Huh? 
…the problem with the OP is that it is set up specifically so that the “US couldn’t count.”
If we just looked at the original comment without the qualifiers: “From a very young age most citizens of various countries are brain washed into nationalistic fervour that usually follows the mantra…my country is great” then the US would more than qualify. From your creepy Pledge of Allegiance to the amount of flags you have waving the US is obviously an overly patriotic nation.
You should educate yourself on how the US is perceived by people not indoctrinated by “Team USA!” It isn’t fair to accuse people of “bashing the US” when they are merely expressing their opinion. You really shouldn’t get all prickly and defensive about a little bit of criticism.
Scotland has its problems, but the people of Scotland have political freedom, good health, a beautiful land, and a standard of living billions of people can only dream of.
Neither developed nor prosperous? :dubious:
I do think Scotland has some roads and trains and universities and hospitals and all that sort of thing, you know.
…In the blind nationalism, not in how shitty the country is.
Right. As I read the OP, it was not necessary that a country be the absolute shittiest, just shitty in some ways that its citizens, on average, were clearly deluded about.
Americans, trailing on many lists of criteria compared to other Western democracies, yet still convinced of their “greatness”, certainly qualify.
Yes, I stand by my belief that Americans can give North Koreans a run for their money in blind nationalism.
Oh, and this:
It’s not cherry-picking if you’re asked to give a criterion and you give one that fits the question.
Did* I *say it was the same?
:rolleyes: True - For one I believe the North Koreans are a lot less racist in their incarceration criteria.
I specifically addressed the issue of relative certainty in my post, perhaps more reading, less kneejerking next time?
What on Hastur’s Earth makes you think I was using the *North Korean government’*s numbers (do they even give out numbers)? I was using the estimates put out by the decidedly non-pro-NK [HRNK
Gosh, roads and train, you say! Fancy! :rolleyes:
I’m pretty familiar with not only how Mr Dibble views the US but how people in other countries do. I’d hazard to guess that I’ve traveled at least as extensively outside of my country as you have outside of yours, and if you are a Brit or Canadian I most likely have spent more time in your country than you have in mine…though maybe not, as I don’t know your personal details (and you probably don’t know mine either). So, while I appreciate your encouragement for me to educate myself I don’t really feel I’m lacking in that regard.
As to the rest, what I took exception to was a poster who routinely bashes the US when he can, and did so by basically cherry picking the OP for the parts he wanted to bash on the US over, knowing we didn’t meet the criteria laid out in the OP but wanting to bash away anyway…because that’s what he does. I didn’t write the OP, so your criticism of said OP is something between you…I merely bothered to read it and then just glance at the responses. I wasn’t going to even answer until I saw Dibble’s response and figured I’d respond that the bash since it was so stupid. I wasn’t the only one who took exception.
I have no problem with folks bashing on the US, in general, when we deserve it. If you want to write an OP about how creepy the US for it’s flags and patriotism I’m sure you’ll get plenty of positive responses. I don’t fly a flag and I think some of the patriotism is over the top. Having traveled a lot, I’ve seen lots of quirks, however, from different countries…this is just one of ours. There are probably half a dozen I could name that struck me, a Mexican America, as odd in other countries, including my own home country.
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
It’s not cherry-picking if you’re asked to give a criterion and you give one that fits the question.
[/QUOTE]
It’s cherry picking and you know it. Or you should, anyway. There is no comparison between US incarceration and North Korea. You say you have read up on the situation in North Korea, and I’ll take you at your word. So, you should know better. If you don’t, then you don’t.
Considering that the vast majority of North Koreans are, you know, Korean, I’d have to say that yes, you are correct.
Then you realize your point was built on sand. Why did you feel the need to make it in that case?
Of course they put out numbers…and those numbers effect even NGO’s and other organizations who try and estimate the actual numbers. Your numbers seemed low compared to ones I’ve seen by other groups, so I assumed you were using the standard government (or state run media) ones.
Fair enough…my apologies. Realize that even the ones from ‘non-pro-NK’ groups are estimates and still use as their base the government numbers since the government is beyond secretive about such things.
Sure, if you want to cherry pick the OP and just focus on this it’s fair enough. Might even be right if you look at it from the perspective of whether the nationalism is freely believed in or believed in because of the massive state-run propaganda machine that penetrates every portion of the average North Korean’s life, backed by the iron fist and enforced by death camps for any not fervent enough, then yeah…the US would give the North Koreans a run for their money wrt the general population.
I get it…you dislike the US. And you dislike Americans with their nationalism and patriotism and racism and all the other flawed -isms we have. That’s fine…but you should really take Banquet Bear’s advice to me and educate yourself about nationalism in other countries and what it actually means and the implications of it. You’ll find that the US, while certainly far ahead of our European brethren and sistren (for the most part) wrt ‘blind nationalism’, we don’t hold a candle to many other countries out there.
Isn’t that like saying the KKK has a non-discrimination policy: All members have an equal opportunity for advancement, no matter what color they are?
99% of North Koreans = ethnic Korean, 99% of incarcerated in North Korea = ethnic Korean, so…non-racist? :rolleyes:
The Scottish economy has undergone massive deindustrialisation over the past 3 decades.
Rendering it an “undeveloped” country? Really?
Did y’all just miss the rolleyes before the racism bit, or are you just blind to sarcasm?
I think that we all took it that you were rolling your eyes at my post and that you actually thought you had a point there. If you want to indicate that your own post is sarcastic try putting the rolley eyed thingy AFTER your post. Or maybe give a translation, since 3 of us didn’t get it the way you seemed to have meant it.
It looked to me like you “roll-eyed” the last comment, then made your own.
Yes, a sarcastic one.
We can’t tell you how you meant it-We can only tell you how we interpreted it.
So has the English economy.
So has the US economy, come to think of it.
But the claim was not that Scotland is an industrialised country; it’s that it’s a developed country.
…people post in IMHO threads to express their humble opinion: which is what MrDibble did. You may disagree with his opinion, but so what? That doesn’t make you right. This isn’t a debate forum and I’m not going to debate your opinions here. You are welcome to express your wrong opinion here, as is everyone else.
IMHO if you want to debate their opinion you take it to Great Debates. IMHO if you want to personalise things, (which is absolutely clear in your response to me you have issues with MrDibbles posts) then you should take it to the pit.
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They were improving from a really, really low base. They were behind much of Africa at independence, and today they’ve improved to have a HDI almost equivalent to the poorest parts of Central America or Central Asia.
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‘Largest democracy’ is mostly a function of population size (which isn’t an inherently good or bad thing, although Indian levels of population density are almost certainly a bad thing). In any case a lot of Indians aren’t particularly enthused with democracy. This is 20 years ago and things may have changed, but as of 1996 a poll indicated that most Indians would prefer their country be run by the military.
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Since when is possessing weapons of mass destruction something to be proud of? I’m (unhappily) an American, and would much prefer that my country didn’t possess weapons nuclear, chemical or biological. That we own them (and are the only country ever to have used them) is to our shame, not our credit.
As to the OP, Nigeria might qualify (as would India), but I’m not sure how ‘patriotic’ Nigerians are: I mention them because they rank very high on ‘happiness’ surveys, but it may be that Nigerians identify more with family or community than with their country.