are u patriontic and is patriotism a good thing

[spongebob]

some of you people either watch too much tv or read too much opinionated material, get out and actually talk to real people and get to know them.

 

[KEL]

are u patriontic and is patriotism a good thing

Yes. I love my country although I don’t always agree with its policies. I have an odd sense of pride and I cry when I hear the National anthem played (subsequently I will be late to sporting events to avoid hearing it). Will I give up being a citizen of the United States of America? Only if Texas secedes.
I could not say if it (patriotism) is good or bad only what you make of it.

 

[the nature boy]

some of you people either watch too much tv or read too much opinionated material, get out and actually talk to real people and get to know them.

I hate it when you're ambiguous.

 

[spongebob]

I hate it when you're ambiguous.

i hate it when you make me use my dictionary.

 

[the nature boy]

i hate it when you make me use my dictionary.

you'll hate it even more if I spelled it wrong!

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

If there were kids starving because they couldn't afford 30 cents a day for food in America there would be billions devoted to the problem. but because alot of those kids are unlucky enough to live on a different piece of dirt the gov. really doesn't care.

Are you suggesting that our goverenmnt doesn't care? You may be right, but we still throw billions at other countries. Additionally, with a 2 trillion dollar budget, we could solve a lot of these problems here at home, but we (for the most part) ignore them.

Take the holocaust for example. 6 million jews died. BUT 3 million polish people died too. Our society couldn't give a shit less about the 3 million poles, but we care about the 6 million jews.

I'm not sure about the accuraccy of this. A lot of Americans don't give a shit about the Jews and many other Americans wish that Hitler had succeeded. As for Poland, you can't exactly expect patriotic fervor from a country that didn't exist 100 years ago.

Poland has alternatively existed, and then disappeared, based on German agression and expansion. There hasn't always been a Poland, so it may be a little tough for Poles to apprecate and understand their heritage.

Patriotism, to me, is selective compassion which can lead to grave injustice on a global scale. if you are lucky enough to be 'in' you get all the rewards (a comparitively non-repressive government, a choice on what you want to do for a living, a choice on who you can marry, etc). if not we just ignore you.

Given how poorly people have treated others throughout history, I'll take selective compassion over none at all.

 

[the nature boy]

Are you suggesting that our goverenmnt doesn't care? You may be right, but we still throw billions at other countries. Additionally, with a 2 trillion dollar budget, we could solve a lot of these problems here at home, but we (for the most part) ignore them.



I'm not sure about the accuraccy of this. A lot of Americans don't give a shit about the Jews and many other Americans wish that Hitler had succeeded. As for Poland, you can't exactly expect patriotic fervor from a country that didn't exist 100 years ago.

Poland has alternatively existed, and then disappeared, based on German agression and expansion. There hasn't always been a Poland, so it may be a little tough for Poles to apprecate and understand their heritage.

Sure we do throw billions to other countries...... but there's no accountability there. On a recent study conducted by the Heitage Foundation think tank, there's a direct corelation between countries voting in favor of the US in the United Nations and how much money we give them. Don't get me wrong, it's a good think to help our fellow humans out, but I think a lot of the money we give out ends up in the pockets of crooks.

As for poland, because they've never had long standing fixed borders they have a tough time appreciating their heritage? Since when does having a country equate to having some kind of heritage? I'm sure the Kurds appreciate their heritage, yet they haven't had a country of their own.

 

[CBRF4]

I'm not sure about the accuraccy of this.

http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Lucaire.htm

My mom is half Polish and afer reading that I'm a little pissed off.

 

[Lao Tzu]

1. Are you suggesting that our goverenmnt doesn't care? You may be right, but we still throw billions at other countries. Additionally, with a 2 trillion dollar budget, we could solve a lot of these problems here at home, but we (for the most part) ignore them.

2. I'm not sure about the accuraccy of this. A lot of Americans don't give a shit about the Jews and many other Americans wish that Hitler had succeeded. As for Poland, you can't exactly expect patriotic fervor from a country that didn't exist 100 years ago.

3. Poland has alternatively existed, and then disappeared, based on German agression and expansion. There hasn't always been a Poland, so it may be a little tough for Poles to apprecate and understand their heritage.

4. Given how poorly people have treated others throughout history, I'll take selective compassion over none at all.

1. what i'm suggesting is we don't care because they aren't americans. Of our 3 trillion tax dollars (i'm pretty sure its 3 now as the GNP is 10.5 trillion now) roughly 700 billion goes to welfare in one form or another (social security, medicaid, medicare, student subsudies, regular welfare). I am not opposed to this, as i think the purpose of government is to protect its citizens from harm. But given the choice i'd rather spend $1000 on a water purification system for a village of 500 in ethiopia than on T1 access for an inner city kid who doesn't want to be in school anyway.

Besides, i think our foreign budget is $15 billion annually. Of that, about 1/3 goes to isreal or egypt for military aid. the numbers are a little outdated though.

http://www.heritage.org/library/categories/forpol/fyi101t2.gif

Reading that i realize we do give good aid to some shitty countries. I think that most foreign aid is misused by leaders so we cut down on it.

Anyway, my point is that if americans were suffering that bad, we'd have 700 billion devoted to solving it. We got lucky living in the 1st world in this modern age. Our suffering is considered important.

2. & 3. My argument however, was that in our anti-racist society we make a big fuss about anti-semetic ethnic cleansing but ignore non anti-semetic ethnic cleansing. Selective compassion.
'If you're lucky enough to be a jew, we will give a shit. If not we won't.'

4. True. I'm just an armchair observer like everyone else so i have no idea how real world politics go. But i would rather live in a global society under the UN where billions was devoted to all the people & their problems, not just americans. Right now people in india are forced into lifelong slave labor contracts for a $60 debt, a onetime investment of $15 can give someone pure water for life, and $10 cycles of medication can prevent serious diseases. But for a variety of reasons, some i know i don't know about, we spend money instead on welfare for us. Billions to secure minor luxuries in america rather than millions to prevent serious problems in the 3rd world.

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Lucaire.htm

My mom is half Polish and afer reading that I'm a little pissed off.

You might get more pissed off if you knew that a lot of Poles built concentration camps in advance of the German onslaught in order to atempt to curry favor with the NAzis.