air time before the earthquake in Japan. However, after the earthquake, I've barely heard anything about him. Japan is all over the news right now.

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