Is America a Great Country? Why?

[SoulSearcher]

I believe that Israel is a country that, with its colonialist and expansionist policies remind me of a guy once called Willy, and that with its determination to be a state based upon a certain race and religion reminds me of someone else we used to know affectionately as Adolf, I have to say that I am pretty much the most anti-Zionist non-Muslim on the planet.

Now...I may or may not believe this. But, how would you react if I did???? Would you address what I said? Or would you call me all sorts of names for having said it??? Be careful now, because this really is a great deal more controversial than you can imagine if you are not from New York.

(I have lived through this sort of madness forever, and so am used to it... I am just, predictably, not allowed to discuss it without being called an anti-Semite. Freedom of Speech, or will I be booted - you make the call!)

You'd be surprised, I'm Israeli and Jewish and anti-Zionism myself! There are many like us, just not very visible. Look up "Holocaust Industry". And you're such an anti-Semite (and now just shut up) !

 

[Chalchalero]

You'd be surprised, I'm Israeli and Jewish and anti-Zionism myself! There are many like us, just not very visible. Look up "Holocaust Industry". And you're such an anti-Semite (and now just shut up) !

I would love to talk to you. I have read a website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_Industry

have sang a song:
Yerushalayim shel zahav

and I am replacing the yarmulke of a friend who has not yet discovered that he is about to become the butt of every joke that I shall never tell.

Am I forgiven yet?

WOW!

Now I see where the mothers are so effective...

 

[chance1]

Chance, I've been trying to ignore you, but if you truly believe this government is good, then I have to say you've made it more than abundantly clear you haven't got a clue about what it is doing in your name. If you support the lying and killing and bullying this government is doing in all our names, then all I can say is you need to get off the drugs, and start looking around with a clear head. If that is possible for you. . .

Oh yeah, you ought to take a course in reading comprehension. You understand so little of what gets posted here. Your "Good System" has been corrupted, and you can't see it or don't want to.

And to your earlier post, you still don't get the difference between a Republican and a Repuglican. Must be a difficult concept for you to grasp.

try a little harder

about the ignoring thingy

as for our govt "killing people" see we don't do that

u gotta read some more

or read a little less

no drugs for me dude - cept a beer here or there - drugs r not good for u - kinda mess u up - u know what i mean? i think u might

ur posts r getting easier to comprehend - not to worry - the mystery is gone

not gonna put u on ignore - but if i did, id stick with it - gotta stick with things lalo

its the american way

god bless america

just in Los Angleles - whatta great place

love this country

 

[gazzax2]

I am Australian, but i have lived in the USA twice - in San Fran and Boston, Mass, and i;ve lived in Oxford UK.
I think the USA is an amazing place to live, it really is exciting, something is always happening, and there are so many opportunities.

HOWEVER it is also a country with horrible social problems - gun control, no free medical care, very poor education and literacy rates, no real social security or disability ect payments, landsliding house prices, obesity, racism/social divides.

If a decent Federal government and president gets elected most of those problems can easily be fixed

 

[evil_danger]

I figured I'd put my two cents in.

As a Dutchman and a European I've always found it hard to understand why people in the US express their patriotism so explicitly. It's just not done over here...

In the US flags are all over the place... here you only see a few when the queen celebrates her birthday or when the national team plays a football match. And Obama getting criticized for not wearing an American flag pin is just ridiculous.

For me personally I don't like how religion is such a big part of your country. Your president is inaugurated by putting his hands on a bible. I have yet to see a person run for president and say he/she doesn’t believe in god. Creationism is being taught in schools alongside evolution, the god bless America stuff etc.

I would never ever say god bless The Netherlands, nor would anyone I know. Let alone have a politician, the prime minister or the queen express a religiously flavoured opinion like that in public. Our prime minister mentioned his religion on several occasions and most of those times his expressions were met with great criticism. (Of course he also got re-elected a bunch of times, so there are some who like him; I am just not one of them)


When people say that the US is the greatest country in the world, it makes me cringe a little. I feel it is a comment made perhaps out of patriotism, but to me it appears to be somewhat arrogant. The greatest country? I don't think so... There are better places to live than in the US in my opinion.

It appears at times when people say that the US is the greatest country in the world, that the rest of the world is less than them. I'm not saying that's what people mean when they say it, but that's what it can sound like to other people.

