The irony here is that the above sentence is grammatically incorrect, and also punctuated incorrectly, whereas “Le Canada est le plus meilleur pays du monde” is at least an arguably correct variant. 
Not surprisingly, it translates correctly in every French-English translator I tried. My French is pretty rusty but I know that it tends to have those kinds of redundancies, sometimes for emphasis, so that the “plus” is optional but (I think) not necessarily wrong. Take for instance “Je ne sais pas” – “I don’t know”. It translates perhaps more directly as “I know not”, but it literally says “I don’t know not”, which would be regarded as an ignorant double negative error in English, but perfectly correct French.
Had nothing to do with that quote, what I stated was a joke that was made at C’s expense by someone I cant find on google search.
I’m sure you must have misheard. Because if America is the greatest country on Earth, why does Trump and his minions want to make it great again?
One of the most ridiculous examples of American ‘delusionalism’ is our reverence for the Constitution, as though it were some sort of holy grail of political thought. It’s still the very same rich white male constitution it’s always been.
To the degree that we are the greatest nation, a lot of it comes down to population. No other wealthy nation has anywhere near our population.
For the same reason, China is rapidly becoming great despite having a per capita GDP on par with latin America. Due to their huge population they are becoming a world leader in science, technology, military, geopolitics, etc. despite having a lower per capita GDP than nations like Grenada or Poland.
But putting population aside, are we ‘great’? I don’t think so, no more than any other developed nation. If anything we have some very serious flaws we aren’t willing to work on.
America is a nation whose culture is heavily divided by race and class. Whites hate the non-whites, christians hate the non-christians, native born hate the immigrants, traditionalists hate the reformists, etc. These may be tensions that exist in other developed nations (If anything these kinds of in group vs out group tensions are worst in east asian nations. And the US has never done anything as evil as a nation like Germany against its out groups).
But it feels like in modern America we can’t have ‘nice things’ because of these class and racial divisions. We can’t have affordable, reliable health care. Or affordable college. Or the ability to be a dignified nation. Or the ability to address our problems competently in general. Americans hate each other so much due to these divisions that our country is dysfunctional, and we aren’t competent to solve problems that other developed nations are perfectly capable of solving. A dysfunctional culture gives birth to dysfunctional people, which leads to dysfunctional public life.
And we can’t even talk about it, because as a nation we aren’t mature enough to discuss it. People just get mad and start whining about how you hate america if you bring up our flaws. If we had courage as a nation we’d have open discussions about these things, about the lasting negative impact on slavery on our society and culture (despite the practice becoming illegal 150 years ago). But we can’t. Americans just want to be spoon fed propaganda and pablum rather than be honest with ourselves about our flaws. Other developed nations may have their own flaws (Germany and Japan for example have much worse histories than we do), but this is a major one of ours and one that we aren’t willing to work on.
We do have a very high per capita GDP though. I’m not sure why ours is higher than most other developed nations. So thats a plus.
I agree with the sentiment, but not with the party motif. At our best we’re the ones who really can deliver when you’ve been given 24 hours to move ALL YOUR SHIT out of the house, we’ll be there with a big truck, 5 guys, and a place to stay (come on, the Berlin Airlift was awesome) and at our worst we’re calling in our favors to get revenge for some dumb reason (Iraq II).
I’ve never seen Trailer Park Boys. Neil Young is Great. But Rush is like my adolescent long hair phase. Despite thinking it was awesome at the time, I’d rather not acknowledge it existed, and will only do so now because it I cut my hair and it didn’t lead to a life of celibacy.
I read the title of this thread and thought, “OP must be Canadian”. I know many many Canadians, and excluding the ones that immigrated here, it’s a familiar mentality. Besides politicians and others with a clear agenda, I’ve rarely heard an American that’s graduated high school and has more than 3 teeth publicly make the claim that “America’s the greatest”. I think the OP’s premise is a strawman that’s common amongst Canadians who are constantly bombarded by American media and entertainment that creates a kind of inferiority complex, unfortunately.
Then you haven’t heard very many Americans.
I am sorry that the ones you have had to interact with are Americans who haven’t graduated high school and have poor oral hygiene, though. Dental care is expensive, and often not covered by standard health insurance.
