America is perfect in every way. Everything America has ever done is perfect. Anyone who criticizes America and/or our history is a threat to America. If your not going to speak English in America then you can leave. America is the greatest country ever. The South will rise again. Slavery was good for the niggers. Liberals just want to destroy our history and make it seem like America is bad, even though Anerica is perfect in every way.
#Sarcasm
Can this thread please be closed? Or at least moved to 'Serious Discussions'?
So with the courage of a clown, or a cur, or a kite jerkin tight at it's tether
You can compare them in some ways, although, as you point out, not in others. I don't think the comparison is "meaningless": my point was merely that if it is reasonable be proud of American accomplishments of the past it is reasonable to be ashamed of them. (Similarly, if it is reasonable for Muslims to be proud of Muslim accomplishments of the present, it is reasonable for them to be ashamed of them.)
You are right: most Russians and Americans feel a reasonable (i.e. slight) shame about some of their nations' past. Of course I argued in an earlier post in this thread that pride in America is reasonable only in a minor and very general sense (a general happiness about her achievements, rather than "pleasure or satisfaction believed to reflect credit upon oneself" (which is a more specific definition of "pride"). The inverse (if that's the right word) of my proposition is also correct: if it is reasonable NOT to be proud of being an American, it is also reasonable NOT to be ashamed of it.
If the analogy is made to a family, we might feel either proud or ashamed of our child. or our parent (depending on what he does). But, whatever the achievement or the sin, we didn't do it. (Tiger Woods' dad's book notwithstanding.)
I promise not to use the word "reasonable" in my next 10 posts, as exculpation for my sins in this one.
Last edited by Ecurb; 09-08-2015 at 07:54 PM.
It seems to me that literature (in addition to other merits) often poses philosophical, social, cultural and political questions. I'ce never read "Submission", but I read a couple of reviews, and they all discuss issues surrounding immigration, patriotism, nationalism, etc., just as we are in this thread. Why is that so horrible?
Very few posts in this thread have anything to do with the OP. This has turned into a political debate thread. I attempted to bring the discussion back to the OP and was attacked for suggesting a possible literary interpretation for Walden. Apparently books are only about one thing nowadays.
This thread should either be moved to the 'Serious Discussions' forum or should be closed.
When someone disagrees with you it scares you. Other people should not be allowed to even look at what scares you, should they?
Stop puling, you sickening baby, and stop telling people how they should feel. Stop making hypocritcal demands that others refrain from doing what you are doing, as in expressing political views. Only a churl insists this issue is not already heavily politicized worldwide. Each of your views is perfectly politically correct. Somehow that makes them non-political in your eyes. Must be because they are the right views. Isn't that correct? As long as one represents the good political views, they are not political, eh?
I could read half a dozen of your posts and then list every one of your political views correctly. You are on here foaming at the mouth and gnashing your teeth, proselytyzing for a politically correct universal agenda, which you excuse and justify under the aegis Humanitarianism. Why, it's just a philosophy, right? Your bitterness at feeling like a reject is palpable.
Nothing is more important to you than pushing your own agenda and seeing that agenda everywhere. Even facts, dates and reasonable interpretations of literature are not excused for being what they are.