Topic: What IS America? (Read 3262 times)

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I've never been to America, but from what I can tell, "heterogeneous" would be a nice word to sum it up.
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Opportunity.

And Kaworu your posts strikes me more as Bipolar maybe idk
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I didn't really want to have negative connotations with my ONE WORD because I don't listen to Greenday and find their music trype, uninspired and attention clawing.
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I think the Americans are more negative about their country than the Europeans. Despite having its share of problems, there's no denying that America is still a really great country. Emphasizing some trivial thing, such as the fact that its inhabitants are more obese than those from other countries, would be very ignorant of its status as a First World country. (Maybe you should move to Sierra Leone for a few years.)
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Ok honestly guys. America is a friggin continent. Your contry is called "United States of America". "American" is the standard way to refer to a citizen of the USA, but you can't reffer to the USA as "AMERICA". Damn it.
I think we forgot that other countries exist on the American continent I'm so sorry Canada + Mexico + South America. (Read: Americans equals stupid).

overstated

i know this topic is specifically about AMERICA but i knew when i walked in here i'd expect to see stupid college kid mentality and when I read this
i knew i was right.

i'm not trying to be that POST 9/11 PARANOIA I LUUUUVVVV AMERIKA guy but holy fuck if there is any country in the world that is criticized more than america for problems that exist everywhere then please give me a fucking link, guys.

shit. you want to talk about religion, would any of you watch a mother bath her child in cow urine with a straight face?

but god, fucking jehova witnesses and their door to door sales fucking twats.
High school kids*

Yeah, you're right to an extent. But there's a reason why people criticize America The United States. For all its hype, it's insanely hypocritical. Like you've said before -- it's overstated. We pride ourselves upon democracy and freedom -- yet * A LOT * of people don't vote. K then go back a few decades to Vietnam, when we were fighting 'for democracy' yet we were trying to FORCIBLY IMPOSE it upon a nation which, by popular sovereignty, had chosen communism (not exactly that but the people there really liked the ideas, and fatass America didn't exactly look like the good-guy). We continue to screw over our image, with stuff like the Anti-Ballistic missile system that we wanted in Poland(?) (Russia threatening to point nukes @ Europe, Europe becoming pissed @ us), and the general mud slung at the Iraq war.

Really, I'm proud to be an American. I live in fricking San Diego where the weather never changes and life is pretty good, despite the occasional bitching about housing. But I think that we as a nation should get out of the La-Z-boy and actually think about who we're voting for, what changes we want, and maybe how to make this a better place. And unless there is some mass mentality change, hell -- even Rome fell.
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nah its a pretty shitty country and the problems are less shit like THEY ARE FAT and more the fact that we have a political system that hinders progress to a ridiculous degree and an incredibly vocal minority convincing everyone that because western Europe has a better educational and health care system, the correct answer is to run in the opposite direction of them as fast as possible.

I guess you could say America is hindered.
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I think that stagnant is pretty good
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‘Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you've nothing better to do.' -Jean Baudrillard, 1998

I am such a windbag for posting that.

America is a very unique country compared to the other industralized countries. for one it is really fucking racist. Just see your college cafeteria where blacks sit with blacks and whites sit with whites. America is very reactionary in the sense that still there are people campaigning for creationism, the two party political sphere is shifted to the extreme right, and there is no labor movement. Another thing that is really unique is the focus on language with american brand of liberalism, to an extent that saying nigger, even in a context that isnt offensive, is a DEVIL word, which is ironic because in other languages there is no such thing as EVIL WORDS and generally a lot of countries are less racist than the US. Or the fact that english speaking people give a shit abougender neutrality of words, while turkish is pretty gender neutral and turkey is mad sexist.

There are also great things that are american. American literature is pretty awesome because it has a history of being very experimental, and Jazz is pretty awesome too. People who say that in America there is no worthwhile culture are retarded.
Last Edit: May 18, 2008, 09:46:31 pm by Marmot
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Confused/Misled.

I don't think I need to go any further into this.

