How do you feel about Americans representing China in the Olympics?

I don't see how anyone can begrudge someone for wanting to represent the country their parents are proud to be from. It's like being upset that someone who grew up in LA is a Rockets fan because their dad was from Houston. No one would be, "oh I can't respect that person"

I never understood that about Americans. Our whole schtick is freedom of choice, yet we can't respect someone for exercising that freedom? If we spill blood in the fight for freedom, shouldn't we rejoice when someone goes against the grain and again, exercises that freedom? We all know that a Chinese athlete would never be allowed to represent the USA.

 

If you weren't a veteran would your opinion be different?

 

Last fall I was at a U of MN Gophers football game and in a random conversation with some other people there I said I was an Astros fan. I got ripped into by some of the other people there for still rooting for the Stros. One even asked me since I don't live in Houston anymore I should quit rooting for the Stros.

 

I've never encountered that. No one questions that I am still a Rockets fan, or a 'Stros fan (except after the scandal), or a Saints fans. There was a time on this board that people asked why I don't go root for the Knicks when I first joined.

 

I'm curious too why communism upsets you vs any other form of authoritarian gov't. So it's ok for someone to represent a country run by a dictator but not one run by a central party? And it should be noted that there isn't a true communist gov't anywhere (or has ever existed) - just authoritarian gov'ts that pretend to be a transition to communism.

Ironically, if more companies were run like AVIS that would be closer to true communism than anything cooked up in China.

In my view the only reason we are so anti-communism is because the Soviet Union was our major geopolitical enemy/rival for so long. Russia is essentially the same entity as back then today, except now it has dropped the veil of communism and is what it truly is, an authoritarian regime run like a mafia with Putin as the godfather.

 

So if your family immigrated here from Norway, it's ok to represent them in the olympics, but if they came from Russia, it's disgraceful to do it?

I just feel that connecting a gov't to a country as one in the same makes me uncomfortable. This is in fact how many people bash America and all its citizens - that whatever the American gov't does, all of us as citizens and our culture should also be damned.

One thing I never understood about the Olympics - there were suppose to bring countries and the world together to encourage peace and understanding, yet it seems to be more about rivalries and national glory.

 

My late mother in law used to think the opposite. She was upset with my wife (who was born near New Orleans) who was happy when the Vikings scored that miraculous TD to beat the Saints a few years ago when we still lived in MN.

 

And a huge fan of China. And a non-carer about their human rights abuses.

 

No, it isn't the same thing IMO because politics so play a big part in it.

I will represent the country I live in and work in and am proud to be a citizen of.

The country my parents came from is largely irrelevant, as I am not living in that country. If I want to live in that country so bad, then I would move there.

I look at Eileen Gu and she was born in the USA. Her mother left China for the USA to have a better life and better opportunities. So she takes advantage of the opportunities and represents the CCP? That is a betrayal. If she wants to represent China, she can move back to China. She is knowingly being used as a pawn by the CCP.

The same goes for athletes that represent the USA and have not moved to the USA as American citizens.

 

He's using them to benefit the human race

Write a letter to your future future future grand children that you got to see Elon create Starship and Tesla
your kin on Mars will be jealous

PRAISE ELON
@Xerobull
@Space Ghost

 

Hitler believed the same thing. Who care about some dead people now - good for the future!

 

Einstein
Gallieo
the Wright Brothers
Michael Jackson
Vernon Maxwell
Mr Nintento
Elon

 

No place is perfect, but the USA is far better than the CCP ruled China that currently exists. I know you are a defender of the CCP and their decision to turn their own people into hamburger meat and flush them down the street gutters but most people frown upon that.

Having said that, the USA has a number of problems, but it is also one of the only nations on the planet that is open and discusses their issues rather than hide them and act as if they are ashamed.

 

If you take away the nations
She wouldn't get this opportunity to make this much money if she was ugly
@Jontro

this is the real reason here, let's not front
nobody cared about Sharpova or Kornakova's country

I wonder why

 

I think that's between the athlete and China. No business of mine. But I can understand not being a fan of theirs and no reason you should be -- they're Chinese athletes, not American athletes.

Also, I hate the Olympics and don't watch or follow any of it, so my view may be tinged by my very easy disinterest in the whole subject. But if an American became Chairman in China, I wouldn't care about that either. I might not be a fan, but I don't think someone owes it to me to not be the leader of China just because that person is American (though I suppose in this example they might lose their American citizenship). They'd be nothing to me.

 

Right, but would it bother you if they became Chairman and still lived in the USA?

 

I think that'd be fantastic. Much, much easier for the CIA to spy on China that way.