We are the greatest country because: 1. We are the richest nation in the entire world. That alone assures greatness. 2. We have the longest running representative republic with a constitution in the world 3. We are the most powerful player, both economically and militarily in the world. We could fight the entire world in a conventional war and still win. Our influence in the world as you see MacDonalds in New Dehli, Old Navy stores in Buenos Aires is unmistakeable. If it rubs people the wrong way.....screw 'em. Just like the Bulls of the 90's, when they pulled a double-three peat, everyone hates dominance and everyone wants to cut you down to size.
"Wasted" time is spent because the mind set of Columbus, believing his culture and god is superior, and everyone else's is worthless, still exists today (see bama's posts). That type of thinking leads to bloodshed, no matter when.
The only thing that matters is who wins......and all this cultural equivalence many of you spout is ridiculous. Of course Western and Asian Civilization is superior. Name one nuclear power plant, automobile, airplane or anything else of significance invented by the Indians, who are so beloved by the left as the "keepers of the Earth" who weren't materialistic like the evil, white/Asian males you hate so much. The weak always yield to the strong and to those who cry about it, you are enjoying the fruits of that relationship, whether you like it or not. And if you want to keep crying for the poor little Indians who died hundreds of years ago, I got a huge stack of towels for you to weep into. Columbus was a great man and I'm thankful for everything that happened as a result of his heroic voyage of discovery.
Well, first of all, SJC, screw you, you pompous a-hole. Second of all, what is so ignorant about the points I stated? They are the truth and as they say, the truth hurts. So put that in your little high horsed pipe and smoke it.
One thing's certain. You're obviously not a Christian. I kind of would have thought you were, but it's clear from your posts in this thread at least that you definitely aren't. Further, you would almost definitely characterize Jesus as a p***y. Read Howard Zinn and post this again. And I hope for your sake you never go to jail. Holding these opinions there'd be a deep poetic justice in you getting raped by a guy twice your size.
And that one... Bye bye, bamaslammer. I have to admit, this is one of the few times I actually did use that "Report to a Moderator" function. I am not sure if that will lead to anything, but I feel that bamaslammer's post there crossed the line a bit. I did attack his post, not him as a person (although that is obviously always included a bit when attacking a post). He responded in a very primitive way, which I do not appreciate.
It was also intentional. Ben Frankling wrote suggestions to people training attack dogs for the purpose of killing off entire Indian villages. Franklin suggested ways to make the dogs meaner so they would be more effective when set loose on those villages. There is also a difference between the other cultures you mentioned and the Indians. Those other cultures started wars against each other. The Indians did not travel to Europe and invade Europeans. All the wars they were involved in with Europeans were brought to them. As for the keepers of the earth stuff and Indians, that is a yeas and know. Before the Europeans ever arrived here the American Indians had caused at least one species of buffalo to go extinct and be wiped off the face of the earth through over hunting.
I would not characterize Jesus as a p***y, but the point is this: Western Civilization, is responsible for everything we have today. Should the Indians been treated better? Of course. Was what the Spanish did in forcibly converting them to Catholicism horrible. Of course. But I'm not going to sit here and whine for the Indians who died hundreds of years ago, mostly to diseases brought by an unknowing white man. They had no idea the Indians had no immunity to their diseases and no idea that the Indians had a genetic problem when it came to alcohol. All of this hatred for Columbus stems from a core hatred for America and all it stands from the left. And Mr. MEOWGI, what is wrong with all those things I mentioned? Nuke plants power your house, cars get you to where you want go, etc. etc. I'm happy for the things that Asian/Western civilization has done for our world, because if not for them, we'd be out the woods stalking game to live rather than surfing the web.
Boo-hoo, hooo. I didn't appreciate your little comment either. And compared some of the things that some of the more leftist members of our little community have said to people, it was not even rising to their level of invective.
My history teacher has us read him, pretty much more so than our actual history book. He is like most of you guys in that schools should teach what really happend and not just a good story with perfect role models to look up to. He doesn't like Columbus day either. He didn't discover anything, and he ended up leading to the the death of millions. I think he told us that Spain, I think, offered money to the first person who sighted land. Someone on the Santa Maria saw it first, but Columbus stole it for himself. Also, there are writings about Columbus thinking about how easy it would be for the Natives Americans to be put into slavery. There was some pretty graphic things the Spanish did as well. I think I read something about them testing the sharpness of their swords on the Natives. I read that two little boys had two parrots, and the Spanish killed the boys and took the birds. The Europeans killed many Natives voluntarily and involuntarily with the diseases they brought from Europe. IIRC, the Natives, for the most part, tried to help the Europeans, especially since they thought they were gods. OK, that's enough of a history lesson for me today. I think this is my first post in the D&D.
