Boston Globe Columnist Is Right: America Sucks
Writing for the Boston Globe, Neal Gabler recently stated: “The hoariest and most oft-repeated cliché in American politics may be that America is the greatest country in the world. Every politician, Democrat and Republican, seems duty bound to pander to this idea of American exceptionalism, and woe unto him who hints otherwise.”
Gabler reminds us that, far from being exceptional, America is quite mediocre, as we rank low in education (the teachers’ unions have nothing to do with it, I’m sure) and health care (we’re dying in the streets!), and are behind other nations when it comes to median income (gasp!). And when it comes to national pride, it’s okay as long as we keep things in perspective: “The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia.” He’s right. How dare we hold our heads higher than anyone else?
You know, I’d better show his article to my neighbor, Marcio. See, Marcio came here from Brazil and not only went from working as a sandwich maker in a deli to owning his own painting business with his father-in-law, but is working toward citizenship. I wouldn’t want him to take the oath of citizenship without knowing what he’s getting into.
Gabler makes me wish that Paul Revere had decided to stay in bed that night instead of warning his fellow citizens that the British were coming, that Betsy Ross had told George Washington she was too busy working on a quilt to sew the first flag, and that the Minutemen had put away their dangerous muskets (you’ll put your eye out, kid!) and just stood by as the redcoats swept through Boston and Massachusetts on their way to an easy victory. Think of all the heartache that would have saved! No “Stars and Stripes Forever,” no ugly American syndrome, no McDonald’s, no Coca-Cola, no GI Joe. Slavery? That would have been the UK’s problem, not America’s.
Perhaps we could have eventually ended up as part of Canada, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about people dying in the streets for lack of health care or not having enough maple syrup for their pancakes and waffles. Inexpensive maple syrup ought to be a constitutional right, don’t you think? I’m tired of paying six to eight bucks for a measly 12 ounces. Speaking of ounces, we wouldn’t have to be embarrassed because we haven’t joined the rest of the world in using the metric system. Heck, we wouldn’t have to be embarrassed about anything because we wouldn’t be Americans; we’d be Canadians. What could be finer?
There would have been no World War I — oh wait, Canada did get involved to support Britain, so as Canadians we would have been involved too. But we wouldn’t have been involved in World War II — oops, forgot, Canadians were a part of that fracas too. Never mind. But just imagine what the world would have been like without America to put her nose in everyone else’s business. Perhaps all the Jews in Europe would have perished under Hitler. Hooray! Perhaps Japan would not be the peaceful, productive nation it is today but would be ruling the Pacific with an iron fist. Awesome! But there I go again, suggesting that America might have had some kind of hand in the outcome of World War II, meaning that America has some reason to be proud of herself. Old habits die hard. But don’t worry, I’m learning.
First of all, calling the United States of America ‘America’ is totally snobbish. America is the continent that comprises North, Central and South America. Those are The Americas.
So don’t be lazy and write the full name: United States of America. Or say USA.
When people around the world hear Americans use the word ‘America’, they laugh. They say ‘Who do they think they are?’ ‘They want to impress me that they are a whole continent?’.
The full name of Mexico is the United States of México. Why drop the “United States’? Because there is no other Mexico. No confusion.
Many people around the world think they live in the Greatest Country in the World. But they don’t brag every five seconds about it. When they hear Americans (from North America) bragging, they just roll their eyes up.
In Latin America people prefer the names gringos, norteamericanos or other rather than americanos. They also are americanos!
That’s why the USA is just another nation in the world. Its citizen feel proud, so everybody else.
It’s kinda sad when all your major accomplishments are a few decades, if not a whole generation, old. As if the Spaniards should be proud they used to rule the world.
What I care about is NOW (or, to be fair, the last half generation, say 15 years.)
The US clearly used to be at the top of ALL major rankings. But now, the country is lagging. Even in the rather objective ranking of GDP per capita, the US ranks 12/13 according to the WB/IMF, and 17 (!) according to your own CIA.
So if I was an immigrant keen on making a good income, I would immigrate to the seven countries AHEAD of the US in terms of immigration per capita, 6 of all 7 of which have a higher average income than the US.