When you claim to live in the greatest country, you better meet that standard when you say this and I don't think the US does. You have serious health care problems, you are military aggressors these days, you have a history of supporting whoever is best for your interests no matter the cost to human (non-American) life, your economy isn't doing so well these days, nor is your dollar, there are more gun related deaths in your country than in many other nations yet guns are still too easily available, the US is like the biggest polluter in the world but you only have a small percentage of the world's population living there etc.

And what surprised me a little is how a gay person can say the US is the greatest country in the world... a country where gay people cannot get married (except for one state) and gay couples don't have the same rights as straight ones?

How does all this add up to the greatest country in the world?
I don't see it.

That is a really great post, and very well worded I agree with everything you say.

 

[LaloGS]

Provide a referrence. The internet doesn't seem to have one readily available. I will even go buy a book. Just name it. Please exclude conspiracy theorist. Like say a Ward Churchill publication you can leave off the wish list.

It might be hard to find, but check out Kit Carson's autobiography. He gleefully describes the effect of his "cleaning out of the vermin" with smallpox. It was published in his lifetime, so it will be a rare book today. Not everything appears on the Internet.

He also led a troop of calvary against a group of the Navajo people that had fled Bosc Redondo concentration camp (which consisted of a horse corral with no facilities or even water) that escaped into the night and took shelter in a cave in Canyon de Chelly in Eastern Arizona. Kit had the troops with him fire into the roof of the cave sending murderous fire rocoheting into the defenseless bodies of men women and children huddling there for safety. None survived. Kit did us proud as a nation.

Your willingness to be proud of what our military has done to people around the world without the results ending up in our history books just shows your ignorance of the real history of the country. As an army brat, I came to distrust what my Army Sargent father's idea of history was. His hero was Adolf Hitler. Who is yours?

 

[JayHawk]

Adolf was certainly a great leader. I can not subscribe to his belief system for obvious reasons but he was without a doubt a very charismatic speaker who eloquently rose to power and commanded the loyalty of his people easily.

Come to think of it that sounds like Barack. (another jab in the dark at the Obamites)

My hero were I to be forced to select one would be John Paul Jones.

His ideas on honor and leadership are still quite prevalent in todays Navy.

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones

To keep the torch of freedom burning for all. And some misguided folks think GWB started this advance of freedom in America's name. Your right people do not know their history. Or they fail to recognize history is just that HIS STORY. To the winner goes fate and legend.

 

[JayHawk]

Who might your hero be?

Your formative existence and furtherance of belief is still based off teenage rebellion?

 

[LaloGS]

Of course I've read the history of Colombia. And I understand, as you apparently don't, that the FARC was a political group generally founded by University professors who proposed a redistribution of lands to the so called peasants. (93% of the land was owned by 2% of the populations, a hold over from colonial times and a fudal system. It kept the majority of people in abject poverty, and precluded the development of a middle class.) When an elected popular official sympathetic to the cause was assassinated in 1948 by an apparent lunatic, (BTW, Fidel Castro was in the crowd of people around this man when he was shot) it sparked a period of chaos now called "The Violence". (It is still a sore point with Colombians who believe that assassination set the country back for a long period of time. The National museum has a room devoted to the assassination and it is not uncommon when visiting it to find Colombians weeping over the tragedy all these years later.) It was until recent times a political opposition declared to be terrorist organization in more recent times. Today the FARC apparently have become the protectors of the drug routes through Colombia to shipping points from land locked areas further South of Colombia. Very little drugs are grown in Colombia at present, other than possibly marijuana, which is not considered particularly bad. Colombians have a more tolerant view of marijuana than the US does, but they do not tolerate heavier drugs of any kind. They even clamp down hard on glue sniffers because (as the police have told me, it damages the brain cells. And the most popular drug among young people is glue.

They have taken prisoners of political leaders, and the occasional family members of political leaders, seeking political representation for their old cause. There actions have come to viewed in Colombia as criminal. Just a few weeks ago in January, there were anti FARC marches all across the country, several million strong as was reported by the BBC. I know the one in Bogota was massive and the march lasted 7 hours because I witnessed it.

The ANC is a US funded and trained terrorist group originally funded to fight the drug war, but have since had funding cut by the US (Specifically by the Bush Administration) and with the loss of funds the ANC has become the competition of the FARC for control over the drug routes through the country and were purely created by the US. The still fight the FARC but for different reasons now. They manage to keep themselves in existence from protection money from the drug runners.

