Hands up - who'd rather be in Iceland than the US?
Me. Iceland is awesome.
America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
51–60 of 71 posts
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#52Reminds me of a Michael Parenti speech on "Superpatriotism" from 1988. There's no existing transcript I can find so I may be the first to do this: "The superpatriots love of country seems predicated on the country being 'up there', stronger and superior to other countries. What happens if it's gonna slip? What about people from ... lesser lands? What about somebody from...Luxembourg. I mean now, Luxembourg is #122, j…
Why people only rip on Americans for being patriotic? Nobody rips on the French when they say they have the best {food, fashion, history, literature, country, *}. Everybody seems fine with European snobbery in all its variants: French, Italian, and even English snobbery is accepted, but not quite as much as the others it seems.
As a German I probably heard an order of magnitude more (friendly) mocking of the French then of the US-Americans in my life. In fact, I wasn't really (conciously) aware that American exceptionalism was even a thing before I visited the first time. This year Turkish nationalism is a high-profile topic in the media. The US equivalent is only mentioned in passing (if at all) when it comes to the upcoming election.
But by frequenting English websites mainly targeted at an US audience you wouldn't know. Naturally the US is going to be a frequent topic there.
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#53Reminds me of a Michael Parenti speech on "Superpatriotism" from 1988. There's no existing transcript I can find so I may be the first to do this: "The superpatriots love of country seems predicated on the country being 'up there', stronger and superior to other countries. What happens if it's gonna slip? What about people from ... lesser lands? What about somebody from...Luxembourg. I mean now, Luxembourg is #122, j…
Why people only rip on Americans for being patriotic? Nobody rips on the French when they say they have the best {food, fashion, history, literature, country, *}. Everybody seems fine with European snobbery in all its variants: French, Italian, and even English snobbery is accepted, but not quite as much as the others it seems.
"Nobody rips on the French when they say they have the best."
Everybody does, it is called "chauvinism". There is nothing wrong believing your country is the best, provided that you have actually traveled to other countries and know it is a fact. You will find your country being the best "at something", but could learn and improve a lot from other countries as well.
The problem with chauvinism is not understanding other countries(not knowing other cultures or countries) making yourself prejudices that are not real, and the mass of people being easily manipulated by the power establishment.
Given that the US has the biggest army in the world, with nuclear subs, nuclear missiles, drones and stuff, American prejudices are extremely important for the rest of the world.
For people living in Libya or Syria, Afghanistan , Iran or Saudi Arabia, American prejudices and actions could be the difference between being alive or dead, for you and your family, abandoning your country as a refugee with nothing or having everything you have destroyed.
When people in charge want the gross of the people to support an invasion of a foreign county and make a big business with the natural resources, they use patriotism as the main tool(e.g Americans were "being Attacked" in Iraq because 20 people from Saudi Arabia hijacked Americans planes).
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those graphs are very misleading. They rank countries from the first (left) to the last (right) for each indicator. Some indicators are such that left is better (hygiene), other are left is worse (war fatalities). That 100 means that Germany is the 100th on war fatalities. But not! To add confusion to confusion, the number is the position of the USA on the scale. So it's the USA to be at position 100. Germany appears…
Germany is 100. The US is 100. France weirdly is listed as 22. That's target 16.1.2, listed as War, shown here: http://www.thelancet.com/cms/attachment/2065481409/206635003...
That makes much more sense!
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again implies it was great at some point, (or greater then it is now). At what point, exactly, was the US "Great"? Was it when Women couldn't vote? Was it when black people couldn't sit in the "white people" part of the bus? Was it when you could get committed to a mental institution just for being gay? While there are many things wrong now, the rosy past that such rhetoric seems to assume exists was never a thing. A…
Great relative to others, not perfect.
For one of the youngest countries on Earth, the US is (maybe because of that) all too opposed to change.
The US constitution was written over 200 years ago. Other countries were founded many hundreds or thousands of years before that, and have thus realized that the core principles they were founded on were maybe not all applicable today, and continually update their laws and government.
The problem with "the greatest country on Earth" is that it's unwilling to adapt and learn and grow. Which is what every other country and human on Earth tries to daily.
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is "born" is defined different depending on which country. E.g., most European countries will not count premature babies if they don't make certain weight or other metrics and no attempt to intervene, so this sets up some really perverse incentives. These can make up more than 3 out of every 4 premature births so it can significantly tilt the stats: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/276952/infant-mortalit...…
> ... most European countries will not count premature babies if they don't make certain weight Factually incorrect, as shown by your own link which lists 6 countries that have weight/gestation thresholds. Or maybe there are less than 12 countries in Europe, who the hell cares, right?
You trimmed the rest of the sentence that said "or other metrics" that would include things like weeks premature. That clearly changes the meaning the sentence. But that's a minor thing when you are playing a game of Gotha, isn't it.
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real shame in that number is that other countries literally let premature babies die without intervention so they can keep their health costs down and infant mortality numbers down too while the US aggressively intervenes and reports all births massively inflating our infant mortality numbers. Basically, if you are going to be a premature baby, you would much rather be born in the US than any other country in the…
I was born over eight weeks premature, in 1989, in South Africa. I got lucky, sure. But "any other country" letting premature babies die without intervention is perhaps too broad a claim.
My daughter was born 8 weeks premature in Germany. She was considered an extremely unproblematic case (though without medical attention, she probably wouldn't have made it).
On the same ward, we had at least one 700 gram baby that was doing fine, and several that were close to that. So agree, the parent's claim is definitely way too broad.
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those graphs are very misleading. They rank countries from the first (left) to the last (right) for each indicator. Some indicators are such that left is better (hygiene), other are left is worse (war fatalities). That 100 means that Germany is the 100th on war fatalities. But not! To add confusion to confusion, the number is the position of the USA on the scale. So it's the USA to be at position 100. Germany appears…
I am afraid they misled you too. There is no ranking. 0 is "unsafe level" while 100 is "safe level".
Yup, they did!
Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#59Re: America Is Not the Greatest Country on Earth. It’s No. 28
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ... most European countries will not count premature babies if they don't make certain weight Factually incorrect, as shown by your own link which lists 6 countries that have weight/gestation thresholds. Or maybe there are less than 12 countries in Europe, who the hell cares, right?
You trimmed the rest of the sentence that said "or other metrics" that would include things like weeks premature. That clearly changes the meaning the sentence. But that's a minor thing when you are playing a game of Gotha, isn't it.
> ...That clearly changes the meaning the sentence
If you look at my reply I talk about gestation period.
Only 6 European countries have thresholds for either gestation or weight.
You can accuse me of playing "gotcha" if you like, but you're misrepresenting data and it's fair for me to correct you.
[Edited for typo]