Oh and taxes? Not a worry. The US has the fifth highest income taxes amongst developed nations. So I would also keep most of my income.
I think I’ll just move to Switzerland (actually, I already did). Cheese is better as well…
vivo, glad to see you’re still snarking about.
Of course the decline has nothing to do with our education system which has over the past 30 years de-emphasized teaching useful things such as mathematics, science, choosing instead to teach multi-culturalism. Teaching that our children shouldn’t think that America is a great country. But then, “no child left behind” has done it’s mark…by leaving them all behind. We now teach that “everyone’s a winner” but when our children get to the real world, they are psychologically unprepared to the heavy competition that’s required to succeed. Where there are winners and losers, and far more of the latter than the former.
Well, the lefty trolls are up early, aren’t they? vivo says everybody laughs when we call ourselves “Americans”. That’s why people want to move to “America” more than any other country. styx ignores that we are lagging because of a recession and the kind of leftists (s)he obviously loves have inveigled themselves into control of the White House and Congress.
In any case, Gabler has been every talk show’s token Perrier lefty for twenty years and it should come as no surprise only a rag like the Boston Globe would print such dreck.
Gabler used to be a regular on Fox News Week, which reviews media coverage of the past week’s events. He always gave the left position, as does his latest column.
America used to be exceptional for its devotion to freedom and opportunity. Now, in the past couple of decades and especially the past 9 months, we’ve become the beacon of government-based security fueled by massive deficit spending. Bush era deficits averaged around $300 billion; with Democrats in charge of Congress and the White House, this year’s deficit should be around $1.4 trillion, more than 4 times as much.
Meanwhile, our leaders are busy looking for a way for government to guaranty everyone’s medical bills will be paid in full. Lyn Nofzinger said: “I am a Republican because, like Ronald Reagan, I believe that freedom is America’s most important product.”
While freedom may occasionally be mentioned by our current President, he’s got many more important fish to fry, from apologizing for what he perceives as our past transgressions to government healthcare to fighting “climate change” to nuclear disarmament. No wonder American exceptionalism and devotion to the cause of freedom are fading away. In their place we’ve got Hope and Change.
vivo is so right. We can’t call this America, just because the world recognized long ago that this part of the continent is where the action is. And Africa is really just the name of the old Roman province where Carthage once stood. Does the continent south of Europe even need a name? (That’s so eighteenth century.) And Hispanics should stop calling themselves Latinos, that rightfully belongs to those who used the dead language in their daily life. And the USA is just another nation in the world. Yeah, sure.
Vino – take a chill pill man! Wow, what a rant!
and Styx, who wee-wee’d in your beer?
True children of the “no competition”, “everybody wins” culture. If you find the good old USA so disappointing, I think you should just look at it’s current institutions and who runs most of them. Granted our politicians from both sides of the aisle suck but who is in charge of education, labor unions, government employees (gee, unions again), the courts, the main stream media (yuck) and a host of other functions that are subject to socialist, politically correct, gender neutering, wealth redistributing wingnuts? Yes, people just like you. So when you complain about our country’s current state of affairs, who ya gonna blame? Look right, then look up, then look down, then look left! Oh, yes, that’s it. The left with its’ self-righteous, self-proclaimed grasp of solutions to all of man’s ills throughout history, is full of progressive shit.
So go spread your crap somewhere it is appreciated. Some people are busy fixing damage done to our great country and protecting it from idiots from the likes of you who have no time or energy except to denigrate and belittle both the history and the promise of our land and people. The truth is YOU SUCK!
Ah Yes! Boston. Massachusetts.
A liberal bastion with a great American past as part of the founding of our country. Who knows what happened to that place. Now all that comes out of that miserable state is people like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barney Franks & Beans, and other left wing idiots. It is like Twilight Zone. What happened to the citizens in this state? It is like they were captured by aliens and transformed into the walking dead. In-spite of all the so-called great institutions of learning residing in that state, intelligence is sorely lacking. I’ll give the students the benefit of the doubt that they are from other places and just live there while getting their “educations” but man, something is just weird there.
