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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:27
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JohnT: what the hell is "pro-American"?
There is a set of values we call american, of which dmeocracy and freedom of expression, specifically political and religious, are top.
It seems to me the only way to be anti-American is to be anti-dmeocracy, anti-free expression. Otherwise, how can you be anti-American?
Its like in the movies :"be yourself, be different!- as long as you fall within a prescribed circle of what is "acceptably" different".... Sorry, but for me such an attitude is insane, its absurd, it boggles the mind. America is, first and formost, an Idea. That is what is greatest about America: it is not about something tangiable, it is about a dream for how things should be. Now, people have ever right to disagree about how such a dream should be achieved, and how, if ever, such a dream can be expanded to fill the whole world (and that every argument is part of the dream) but as long as they believe in it, they can't possibly be "anti-American".
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:27
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quote:
Does that mean we can't be called anti-French unless we are against the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternaty? |
French culture existed for centuries before the Revolutionaries created this slogan. The French revolution did not create French culture or history, it is part of it. America had some "American" culture before the revolution, but much of what we think as American developed after the Constitution came into being. Think of it, what do soldiers in france pledge to? My bet is they pledge to the French nation. What do our officals pledge to? A piece of paper, a document. To me, that does make a difference. America has a place, but the basis for what is American has not been that space, it was a set of ideas that some hoped perhaps could be pout to practice on what they called virgin lands. I understand that the two are linked, but still the diea is more important than the piece of land.
quote:
GePap - nonsense! Just because American ideals lie with freedom liberty and democracy doesn't mean that it operates respecting these ideals. It is easy to be anti-American or anti-American policy without being anti-Democracy/Liberty/Freedom. |
Look above: I don;t think America is just simply about a piece of real-states with aparticualr group of people. Why,c ause new people are coming in all the time, changing the makeup of that real-estate. What in the end makes everyone in the uS American is a shared sense of ideals. I vehemently disagree with conservatives, but I know that they trully believe that what they are doing is what they think will lead to more freedom and the creation of American dieals. They and I disgaree about how you get there, but no where the "there" is.
That to me, is the great problem: people think that because you disagree on how to get there, you must also inhrently disagree about every bit of what "there" is. And they make the rather understandable and human mistake of pigeonholing American ideals to a specific real-estate and a bunch of people.
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07-04-2003 07:05
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