I'm intrigued by the choice to conclude with this:
"France is a decadent nation"
How does one measure decadence? The Germans said, "Democracies are decadent".
112 Gripes About the French
301–310 of 365 posts
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
The connotations of the term race has changed. It was definitely common in the fairly recent past (WWI) for English people to speak of Germans as a different race, indeed using the term more like we would use ethnicity today. See also the English division of India into martial and non-martial "races". You are implying a use of the term which is more influenced by biology and some vague, folksy notion of genetic/darwi…
The definitions I've known have remained stable until very recently. I'll stick with Race: genetics; Ethnicity: the group/tribe one "grows up" or is most shaped by; Nationality: the country you're in/from. They can all align to (mostly) one group, like in India and China, or can be mostly aligned like in northern Europe, or a melting pot like the US. It's the "connotations" (i.e. conflations) that are the reason that…
> The definitions I've known have remained stable until very recently
As stated, they were not. Race and ethnicity (and also words like breed and stock) were much more synonymous 100 years ago. If you aren't keenly aware of semantic shifts like this, you will misunderstand older texts.
I'm also not sure if you're actually suggesting that China and India are (by any definition) racially and ethnically homogenous. If you are, I must encourage you to study those countries more.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go look up humanitarian giving. These are quantifiable numbers. We do more than the next 10 countries rolled up. We AGREE about the negative bullshit the US has done. We're actively trying to work on that shit, none of us like it. We've actually done a stellar job looking at our history and current practices and saying "That was fucked up" and "We should fix this going forward." But we still do WAY more good than, li…
Your source says that, per capita, Germany pays more than the US.
Did your per Capita calculation roll up the populations of the next 9 countries it would take to equal the US?
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It still reads really well today, like there's no tone of racism and nothing seems inappropriate (which is a hard thing to achieve with time). How about this: Some Frenchmen have certainly gypped some Americans . We remember the times we were gypped . We forget the number of times we were not. How many times were you treated fairly, honesty°' ? Were you never "gypped" back home -in towns near army camps ? (See ques…
Are you suggesting that the term " gypped " may've been racist? Presumably because its etymology may be a reference to a stereotypical behavior attributed to gypsies, which some might regard as a racial-slur for [Romani people]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people )? That passage doesn't give me that vibe -- it seems to be trying to suggest that the relevant behavior, " gypping ", isn't culturally unique, but…
Gypped isn't offensive just because they prefer to be called Romani. It equates Romani with swindlers. Saying some French and some Americans swindle too isn't the same.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, maybe French people could just unfrench their frenchiness...
The whole point of the pamphlet is they shouldn't have to in order to be accepted by the American troops, but a white French person with sufficient linguistic and cultural flexibility could pass for a white American, and largely would in contexts where they did not have to speak. And black person could never do the same.
A black person could pass for a white person in contexts where did not have to show their skin colour, it's not that different or even rare.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your source says that, per capita, Germany pays more than the US.
Did your per Capita calculation roll up the populations of the next 9 countries it would take to equal the US?
So your point about why the US are great and morally ‘stellar ‘ (to use your word) is that it’s —- big? Wow, that’s anticlimactic.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve found ‘chat’-style comments are downvoted i.e the internet equivalent of small talk.
Except when they're not. For example, when something about a specific retro computing feat is posted, people will just ramble about something very faintly related that they saw or did or purchased or dreamed about recently. E.g. topic is about an Amiga accelerator card, and there will be someone mentioning how they recently cleaned up the Amiga 500 they had in the garage -- like, who cares? Exactly like the comment w…
People who read the comments first like when someone highlights an interesting part of the article. It led some people to learn about Karnaugh maps probably. And it didn't have lots of competition.
The top comment of this discussion is a link to the scanned book.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll use myself as an example: - Voters should show proof of citizenship when voting. - The US needs to take a serious look at implementing Universal Basic Income, and not just because of the automation of jobs. - Abortion should be legal up to the earliest that a fetus has survived out of the womb, roughly 3 months. - We should celebrate diversity, and, we should be able to talk about what makes us different. Withou…
> - Voters should show proof of citizenship when voting. You'll get no disagreement on this from any liberal. In fact the disagreement lies not in proving citizenship but in the methods to do so. If you have to show proof to register then why do you need to show proof to vote? In fact, if you have ID that proves you are a valid voter then registration shouldn't be necessary at all. Republicans not only want you to sh…
> If you have to show proof to register then why do you need to show proof to vote? In fact, if you have ID that proves you are a valid voter then registration shouldn't be necessary at all.
Why don't you ask every other country why they do such a thing? Seriously, if the issue was as clear-cut as you make it out to be ("Those peoples are just trying to suppress the votes of their opponents") then the US would not be one of the few places in the world where this is controversial.
It's not controversial in some of the largest democracies in the world, and yet you want us to believe that you really think that it is controversial?
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#309"Our friends the French" (the book's title in France) is a much softer title.
American soldiers griping about the French wouldn't have wanted to read Our Friends the French. And French people tired of American soldiers griping wouldn't have wanted to read 112 Gripes About the French.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did your per Capita calculation roll up the populations of the next 9 countries it would take to equal the US?
So your point about why the US are great and morally ‘stellar ‘ (to use your word) is that it’s —- big? Wow, that’s anticlimactic.
Add up all those populations. We're exceedingly generous, although less so than the Germans.