And it is spreading to the entire northeast. Vermont, NY, New Hampshire, Maine. Go figure. They keep voting against their own interests and the interests of their country’s future so they can “feel good.”
I have only pity for poor vivo. Projecting ones own inadequacies on an entire nation is cheap and easy. Unable to raise itself, the poor creature seeks to drag all around it down.
I served. I’ve taught English to foreign kids. I graduated with honors. I raised a family. I am what is known here as middle class, but I have more opportunity and aterial goods than my Japanese or German counterparts. I’m not exceptional – in this country. I’m not Mother Theresa either. I’m just a regular guy. I’d have to travel all the way across the street to find a young guy who volunteered for the military during wartime. Just as I did long ago.
I’ve lived elsewhere and travelled even more. I’ve never been anywhere that didn’t do some things better than us. I’ve never been anywhere that did more things better than us. I know and love Japan, well enough to know its virtues and its faults. I’d rather live here.
Indonesia was just wracked by another set of earthquakes. Those helicopters that brought in relief supplies weren’t Chinese, Russian, or European or Mexican. They came from a country I still think is the best. It’s imperfect, but I know of no better. This would be the same country that donated the most money for aid. Those donations were mostly not “government money.” They were voluntary donations from the citizens vivo maligns. Where are these other, richer, better countries’ donations? Oh, they gave less money, almost all directly from their governments, and patted themselves on the backs for giving more governmental aid than we Americans. (Yeah, you hate American used like that. Sue me.) With enough artificial distinctions, everyone can be a winner.
Vivo could, to use the hackneyed phrase, be part of the solution and not the problem. Criticism is easier and cheaper. We’re going to get the criticism.
Notions about American exceptionalism beat those that consider patriotism to be racist any day.
Me–America, love it or leave it.
Vivo and his ilk–America, hate it, smash it, destroy it, then crow proudly on the rubble.
vivo – Please take another look at what you posted. Why is it the Leftists think patriotism is over-rated? Why are they simply not proud of their country? Why this disdain for the country which has been so good to them? Why focus on our flaws, rather than on our greatness?
It is true that others think their country is the best, but they simply cannot make a good case for it, which is why they don’t talk about it every five seconds. I don’t know the names of the leader of most countries. I know some of them, but just a few, and I’m well-travelled and well-read. But get this, vivo, if you get nothing else: No matter who the Prez of AMERICA is, everyone in the entire world knows his name. Og the freakin’ caveman knows his name!
The WORLD calls us America! When people rise up against their oppressors, they hold up signs in English, appealing to America for support. The signs ARE NOT IN FREAKIN’ SPANISH! What in the Hell has Mexico ever freakin’ acomplished? Name one damned thing! No one CARES about freakin’ Mexico!
We are about 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of its GDP! Last year it was 30%. It used to be 50% after WWII. We are in decline, but we are still the best. We have fallen by 50%, and we are still the best! That’s how great we were, and how great we could be again.
The political Left has controlled this country ever more since the 60′s, via our institutions. They have dragged us down. Their ways cannot bring us back up. You don’t like the state of our country? Blame the Left. The Right represents traditional America. The Left is the agent of revolution. The decline is their fault! THEY brought about this change. That would be people who think like you, vivo!
Quit apologizing for your country! I DO NOT apologize for America! The world is a richer place for having America in it, not poorer. It is a freer place, not more tyrranized. How many tyrants has this country brought down? How many nations freed? What the hell is wrong with you, vivo?!? Why this knee-jerk distaste for America.
I know the Left makes this part of their overall message, but you DO NOT have to accept all their positions. You can be a Democrat and still be patriotic! You do not have to oppose every position we take on this site… unless you are paid to, of course. We are not always wrong! You do not have to always be a contrarian, here! Jesus! WTH is wrong with you, boy?!? What. Is. Wrong. With. You?
Gabler’s is the sort of arrogant-yet-weightless denigration of our country that can move me to violence.
