Ned, I don’t consider myself to be freeking deluded.
I guess you can assume anything you like.
I have worse to say about what I know about monetary practices up there, on the part of some, but will, having learned a lesson here, refrain from relating it.
I will say though- this was from several random people, people with relevant experience. I did not know any of them from Adam, and am wondering why they would all lie to me, saying the same thing? Perhaps it’s an urban legend, or maybe they all saw me coming and got together really quick and hashed out th efun they were going to have with the out-of-towner. I don’t know.
To say though, that it’s probably the work of a person who doesn’t know there is an exchnage rate, and the work of one person, to me, is the laughable statement.
I am sorry for your experiences, or those of your clients- I did note, though, that the offense you mentioned was posession- big deal down here for people trying to get in- I would hazard a guess that they were not really dealing with immigration at that point, but being held for DEA- largely assholes in many peoples’ books down here. Not to say there aren’t honorable DEA agents, but I haven’t heard of any.
Still, the police state remark- I concur, but also, from my limited experience with your country, feel the same about Canada, possibly even more so.
It’s ugly wherever it is. Like I said, I am no super patriot, but am still liking a whole lot about this country and will defend it, which brings me to:
glee- I dont’ think I am wrong so much as maybe incomplete, or assuming or inferential, my fault.
I have re-read this thread to see what exactly I have been saying, and it is this:
I take umbrage, like Sua, at people running down this country, when they have their own damn skeletons- pot calling the kettle black, etc.
I have said or intimated that the US has done much good, along with much bad- but every country has done bad, and I believe there is no other country who can match us in sheer volume of good done- simply because we are so wealthy and large. I am aware of the very poor per-capita figures out there for humanitarian aid regarding this country, but the point I was making is that that makes no net difference- we are just so damn big and moneyed we have still contributed more overall than anyone else.
Breaking trail or following up and improving broken trail- it makes no difference- if we contributed a thing, a technology, even if it was done by people who weren’t born here but chose to live here, well, we have, IMO, contributed the most there also. Either we did somethign new, or improved something someone else had done, or even just made it a commercial reality when they hadn’t- we’ve done more in more areas than others and yup, that counts the aliens who came here to make their work a reality- they came here because here is where it could happen. Adn this is what I meant by free-wheeling- taking things or coming up with things no one else had done. A sort of ‘Going where no man has gone before’ schtick. maybe that’s lame, I don’t know.
I am aware that Britain had lots of slavery and colonialism, but except for peasants, you have never had it in-country to the degree we did- you simply aren’t large enough- so yes, we did face some problems you didn’t- I am not aware of any civil wars that have divided your country over the issue of your slaves. I know you have had race riots, but am not aware of movements similar to our civil rights movements, at least not on the same scale. Again, uniqueness. Now, I am guessing I don’t have to re-illustrate the huge differences just a matter of size can mean?
I will anyway- you and I both could survie a little cut, even a fairly big one. But you make that cut big enough, we’re going to bleed to death. same type of injury, but a matter of degree means the difference between life and death.
When I spoke about religious suppressions along with a good standard of living, I was referring to the Arabic oil-producing countries, who are less tolerant of other erligions and practices than either yours or my countries. I then said, in effect, in several different ways, the primary difference between Britain and the US was one of size, and showed, I hope, that that is a more substantial difference than one might suppose- I was only showing that we have some uniquenesses from any other thing before or since, not that the differences with this country were the same as the differences with that country.
You are correct in the Bollywood thing- but I ddin’t say we were the most prudish nation on earth, only that we were more prudish than some.
You are also correct that that ‘stuff’ was only from one country- I hope I not only illustrated my point on that score, that country, but several others- I simply wont’ go down the line outlining the differences between the US and every other country- I just made a statement, and then provided some general examples. I won’t prove it to the nth degree. And I don’t say I am right and you are wrong- this is how I see it- doesn’t mean I am Mr. Fact Guy.
I think I am right,or pretty much so. That doesn’t conclusively prove that I am.