I can’t say I disagree with him. Sure, he’s being hyperbolic, but I don’t know anyone who is highly educated and intellectual who says this sort of thing, outside of politicians who are using it to appeal to those who say it.
This makes sense, as they tend to avoid this patriotic puffery in general. They may participate in the rituals, but they don’t feel they need to prove that they “love this country more than you do!”
There’s a reason Trump is using it–it’s the type of statement that appeals to his base. It’s performative patriotism, his way of wrapping himself with the flag. The sort of thing intelligent people can see through from miles away.
And I agree with the OP that it is strange for someone on CNN to take that at face value. The only way I’d expect to hear anyone intelligent agree with it is the way Chronos does, to make a rhetorical point.
snaps fingers come on, smokes, let’s go.
I don’t know where you’re getting this from. But I think this is your problem. In fact, I’m going to start with this quote instead of ending with it.
I don’t think you equate “most powerful” with “great”. I don’t know why you would say that. Not only do I not think you equate the two, I personally do not equate the two. Most powerful does not mean great. But your argument is not, “Despite being the unchallenged strongest military superpower in the world, America is not great.” If that was your argument, I wouldn’t have even replied to your comment. But instead, you coughed out “Afghanistan” as a counter to another poster’s claim about the status of the US Military as an unchallenged superpower. Afghanistan doesn’t negate that poster’s statement. Guess what. The #2 Strongest Military in the world is RUSSIA. That is a statement of fact. That military was unable to “conquer” Afghanistan. And that was back when their military was even stronger, and back when they actually wanted to conquer Afghanistan. But they were unable to. They failed. That doesn’t change the fact that they are the number two military power in the world.
No, Mr. Dribble. I never said anything close to this. Your reading comprehension is quite poor. You said that we went to Afghanistan to conquer that country. I said that we did not go there to conquer the country, we went there to remove the Taliban from power, and now that they have been removed, we need to strengthen that country in order to ensure the Taliban do not regain control once we leave.
My point is that there are less than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. The capabilities of that 10,000 is much less than the military’s two and a half million personnel. You can’t argue that any failure in Afghanistan is the result of a weak military, when Congress has only allocated 0.4% of it’s strength toward that country. Why doesn’t this make sense to you?
I never said anything like that. But regardless, the Taliban are not in control of Afghanistan. Saying that “they still exist” is irrelevant. That’s like saying we never ousted the Nazis in Germany because there are a bunch of Nazis still marching in the streets. There are still Nazis. There are still Taliban. Neither groups have control of a country.
Sure, why not. It appears we’re already arguing about the definition of “conquer”.
Where the fuck are you getting these numbers? The Taliban control 12.3% of the Districts in Afghanistan. Roughly 30% are contested areas controlled by no one. The 12% of Afghan Districts controlled by Taliban are home to less than 11% of the country’s population.
In a discussion about the total strength of an organization, you think it’s irrelevant to point out that only .04% of that organization is tasked with the problem? You think that if .04% of the organization cannot do something, that somehow proves that 100% of the group would also fail? Even if we did go to Afghanistan to “conquer” it, to take control of its government and its people, and to make a new American colony, setting off a new era of American Imperialism, the fact that we sent less than .02% of the military to accomplish this task in the first 4 years, and only deployed a max of 4% for two years to accomplish that goal, this would not prove that the military is incapable of “conquering” the country. You can’t devote less than 5% of a groups resources and then throw your hands up crying “failure” when that tiny percent failed.
Just a reminder, we are discussing whether the United States is an unchallenged military superpower. Your argument is that they are not, because…. Afghanistan. America is not a military superpower because .04% of their military cannot completely remove the Taliban from existence—even though they’re not currently trying to do that (but that’s irrelevant to you). That doesn’t make sense.