First: The word America, when used to refer to a nation rather than a continent, has always meant the United States of America and no other. It meant that in 1787, it means that today, and with the help of God and the good sense not to draw to an inside straight, it will mean that as long as our nation lasts.
Second: Of all the nations of the world, only America — choke on it, “vivo” — has repeatedly strode forth to save the other nations of the world, and what little freedom and justice they know, from predators and totalitarian adventurers. We carried that burden unassisted from 1920 onward, while Europe was sinking into the “Lost Generation” mire. Simultaneously, we developed the richest, healthiest, and most dynamic society on Earth, the one that millions were fighting to get into, in contrast to the hellholes of their birth.
Third: Criticism is sometimes appropriate, even of a nation as moral and mighty as ours. We do have flaws; we do make mistakes. Check the White House if you’d like to see the fruits of one of our biggest: the readiness to believe well-worded BS from attractive persons with a covert agenda. But if you can’t criticize America’s flaws without vilifying her, then you’d better not do so within my reach, because I’ll wring your neck for you, and I’ll sing “God Bless America” while I do it.
Anyone who refuses to appreciate America does not deserve her freedoms or bounties, and deserves to be deported. He certainly doesn’t deserve to share in her reputation as a defender of freedom and justice. That applies with special force to prissy columnists, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, whose shield can be found nowhere else on Earth.
Ms. Meister:
“So, Mr. Gabler, thank you for reminding me that America is not all that. The “nation without humility” that is “spoiling for calamity” is in for a huge dose of humility with Barack Obama at the helm. We should all be eternally grateful.
Oh, here’s my new byline: “Pam Meister agrees that being an American means she’s no better than anyone else — in fact, she’s probably worse.””
Oh, now, that’s too harsh! There’s just no way that you could be worse than Mr. Gabler.
It is the emotionally brain-damaged babblings of the Gablers of this land that is increasingly leading me to the realization that Secession is our future.
If Gabler wants to feel good about himself,then maybe he should agitate his Yankee government to end it’s occupation of Confederate land, conquered in an illegal war.
(And then vivo would be mollified by having ANOTHER country on the American continents with the noun “America” in it’s proper name, instead of just the one).
Southerners, you folks may have noticed, have pride enough to fly the flags of TWO countries.
One of which was stolen from them.
#1 VIVO
At it again, eh moron ? Itys pathetic clowns like you that put the Usurper-in-Chief into the nation’s highest office with disastrous results already achieved and far more pending. If you are as unpatriotic as you appear, perhaps a change of venue is in order for you. I would suggest a permanent relocation to a tropical locale-Mogadishu, Somalia comes to mind. It should suit your sensibilities to a T (and as a side benefit, we would be rid of the sophomoric drivel you invariably spout !). Give it your consideration…I’m certain that more than one of us would contribute to your relocation fund.
77/88
S.M.
@1. vivo: – First of all, calling the United States of America ‘America’ is totally snobbish. America is the continent that comprises North, Central and South America. Those are The Americas. … When people around the world hear Americans …
D’OH! vivo, do you even bother to read what you write before clicking ‘submit’?
Pam, we’ve been getting hints at this since 1988, but the very fact that this country managed to elect an untested, inexperienced marxist narcissist President with an utterly opaque life history is proof positive that any exceptionalism we once laid claim to is now in decline (at least). In this sense, riverstyx is absolutely right, IMHO.
But I think the correct response to Gabler’s lameness is to identify the REASON for the U.S.A.’s decline: creeping socialism.
The U.S.A. has been pushed politically to the “left” for 75+ years – slowly and inexorably replacing that which made America exceptional in the first place. Since the’30s, as the U.S. has grown more socialist through programs like the so-called “New Deal”, “Fair Deal”, “Great Society” and now the economy-destroying new “New Deal”, we have also grown fatter, more idle, more dependent on government, less free, less well-educated, less capable of feeding ourselves, less accountable, more “entitled”, more corrupt, more feared and disliked abroad, more angry and divided within, less safe geopolitically, more paranoid personally, deeper in debt both personally and as a country and … less exceptional. In short, we’re slowly becoming the UK.