I know some history- I dont’ know all of it. I was aware of your large colonial holdings, yes. And yes, massive growing pains. But not in-country, or at least not to the extent we experienced it- I hope I showed that above. You yourself said it was outside the country- when you made mention fo the reliance on ‘foreign’ interests. That may not be the exact word you used, but it’s the gist of the statement you made. I am also aware of the tensions between different nationalities in your country- historically and even today. But again, you don’t have and have never had in-country slavery to the extent that we had, nor the numbers of displaced natives, now that I think of it- we have gone through and are still going through some things unique to those situations- again, we have some differences there. yup, other countries/societies have had those situations to deal with, but again, there are differences- more primitive times, less humanitarian solutions, the whole thing arising from war, whatever. Today, today, USA is dealing with things not generally dealt with, and certainly not in the modern milieu.
I apologize for the jumping around here, but at least I am trying to be more coherent, more concrete. So…
‘…Nah, the US isn’t prudish!, how would we settle the argument?’
But I ahven’t done that- for every statement I have made, I have provided some type of backup- maybe not hard cites, but the statements I have made have either been my own thoughts, which I don’t know how to provide cites for, or things that have or are in the news so predominantly that I would think they are fairly well seen, at least, if not agreed with. With the exception of my Canadian experiences-again, those are my experiences, how can I provide cites?
Hell- I know the stuff that wasn’t personal experience or my personal thoughts has been in the news enough that it has enjoyed lots of audience and is in no way a hidden or arcane thing. I speak generally, but you know, the japanese thing- I did provide examples of what I was talking about- I could do that for all the other stuff, barring the personal, but man, every other thing I spoke about was like the statements about the rising violence in Japan- it’s very easy for you to go see if I’m right or wrong- It’s front page stuff I spoke of, and my thoughts on it- I see no need to cite front page stuff- didn’t the stabbings and subway gassings make it to your newspapers? Can I not assume you read the news, or recieve it in some other way? Televsion, radio? The BBC? Even I listen to BBC news stories… This is why I wasn’t coming out the wazoo with cites- it wasn’t like the euthanasia thing discussed here- that is kind of a thign that begged cites- it isn’t or hasn’t recently been splashed all over the front pages of newspapers or been the lead story, at least lately. Or a matter of high school history.
As for whether or not I know anything about the subject- the simple fact that I took umbrage at being derided, nationally, by others who have their own skeletons, I think, would show that yes, I do know there are people in other countries who, to put it bluntly, hate Americans, and from what I have read, and even experienced in this very thread with a couple of posters, they don’t do my country the courtesy of differentiating- it’s, to paraphrase the emotions I seem to be getting from their posts, ‘You shitty Americans’- all lumped together- it’s a country hate, not an idividual one.
Ok, so I say we are pretty damn good, albiet with plenty of faults, and if one doesn’t think so, perhaps they should look at, if nothing else, who has been the deterrent to the USSR in the past, and now with China- and make no mistake- both of those countries, Russia in the past and China now and in the foreseeable future, would like/have liked, nothing better than to take control of any geographic loaction that they even thought would benefit them, in whatever way. I leave it to you to imagine what your life would be like in that circumstance. So yeah- a Canadian runs me down, my country down, I say well, how nice- why don’t you just keep living in the umbrella of comparative national safety we have created, and just keep telling us how shitty, ignorant, and freeking deluded we are.
Having said allthat, for me, this comes down to something like this:
Yeah, I may call my dog a fat pig, good for nothing but eating, farting, shitting and sleeping, but goddamm, don’t you dare!
Now, is this something you are innocent of yourself?
And I am of the opinion that Mandelstam is quite right- this back and forth ‘let he who is without sin…’ stuff is bullshit, solves nothing. It’s very hard not to get caught up in it though. I am as of now, no longer caught up in it, in this particualr matter.
Also, having re-read this thread, with more attention paid than the first time around, there are some very intrigueing topics that I would like to discuss, and so intend to take you up on your suggestions of starting a GD thread or two. But be warned- there are so many people here who are so much more informed than I, and seem to have wayyy more brain cells than I, it will mostly be for mine own edification…
To both you and Diane- I know this wasn’t so very well organized, but I did make an effort to make it more complete and more coherent.
Goodnight.