You would only have a point if Congress did not impose troop strength limits in Afghanistan. The civilians in control of that military superpower decided to only use a fraction of a percent of it to overcome a challenge. Even if I stipulate to all your other points and say that we went to Afghanistan to conquer it and we failed, your point still won’t stand, because we never devoted more than 4% of that strength to the task. So, 4% of the US Military was unable to completely conquer another country. .02% of the US Military was able to remove the current regime of a sovereign nation. I’ll say that again. With, point zero two percent of the US Military, we took control of Afghanistan away from the Taliban. With less than .1%, we instituted a new democratic government. With 4%, we fought off an uprising of the old leadership, ensuring the continued control of the new democratic government, and now, with less than .04% we are trying to build up the military and security of that new government. We did all of this with a fraction of a percent of resources and personnel, but you think that’s irrelevant. You think that this failure proves the United States is not a military superpower…
It’s difficult to debate someone who just makes up his own meanings for words and replaces other people’s statements with what he thinks they mean. “We are THE unchallenged superpower” =/= “We are so great”. Nobody is making that claim but you. It appears you’re making strawmen. In fact, this entire discussion has become a hijack. This thread is about America being (or not being) the Greatest Country. Someone just pointed out that we have the strongest military and the #1 economy in the world. And you want to argue that we don’t have a strong military. That’s silly. If you wanted to argue that either or both of these facts do not make America great, then that’s fine. But you can’t argue that these facts are untrue.
The US Military is controlled by civilian political leadership. Your first example is a demonstration of how that leadership decides against devoting the full strength of its military to accomplish a mission. It’s not an example of the limits to that military’s actual capability.
Vietnam is probably a better example of a military failure, but admittedly I am much more ignorant of that conflict than of the current ones. I know that 82% of veterans and 75% of the public believe the failure in Vietnam was due to lack of political will and not military strength, but I can’t argue either side of that discussion.
Okay, I tried to edit this, but I got timed out. First, I tried to remove the aggressive language. Despite being the Pit, I personally would rather keep this part of the discussion civil, so I apologize in advance for my tone.
Second, I wanted to point out that “ousted” means they’re no longer in control of the government of the country. Yes, they have a resistance where they claim control of certain districts and are fighting to control others. But they don’t control or make decisions for Afghanistan on a national level. They’ve been driven out of their place of control over Afghanistan. If that doesn’t fit the meaning of “ousted”, then I don’t know what does. “Ousted” doesn’t mean, “wiped out completely from existence”.
Amen brother.
Why, just look at the USA’s unparalleled success in the field.
Really kicked butt in Korea!
Vietnam was a pure hill of win!
Defeated Iraq so well, they got to do it twice!
Unchecked victories in Afghanistan!
By the time it wrapped up, the US had dropped some 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia. For reference, that’s over twice as many as were dropped in Europe and Asia throughout WW2 by every Allied country combined. And that number doesn’t factor artillery shells & mortars, either. I don’t think “not enough strength !” can be called a factor. That seems like a fair amount of “kill” having been used to me, bordering on a smidgen of overkill even ;).
Now, whether that raw power was used judiciously or not, that’s another issue, but you can’t really blame the politicians for that one either - they’re not the ones coming up with strike packages.
They might have been ousted, but there’s a reason that we’re negotiating with the Taliban right now, and it’s not the Taliban that feels the pressure to resolve the political and security crisis on a time table. It’s not their leader who wonders aloud why they’re still fighting. In military and political conflict, the land belongs to those who call it home. Time, therefore, is on the side of the Taliban. There are probably two and maybe even three generations of Taliban war-hardened soldiers in their ranks. They’ve never known a day without war. They’ve got time. They’ll just wait til we leave.
I don’t disagree that the United States is the most powerful military on the planet, and I don’t think any reasonable person would. But militaries exist in part to bring about political resolution, and they have to do so within specific contexts. It matters little or none that we have enough ordnance to make the whole of Afghanistan level. That’s not what we’re trying to do. As always, the question is whether we have the military capabilities, diplomatic acumen, financial resources, and political will to use our military capabilities in such a way to bring about satisfactory political outcomes.
Moreover, the indiscriminate bombing is what created more intense antipathy toward the United States, not only in Vietnam but also in neighboring Cambodia and Laos. It created more political problems than it solved. The US killed ten times as many Viet Cong as it lost American troops. We still lost, and ironically, its own bombing hastened the very regional political domino effect we were trying to stop.
Or in anything resembling an even keel on any respects at all.
No, but it *does *mean “driven away from a place” - you seem to think that place is just Kabul and surrounds (not that they have been). But the clear intent put forward for the operation was “away from Afghanistan”. And FYI, I got the 70% figure from the Beeb.
Fuck you and your very American take on civility, you sanctimonious asshole.