ALL of these ills can be traced back through the distortion and corruption of our free markets and government increasingly made up of career politicians and bureaucrats, who consistently violate the Constitution by replacing the will of the People with “central planning” by so-called experts responsible for bullsh!t like this, this and this.
The engine that pushed the U.S.A. to the pinnacle of human civilization is now quite literally being starved of fuel through collectivist, socialist federal policies and a government that is now pouring sodium silicate in the gas tank. History shows that the same thing ultimately happened – and continues to happen – in every nation in Europe, as well as Russia. Gabler is blind to the manner in which these policies have now pushed a critical mass of our nation to depend on government, all but erasing their individual responsibility, without which individual liberty is doomed.
On behalf of the entire nation and all its illegals, less than a third of U.S. citizens are forced – at the point of a gun and under the threat of fines and/or imprisonment – to pay for the cost of all basic government. As well, we’re also forced – at the point of a gun – to finance the entitlements and thousands of other extra-Constitutional benefits government has arrogated unto itself the authority to hand out: wealth redistribution in return for votes.
That’s not a sustainable scenario, and people like Gabler know it. They’re depending on it. Bringing the U.S.A. low is the only thing that will ease their guilt at being a citizen of what once was the greatest nation on earth, in every respect. To them it’s not “fair” that we retain that status. And for an alarmingly large – and increasing – number of U.S. citizens, “fairness” is pretty much the only thing that matters.
Just a couple of days ago Drudge Report ran a piece about how the tenants in a building somewhere (in the USA) were admonished and forbidden by administration to place US flags (or other US heraldery) at their apartments windows and doors AND! on their cars.
The rationale behind that? Avoiding to offend some “diversity members” -
America is the greatest country the world has ever seen…it is our president and congress who suck. Also on the “suck” list are the millions of lazy, welfare-dependent leeches who suck life and livlihood from taxpayers struggling to make ends meet. Illegal aliens also suck, as do businesses who knowingly hire them and advocacy groups who seek to legitimize their presence on U.S. soil. ACORN and other criminal-based community organizing groups suck. Race baiters such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who seek to divide rather than unite, suck. Our school system and the unions who have decimated it suck. I could go on….but i think I’ve made my point.
Americans, for the most part, are an industrious, generous, and honest people. We do not deserve the leadership we now have, nor do we deserve the leftist special interests that are bleeding us dry. It’s time for Americans to take our government back.
Vivo, since you hate this country so much, you should not be forced to live here. Pick out one of those superior countries where you would prefer to live, and I will buy your ticket for you.
Marc Malone; It is true that others think their country is the best, but they simply cannot make a good case for it, which is why they don’t talk about it every five seconds.
This is parody. Right?
America …
I decided to be “lazy” when referring to the greatest nation on earth.
Dearest Vivo, People around the world refer to citizens of the U.S. as Americans. That is just a plain and simple fact. When I was in Cuba in February 2004, while walking the streets of Havana City I was constantly approached with the one word question: “American?” The churches we visited while we were there constantly referred to us as “Amigos Americanos” (American friends). When we visited Cuban houses to share the Gospel neighbors would come from all over to hear what the “Americans” had to say. Castro himself refers to “America” as his number one enemy.
While in Europe, whether it was in England, France, The Netherlands, or Germany (East or West) people asked me if I was an “American”. People in Paris often sneered at me because I was an “American”. An elderly French woman I met on a train thanked me because she remembered what the “American soldiers” had done for her country. A West German told me the “American Army” needed to stay there to protect them from the Soviets.
A Burmese pastor I met told me he and his congregation “pray for America and Americans” constantly. An African pastor I met told me he prayed for the “American church” every day.
When American soldiers helped to liberate France they were greeted with cheers of “Viva la America”. At the end of WWII, in order to get away from the Russian Soviets, European refugees were told to go west to the “Americans”. When Russian soldiers freed Jews from concentration camps they were also told to go west to the “Americans” because Stalin hated the Jews too. Ahminedijad, Osam bin Laden, and all the other Islamofacists refer to “America” as the “great Satan”.
