Hey Happy 4th of July everyone!

Hobbes said:
the other concept, the one that's being implement now, defines patriotism as being a good citizen, fulfilling your civic duties, acknowledging your culture but embracing others as well, respecting others, and wanting to work to make the country you live in a better place. I firmly believe that, if more countries could take the latter in lieu of the former, the world would be a better place.
Click to expand...

Heh... I've tried to act as a good soul in this world but I am somehow always misguided. Because of this, I became some being of hatred who dislikes people.

You can say I gave up on trying to help better myself. It doesn't help either that there are too many evil people in this world. Good things happening? HAH! Give me a break.
 
Y'see, I don't claim that my country is better than any other country. I argue in favour of my country most of the time, but that's usually because someone's arguing against me. I recognise that every country has it's flaws, including my own. It's just in those situations where I have to put my foot down and say "Now here's the thing..."

To be honest, I don't like arguments over countries. It brings out the ugly side of each country, while you're still trying to say "My country is good in spite of those things". Most of the time I'm barely even expecting any arguments, so when they happen, I'm not prepared, and eventually get into some dangerous arguments. I also hate it when some patriot manages to find even the slightest argument in a completely different topic and decide "Right, I'll argue against that".

There's my point of view. There's being a patriot, then there's being a douche. I happen to be both of those at certain points during an argument.
 
Hobbes said:
the other concept, the one that's being implement now, defines patriotism as being a good citizen, fulfilling your civic duties, acknowledging your culture but embracing others as well, respecting others, and wanting to work to make the country you live in a better place. I firmly believe that, if more countries could take the latter in lieu of the former, the world would be a better place.
Click to expand...
this is the point i was trying to make about how we can look positively on our country, for at least one day. thank you.
 
Just curious 2257, what do you want people to do then?

Do you want them to just be like "our country is flith, let's just spend all our time being pessimistic and constantly complain about others and the country and how we suck"? I mean, I'm sorry that people are like our ancestors centuries ago that caused a bunch of anarchy, murder, and struggles that help start our nation.

But I really don't see why we can't celebrate even one day of what they did that allowed us to not be in their situation where people were literally being crossed about whether or not to support their old country or the new colonies, having the fact any moment your house could be on fire or in the crossfires of a battle, and having to literally betray so many people depending on what side you are and basically break laws.
 
Bulbasaur said:
Viridi said:
this is the point i was trying to make about how we can look positively on our country, for at least one day. thank you.
Click to expand...

no, it isn't. all the things he mentioned are good things to do, but none of them require an artificially inflated sense of the worth of the country. even if they did, none of them would be things you could accomplish in one day
Click to expand...
Sorry. What I meant to say was that we should look positively forward, and try to change our country for the better.

And what's wrong with feeling a sense of fellowship with other Americans?
 
nothing per se, but if you feel a greater sense of fellowship with americans than with anyone else, i can't help but be confused as to why
 
not really

i mean, i know more americans, but that doesn't mean i have a greater sense of fellowship with them than with anyone else

right?
 
Bulbasaur said:
...it's realism. i acknowledge that there have been great americans who did great things. i just don't feel any pride in them, because they have nothing to do with me

but if i did feel pride in them, i would presumably have to feel a corresponding shame in the failures of americans. and i think there would be a lot more shame to feel than pride, because genocide is among the worst crimes yet devised by human beings.
Click to expand...

The bold is that they have affected you in some way, shape, or form, even though it is indirectly for the most part. It's kind of like the butterfly effect; without them doing whatever they did, who knows what life today would be. But I'm digressing from what we are talking about.

There is a lot of things to be proud of, and a lot of things to not be proud of. And there is A LOT of things to not be proud of that is well-known as a mass scale, and is more impactful than all the little individual things that people do to better themselves (i.e. - Recycle, donate money to charity, give a kidney, etc.). But I don't see why we should let the past prevent us from trying to make up for the mistakes of our ancestors. Genocide is definitely just horrific and I cannot believe that it happens, but I don't think that it should just overcloud everything else. There is always a silver lining in the dark clouds; feeling a little bit of pride for what we have accomplished, it really shows how much we can approve and the positive attitude can be used to really continue making changes in the world we know.
 
Bulbasaur said:
Joey Tribbiani said:
It's just in those situations where I have to put my foot down and say "Now here's the thing..."
Click to expand...

but why do you want to defend britain
Click to expand...

because when someone challenges me, without pointing out the flaws in their own country, I feel the need to point out that all countries are equal in some ways, they each have flaws, and they each have pros, but when someone fails to accept that, and thinks highly of their country, I just get overly defensive

because i'm part douche
 

i don't think we disagree

although i cant attest to having ever felt a sense of fellowship with americans at large, or really with any other group of people aside from those i think of as friends

cryoAwakening said:
The bold is that they have affected you in some way, shape, or form, even though it is indirectly for the most part. It's kind of like the butterfly effect; without them doing whatever they did, who knows what life today would be. But I'm digressing from what we are talking about.
Click to expand...

i probably phrased it poorly. what i mean is, i don't feel any pride in their accomplishments because i didn't influence those accomplishments in any way. the fact that they sometimes happen to benefit me is irrelevant

cryoAwakening said:
There is a lot of things to be proud of, and a lot of things to not be proud of. And there is A LOT of things to not be proud of that is well-known as a mass scale, and is more impactful than all the little individual things that people do to better themselves (i.e. - Recycle, donate money to charity, give a kidney, etc.). But I don't see why we should let the past prevent us from trying to make up for the mistakes of our ancestors. Genocide is definitely just horrific and I cannot believe that it happens, but I don't think that it should just overcloud everything else. There is always a silver lining in the dark clouds; feeling a little bit of pride for what we have accomplished, it really shows how much we can approve and the positive attitude can be used to really continue making changes in the world we know.
Click to expand...

regardless of how much pride or shame there is to feel, i don't feel any of it because none of those events occurred as result of any action i took

Joey Tribbiani said:
because i'm part douche
Click to expand...

you don't need to be so self loathing about it. i'm pretty sure it's a natural instinct, even if i happen to regard it as an obsolete one
 
we've agreed about things before

like uh ... umm ... ...
 
Hmmm...

I understand exactly what you're getting at 22, but I dunno. We had nothing to do with any of this and so it's like why feel proud or shame about it when we had no responsibility for it. At the same time though, we shouldn't just disregard their actions with unchanged (forgive me if I'm using a bad word choice) attitudes by it.

Gosh, I'm probably way off of what I'm trying to say, but I mean, like with the Genocide, we definitely don't want to just feel nothing for it because we weren't a part of it, as they are horrific things that humans can do. Likewise, we shouldn't overlook the cause and effect of the revolutionary war on America, and how their actions has lead to many key events in history.

I'm going to stop there because now I'm just going into areas that I'm very unsure how to explain, and I don't want to be misunderstood because of it.
 
Bulbasaur said:
we've agreed about things before

like uh ... umm ... ...
Click to expand...
no, wait! i remember. we both were interested in the fourth dimension one day in #mwchat

and, ah... i think there were some other miscellaneous topics we were interested in?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back