Among the plethora of stupid ass things you've said, many of which appear in this thread, this one goes right to the top of the list. You're sick.
You've GOT to be kidding. Who's the propoganda sucker? BTW, SJC was right. We can say we're a 'great' country, but we cannot claim 'greatest'. Maybe 'greatest' by your personal measure, or maybe even by most Americans' measure. But greatest? Do we have the highest income per person? Are we all covered by healthcare? Do we have the highest literacy rate? Do we have the least pollution? Are we the safest? Are we the most spiritual? Are we the friendliest? Are we the most family-oriented? Are we the happiest? Well, we do have the largest economy.
This is not true at all. From Medicine, to writing, to paper itself, to literacy, to the printing press(sorry Gutenburg fans) the west did come up with these things or even most of the concepts in them that we use today. Did Western civilization make innovations and discoveries in them? Sure but to say that the Western civilization is responsible for them is ignorant.
No one else finds it interesting that he refers to 'foreign conquerors', yet by far the majority of the current Venezuelan population is of Latin descent. It's a rather transparent attempt to besmirch the US for political gain. The US is evil for what it did to the Indians, yet the ancestors of all of these Latin Venezuelans were wronged by the foreign invaders. These are the types of wacko nationalistic leaders who appeal to locals when big countrys butt their noses in (or appear to) where they don't belong.
In all fairness he does call out Spanish conquistadors as well. And I'm not really sure how wacko he is. Our media here as portrayed him as such, but then again we are somewhat biased here since our government has been trying to get him removed ever since he was democratically elected. From my understanding, the US wants him out b/c he keeps threatening to trade Venezuela's oil for euros instead of dollars.
First lemme start off with an apology to SJC.....I shouldn't have been as big an a-hole as I was and I profoundly apologize for that. I just respectfully disagree and leave at that. It was likely the awful drive I had to endure out of Knoxville to get home last night, the traffic was terrible and the deer were out in force. I was a prick, SJC and I freely admit that. Second, I think some of those measures are things that no matter what, we will never achieve, like universal healthcare 100 percent employment or zero pollution, because they are impossible. A lot of the things that make us great (our great economy) make us deficient in several areas. We have a serious problem in this country with a very impatient and unrealistic nature as far as problem solving is concerned. Some problems will never be solved, because there will always be rich or poor, or uninsured folks or people without jobs. To think there won't be is utopian wishful thinking because nothing we do in this world is going to be perfect. I think you can't measure happiness as an empirical measure. If you've seen Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans and other impoverished regions of the world, you see what true poverty is. We don't have bodies rotting the street. We don't have uncontrolled warfare between rival clans with machine guns and rockets in the street. Our poor have cars, often have jobs and enjoy a lot of conveniences that are the exclusive province of the wealthy in many of those Third World countries. And Columbus was not wrong for wanting to go boldly where no [white] man has gone before. He had no idea that the diseases his people carried would wipe out entire populations within a generation. I may not have agreed with the results of the conquistadors and the colonization of America, but the results of which, our great nation, speak for themselves.
"Americans to forget that our path to global dominance is paved with the dead bodies of countless millions." <i>Our</i> global dominance? I'm sorry, but Columbus wasn't American. He was an Italian financed by Spain. Please don't blame a country that didn't even exist for the deaths of countless millions. Blame Italy and Spain. This is a pet peeve of mine. Europeans are so quick to judge Americans but Americans have a LONG way to go before we come close to the evil perpetrated by the English, French, Spanish, Belgium, etc.. in the world. People criticize the U.S. for slavery (and rightly so!) but forget that Europe and Africa had nice slave trade going. Do you ever wonder why so many people on the Caribbean Islands are black? They are the descendants of English, Spanish and French slaves stolen from Africa. The native populations of those islands were murdered (which is pretty much genocide). Europe criticizes the U.S. for our invasion of Iraq but seem to overlook their screwing up of the African continents (not to mention the mid-East). At least we're not planning on making Iraq a colony. We'll get the heck out as soon as they can run themselves. Heck many of the conflicts today stem from past colonialism. The whole India and Pakistan thing not to mentiont the existance of Israel and Kuwait can be blamed on the British empire.