Vivo your pettiness just gets in the way of stark reality. People from all over the world, for more than two hundred years, have come to the United States to escape tyranny and to become Americans. What makes you so silly Vivo is, whether you realize it or not, you can become an American too.
My father is an immigrant, my wife is mixed cultural as well. Both of them come from countries which are just fine, as far as countries go. Then there’s America. It’s just a whole different ballgame.
The left hates america, they hate the very idea of it. They hate american exceptionalism, they hate that communism didn’t work out. They work day and night to destroy us, currently through disarmament and bankruptcy.
They will fail. I’d say we might be closer to the precipice than ever before, but I have faith it this place and the things that make it great.
And yes, it’s just fine to fight them, anyway you have to.
Not only America has been the greatest country in the past, but it will be the greatest country in the future when the American People will defeat the internationalist subversives who are now trying to destroy Freedom and trying to trigger a new dark age for the whole world.
Soros the puppeteer, his brotherly friends, his saudi funders, and the marxist rubble that they command will fail, the social-fascist world government that they want to build will never exist.
And thus America will have saved the world ONE MORE TIME, after defeating the beast in nazi’s Germany and in soviet Russia.
America will defeat the muslimarxist beast too.
Enjoy the ride, trolls, you don’t understand that the Spirit of Freedom is God Who is Love.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment
Okay really vivo. Please do tell us. If you are so unhappy here, why do you live here? You sound like a spoiled little college kid. Why don’t you live in another country? Are you too afraid to cut the strings that support you – Mom and Dad perhaps? Hmmmm…
Please explain why you stay.
You are like the customer at a resturant who constantly complains about the food, but continues to eat there every day. There are plenty of other tables to eat at. Stop being a whiny baby. Take action. Go.
Good article. I think we are rather lofty in our concept of ourselves as a country vs. what we really are and how others might view us. However, I tend to gravitate toward those that at least understand “how much better we could be” rather than those that say “keep it the way it is” or “lets go backwards.” Our citizens deserve better and that is what we should strive for. Besides, you have to agree that its good for business isn’t it? Hence, what is good for business, is good for our country….(or was that general motors?)..
Well, if all one knew about America were the ejaculations of people like vivo, then, yes, America would suck. Without a doubt they are upheaving as strenuously as they can to make it so.
#20 Coisty – No. It is not parody. I will stack up America against any other nation on Earth. No other nation compares.
Some other nations are doing better in some ways. Our education system is in the crapper. 90+% Democrats there. Our legal system is falling apart. Trial lawyers support the Dems. Our government is failing. The liberals are drawn to government service. Conservatives are not. The list of woes continues. But, the rest of the world does as well as it does because America does all the heavy lifting!
Pharmaceuticals? 80% of them are developed here. We Americans pay top dollar. Other nations get steep discounts. If we passed a law here that Big Pharma must sell to other nations at the same price they sell to their biggest customers here, the other nations’ national healthcare plans would collapse in short order.
Military? We defend the world against tyrants. We spend as much as all the rest of the world combined. People criticize this, but we make the world safer. It’s a huge drain on us, but we have not had to intervene in yet another major war in Europe for 64 years. We came. We fought. We stayed and kept the peace. I do not apologize for this. I am, however, getting tired of it, because we can no longer afford it.
So, I don’t want to hear some Euro-weenie talking about how great their country is when they are that way by the grace of God Almighty via the mighty USA! Same with Japan, and S. Korea, and Taiwan, and… well, you get the picture.
You can sum up Ms. Meister’s article with the headline of another silly PJM piece: Self-Righteousness on a Bumper Sticker.
I’m afraid I have to agree that America the United States of is now just a second-rate nation, even though Neal Gabler has nothing to do with it, except for his voting for idiots. Bill Jacobson demonstrates with proof positive why we are now just a face in the crowd:
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/10/clean-up-your-own-mess-first-mr.html
If you think America is worth saving….then read that new book, A Time To Stand by Oliver. It’s a parallel of modern day Americans compared to colonists in Massachuttes in 1775. It starts with Paul’s ride (I’m glad he did ride that night)& shows present day Americans once again standing up to govt. tyranny & taxes.