The fight against both of these groups has fallen directly on the shoulders of the Colombian military and police force. There are nightly reports of actions and drug confiscations and busts of drug runners, but the US media never reports these. The US media is only interested in reporting the so called violence generally purpertrated against the FARC and ANC against each other. The FARC is estimated to be no more than 3 to 4 thousand people in size, and there is not much if any support among the people of Colombia. The ANC is estimated to be no larger, and possibly no more than 2000 strong. But they too are abhorred by the people.

I live in Colombia, because my Social Security is not sufficient to live on in the US. And for no other reason. I'm currently in the US and have been since February, and I see more murder and mayhem on the nightly local news in Phoenix than I ever saw in Colombia.

So yes, Colombia is sometimes violent, but not to the extent of the violence reported in this country daily. Colombia's violence is criminals against criminals where as here in the US it is just criminal. One night's news report here in Phoenix, had two people shot to death in their home, a stabbing death in a mall toilet, another stabbing attack in the same mall toilet, a woman's murdered and mutilated body found burning in a trash dumpster in a middle class neighborhood, a pedophile molesting two seven year old children in their school where he was a teacher, and an ongoing series of murders (approaching 50 now over a three year period) where the victims are shot in the head and left in the desert near the city sometimes in burning vehicles, with no idea who the victims are or why they were killed. And this is just one American city. I never hear of that kind of violence in Colombia. Criminal murder against citizens there is actually rare. In 4 years I have heard of exactly two murders. One was of a gay man who had brought a stranger to his apartment for sex, and was murdered by the trick who was never caught. The second was the Niece of a friend who was kidnapped from her farm and raped by two farmworkers who demanded a ransom of a thousand dollars which her family didn't have it so the kidnappers killed her but were caught and will be punished. They will likely spend the rest of their lives in prison for the murder. BTW, those farmworkers were hardly more than children themselves.

 

[JayHawk]

So you admit freely regardless of the context that violence occurs regularly in Colombia? I dont get how that proves anything you have had to say.

Maybe you should have planned further than govt assistance for your golden years.

Some snippets about SS

When initially signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, the term Social Security covered unemployment insurance as well. The term, in everyday speech, is used only to refer to the benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death, which are the four main benefits provided by traditional private-sector pension plans. In 2004 the U.S. Social Security system paid out almost $500 billion in benefits.[4] By dollars paid, the U.S. Social Security program is the largest government program in the world and the single greatest expense in the federal budget, with 20.9% for social security and 20.4% for Medicare [5]

In January 1936, a passionately split Court ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional. In another case from 1936, the Court ruled New York state's minimum-wage law unconstitutional. President Roosevelt responded with an attempt to pack the court via the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937. On 5 February 1937, he sent a special message to Congress proposing legislation granting the President new powers to add additional judges to all federal courts whenever there were sitting judges age 70 or older who refused to retire.[9] The practical effect of this proposal was that the President would get to appoint six new Justices to the Supreme Court (and 44 judges to lower federal courts), thus instantly tipping the political balance on the Court dramatically in his favor. The debate on this proposal was heated and widespread, and lasted over six months. Beginning with a set of decisions in March, April, and May, 1937 (including the Social Security Act cases), the Court would sustain a series of New Deal legislation.

And Bush manipulates??????

Of course based on the computation below I can see how you didnt get the average of your thirtyfive years....I mean it is really easy to work out.........or not

[edit] Primary Insurance Amount
A worker's retirement income benefit is based on his PIA (primary insurance amount). The PIA is based on the average of the highest 35 years of the worker's covered earnings (before deduction for FICA). Covered earnings in any year are limited by that year's Social Security Wage Base, the maximum earnings that could be subject to the OASDI portion of FICA payroll tax ($102,000 in 2008 [22]). If the worker has fewer than 35 years of covered earnings, zeros are used to bring the total number of years of earnings up to 35. Years of covered work more than 2 years before the year the worker turns 62 are indexed upward to reflect the increase in the national wage via the average wage index (AWI) from the time at which the earnings were covered in the past to the value of the AWI two years before the worker turns 62 (which is the most recent year available at the date the worker turns 62). One-twelfth of this 35-year average is the average indexed monthly earnings (AIME). The PIA then is 90% of the AIME up to the first (low) bendpoint, and 32% of the excess of AIME over the first bendpoint but not in excess of the second (high) bendpoint, plus 15% of the AIME in excess of the second bendpoint. Bendpoints designate the point at which the rates of return on a beneficiary's AIME change[23][24]. In 2008, the bendpoints for calculating the PIA are a change from 90% to 32% at $711 and a change to 15% at $4,288.[25][26] This PIA is then adjusted by automatic cost-of-living adjustments annually starting with the year the worker turns 62. Similar computations based on career average earnings determine disability and survivor benefits. These alternate computations average less years of earnings when the worker dies or is disabled before age 62 and use different base years for the inflation adjustments.