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it's pretty easy to say the country is fat (because yeah, lots of fat people) but almost all comparisons are made against a country that has like... a quarter of the america's population.  you could say the country is wasteful but being a developed industrial nation i can also say that china and japan are wasteful.  every country has a state religion (every), every country has zealots (every), every country is fucking prejudice (try asking a chinese national in japan what life is like), every country has crime, every country has *gasp* problems.
Yeah, unfortunely, the USA has one of the highest if not the highest, uh.... 'wasteful'-ness, per capita, follows its religion much more than most other developed countries, has many many more zealots, is much more prejudiced, and in short, USA at the moment has too many quite obvious problems.
Last Edit: May 18, 2008, 09:21:21 pm by Bisse
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Apathetic. The US is one the lowest ranking countries in voter turnout percentage. I think a lot of people don't really try to understand the basics of current events, and don't look any further than whatever sound bites they hear on TV. Even a majority of people identify with the party with which their parents identified, though I don't know if that's true for other countries. Maybe the apathy is exaggerated, because I'm motivated to use this word based off personal experience, but there is very little political discussion that I'm aware of (okay i live in a suburb of Oklahoma maybe that's not fair).

Also, everyone is horrified by words like SOCIALISM, and treat it like it's a bad word. What Marmot said about the labor movement is very true, and is why things like UHC don't exist for the US.
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Yeah, unfortunely, the USA has one of the highest if not the highest, uh.... 'wasteful'-ness, per capita, follows its religion much more than most other developed countries, has many many more zealots, is much more prejudiced, and in short, USA at the moment has too many quite obvious problems.

No, it really doesn't. People may mark the "Very religious" tab on their surveys, but Americans are really not that religious. Most don't even read the Bible (or other holy scripture) or attend Church (or other place of worship). Americans pay lip service to their religion, they do not adhere to it.

And please, don't claim that Americans are "much more prejudiced" than other developed countries, or that it has more zealots.
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Dude America is much more religious than other developed countries. Maybe if you live in goddamn Boston you only get to meet harvard flaming liberals. but christian identity is a big part of AMERICANNESS.
Last Edit: May 18, 2008, 09:43:49 pm by Marmot
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I know another two words that describe america = A Place.  :gwa:

*!Congradulations you've just read the crappiest post Achiro has made today!*
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I guess it depends on how you define religiosity. I think there are a lot of people who identify with Christianity because it looks good to friends.

If church attendance is any measure, then I think there is a consensus with all the surveys that about 40-50% of Americans attend church weekly. If belief in God is a measure, then it's an overwhelming majority.
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Dude America is much more religious than other developed countries. Maybe if you live in goddamn Boston you don't feel it. but christian identity is a big part of AMERICANNESS.

Being more religious would imply reading the Bible, going to Church, following what the Bible says. Americans do not do this. They are not religious, they do not adhere to the religion, but they say they do. I live in one of the most conservative, "religious" areas of the US, so I know how these supposedly "religious" people behave. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I'm out drinking at a bar with you on Saturday night and you end up having the premarital relations with a hot (gender or species you feel sexual attraction to), and I know for a fact that you haven't been to church in 7 years and you don't own a Bible, but you say in a survey that you consider yourself a very religious Southern Baptist, I know you're full of shit. Most Americans are full of shit.

But you see, that's what America's all about: Saying one thing while doing the other.
(OH GOD I AM A SOUTH PARK REPUBLICAN HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???)
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Here is some evidence:
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=167

"Religion is much more important to Americans than to people living in other wealthy nations."

The measure used is asking how much of a role religion plays in everyday life, and according to this study, it plays almost double that of what was recorded in Canada. People can still be hypocrits, but that doesn't mean religion is irrelevant.
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I think the Americans are more negative about their country than the Europeans. Despite having its share of problems, there's no denying that America is still a really great country. Emphasizing some trivial thing, such as the fact that its inhabitants are more obese than those from other countries, would be very ignorant of its status as a First World country. (Maybe you should move to Sierra Leone for a few years.)
I think I have to agree with you here. While I've said some bad things myself, I really don't know if I could see myself living anywhere else. For instance, the obesity and religion problems are mainly problems with the South, though not neccessarily exclusively. I mean, there are still plenty of good things about the country. For instance, it's a melting pot of ethnicities and cultures, and you shouldn't ever run out of things to do here, either.
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another word I would use to describe America.
Our politicians are killing it.
Last Edit: May 18, 2008, 10:12:05 pm by Achiro
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USA = the nation of consumption