It’s insightful & based, in part on real Americans & events. It will only take a spark (Boston Tea Party)to get present day Americans ready to take another stand.
http://www.booksbyoliver.com
I’m a big fan of “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” So if you persist in saying that the USA isn’t diddly-squat, I’m going to sneak up behind you and bop you in the beezer.
Great post, I don’t agree with any of it, but it was well written none the less. Here’s what I don’t like and its everywhere. The fact that when someone has a beef with this country – they assume that everyone is on board, so they go and they run their mouth about how we are capitalist pigs. Well, I like nice things, I want to have money to give to poor countries, I have RESPECT for myself and where I came from, and if there are people that have no sense of self – fine. I’m working hard to better myself, rather than complain. There are those who talk, and those who do.
I am sad for vivvo and the cynics.
Life will pass him by. Just as it did the self-appointed intellectuals and fashionable cynics who fled the US for “advanced europe in the 30′s. They came tumbling home of course, chastened a bit, when Germany went bad, and the other “advanced” parts folded like vio’s preciouos swiss cheese. The Swiss saw nothign to fight for as long as they could continue in business, and it will be a good home for you vivo. Like the Swedes selling iron ore to the nazis, the Vichy french…what a great place.
Even today, France dealt with Saddam, leaving his disposition to a backward country that has the same odd intolerance for homicidal dictators as it does for movie directors that rape 13 year olds.
Meanwhile, someone who sneaked into LA from another country has his kids educated at UCLA, and built a business and got rich, took the 1986 amnesty. he’s the American dream: what do they dream about in europe? Another gas deal with Putin?
Hirsi Alli, a Dutch member of congress has to flee the place because she is persecuted for her opinions: where does she go? Where can one express opinions and not be shot, stabbed or blown up as in advanced Holland or Belgium?
Ah vivo: to paraphrase P J O’Rourke, I’ rather live in the crappiest apaprtment in LA than liv in any government approved building in Europe. I like the torrent of opinion here, not the smoothly controlled “news” in Europe.
Oh an PS: as just about everyone who has really travelled notes above, EVERYONE refers to us as “americans.” Only silly pedantic professors wonder otherwise.
It’s true, we brag too much and repeat the same old saws about saving the world from Hitler, Tojo and Stalin. Fact is WE didn’t do that, our fathers and grandfathers did and darn few of them are alive today. Rush Limbaugh once posed the question: how many of you know someone who has got up way before dawn, hitched a plow to a mule and plowed a field before walking to school for the day? Children now watch cartoons while they wait for the bus to take them to school, where they eat breakfast because too many Mom’s won’t even bother to cook them a meal at home. Ask anybody on the street who Tojo was and they might guess that he was a famous dog or some cartoon character. I was on a trek in Peru recently on a trail over a 16,000 foot pass where we met young school children coming home from school on a two hour walk to their home four thousand feet above the village school -they go down and back every day – and they were courteous and responsible and obviously had a set of values we are sorely missing around here. If you read the biographies of the flag raisers at Iwo Jima you will find that every one of them as a child held a job, the wages of which were given to the family to help make ends meet. I too am tired of couch potatos, fake “country” singers, and various public blowhards endlessly bragging about something they had nothing to do with.
Even today, France dealt with Saddam, leaving his disposition to a backward country that has the same odd intolerance for homicidal dictators as it does for movie directors that rape 13 year olds.
WRONG, only in your fairy tales of Mother Goose, and one knows how gooses are aggressive since they were used to defend the roman Capitole.
Cher Blackwell, you ought to read more objective sources, not only your opinionists, whose agendas were, still are (for some of them) to deamonise the French, we didn’t deal with Saddam that you didn’t too ! UN boycott was an american initiation that “America” could revoke at any moment, that she did at her convenient time, indeed, when american troops invaded Irak for the second time. Now, where are the WMD, that we were supposed to have sold to Saddam ? uh, and that the Plame scandal was all about too ? I tell ya, still in Cadarrache, we just found 40 kg of Uranium in this site walls lately LMAO
Now, about oil, America did import much more oil from Irak than any other country under the “food for oil” supposed boycott !
and d’ya know why ? BECAUSE IT WAS CHEAPER ! would you think that your companies would have renounced to make huge benefits ? que nenni !!!