Now I know why Social Security is broke.

 

[JayHawk]

On another note I happend across a Blogger who has like minded thoughts and a likeness in professional background. I did not ask that he produce the snippet below but it is timely considering the dialogue in this thread. So with out further introduction from me read another take on why America is Great.

The United States, with 4.5% of the world’s population, pays 22% of the budget for the good works of our friends at the United Nations. It pays 27% of the peacekeeping budget - this is apart from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US economy is a significant engine of worldwide economic growth, contributing over the last 20 years to the emergence of new economies in the developing world which have lifted hundreds of millions of people from existential poverty.

During the Cold War, the US spent an average of 6.7% of its GDP on NATO - an organization designed to protect Western Europeans from collectivist tyranny. In their own defense, Europeans spent an average of 3.5% of their GDP. American sacrifices not only protected Western Europe, they set the conditions for the eventual liberation and liberalization of Eastern Europe. When Europe proved incapable - once again - of stopping a genocide on its doorstep, American combat power - once again - stepped in to stop the bloodshed.

US contributions in the intellectual sphere have led to the award thus far of 270 Nobel prizes. The next closest country to contribute to the advancement of the human race - the UK - had 101.

In recent years, the US government gave $15 billion in foreign aid. The American people, giving through private means, added another $34 billion to overseas causes. In absolute terms, we are both the most generous state and generous people in the world. Aid to Africa alone has more than trebled over the last decade.

Four hundred thousands of our sons gave their lives combating fascism and militarism in World War II. Thirty-six thousand died protecting South Koreans from the sere pleasures of Kim Il Sung’s socialist worker’s paradise. Another 55,000 died giving the Pacific Rim a chance to join the free world. Almost 4500 have given their last full measure of devotion liberating the Iraqi and Afghan people from those who would thrust one or another tyrannical boot to their necks.

No man is compelled to tip his hat to any other here. Individual rights are held in common, regardless of gender, race, creed or condition. We have built a society wherein a citizen’s prospects are limited only by his gifts and ambition. We argue among ourselves continuously, sometimes bitterly. But there are no Belfasts here, no Kosovos, no Mogadishus. Ordinary people live their lives in security and dignity - things we take for granted, but which are beacons of light to the world’s darkest corners.

Please don't simply read these few lines. There are many more thoughful viewpoints found here. You will also be rewarded with links to many of the statistics listed.

Another viewpoint. One I agree with.

 

[LaloGS]

Who might your hero be?

Your formative existence and furtherance of belief is still based off teenage rebellion?

I have had many throughout my life, and they have generally been Artists, writers, intellectuals and philosophers. My all time favorite is Thomas Jefferson, but I'm not enthralled with his position on slavery.

BYW, while John Paul Jones was certainly a great man and founder of the US Naval forces, I believe the quote you attributed to him rings like the work of the poet Carl Sandburg, rather than the sailer man himself.

 

[LaloGS]

So you admit freely regardless of the context that violence occurs regularly in Colombia? I dont get how that proves anything you have had to say.

Every large city in the world has an element of violence to contend with. I've lived in Colombia for 4 years, and have not seen the levels of violence I see here in the US everyday in even moderately sized cities.

Most of the violence between the FARC and ANC happens in very rural or even jungle regions of the country. It generally does not exist in the cities. Bogota is the size of New York city, and having lived in both places, I have to tell you Bogota is the safer of the two cities.

America even has murderers who stalk hikers on the Appalachian trail. I believe there have also been murders in Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks as well. So there is no reason to be smug about violence in Colombia.

 

[JayHawk]

So if the death is rural it is okie dokie? Even if leaders from either side of the political system are targeted in those rural areas?

Seems pretty altruistic to me.

 

[gazzax2]

This isnt really about america anymore is it?

 

[JayHawk]

Nah it morphed some between me and Lalo. My apologies.

I did post just a at number 100 about someone elses point of view on why America is great.