1. Taxes top 5 in the world? That depends what the real truth is.For over 50% of Americans they pay no taxes at all. How far is your money going in Switzerland? Im sure with your high taxes your pay check isnt going as far as you like.
2. United States Of America…Do you see Mexico calling it self united states of mexico? nah dont think so. So americans are just that Americans from the United States of america. and if your a American and travel the world people will say oh your American, Yes American..Nice lie, but not one person snickles when an american calls themself a american because the rest of the world calls them that. Dont worry americans your country is first rate, dont let the jealous people upset you, they are just sad little people whith no hope because their governments made it like that.
Some people simply do not understand that America (as opposed to the United States), is not a place or a thing, but is an idea, a cause: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. . . . The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. . . . ‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected even to the end of time.”
That idea, that cause, is FREEDOM. Once upon a time, we knew that. Once upon a time, we said things like, “O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. — Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.”
That is America. An asylum of freedom, a place of refuge and sanctuary, for all mankind.
I don’t entirely agree with the article. I think the US IS the best country in the world, HOWEVER, my fear is that while we all chest thump and pat each others backs, the rest of the world is quickly catching up in every aspect. We’re become soft, fat, and stupid and both the left and right are to blame. The left wants us to bend over and the right thinks the bible and free market fixes all. Wrong on both counts.
#35
While I surely (and sorely) agree with the general meaning of your post…but I must observe that you forgot …
SOME HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN WARRIORS
who are defending the world’s Freedom in this exact moment.
Let’s not forget that IN THIS MOMENT we owe them our Freedom.
Let’s redouble that, because half of the Country seems to forget it, therefore we must remember our Warriors even more than we do.
Can you imagine where the muslim jihadists would be today if American Warriors were not stopping them ?
The fact that we have a muslimarxist administration must not make us forget that we have hope and that our hope is defended by the American Warriors.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment
Even today, France dealt with Saddam, leaving his disposition to a backward country that has the same odd intolerance for homicidal dictators as it does for movie directors that rape 13 year olds.
What, still your ol refrain that the Poles told you, and what they had to apologize afterwords ! LMAO
The gablers of the world are slinking to and fro their pointy little heads face down in melancholy recognition that they alone can lift our pathetic little nation to a level of mediocrity like germany france and italy…you know france italy and germany of world war 2 infamy and shame……yes that’s what gabler praises…a nation of patriots brought to their knees by a marxist puppet from chitown….then and only then can sweet nealie stand head and shoulders above the crowd….you know way up there in stature like
lenin, mao,farrakhan,frank,sharpton,the reverend wright,castro ,chavez,and
soros a mniaal rich traitorous deceiver and user of obama like buffoons.
What a great article. Without overdoing the envelope, it’s just amazing to me how many Americans are quick to say “We live in the greatest country in the world” and yet they’ve never been anywhere else. It’s funny but I think if you say something loud enough for long enough (as Hitler said), people will believe it.
It’s really not that “America sucks” per se. If you are extremely wealthy and you have a choice, America is the greatest place on Earth to live. However, if you’re like many and stuck in the poor and middle class, then there are actually a lot of reasons why “America sucks.”
The problem is really that so people think outside of what they’re told. The tax system is so ridiculously rigged for the poor and middle class through the Federal Reserve that it’s just not really fair.
The truth is that because the monetary powers rule the world and they transcend borders, America is really a lot like every place else.
“God bless America”
What does that saying even mean? It’s almost considered “unAmerican” for a politician not to say it. The truth is that real change takes concious effort. Too many Americans do brag about things they had nothing to do with. “Our country saved yours” as if they personally had anything to do with it.
Having said that, some of the best people I’ve met in the world are from the US and so I appreciate everything you guys have to offer.
Matthew
Real Estate Investing FAQ
Future food packages to the rest of the world will be stamped “From Obamerica.”
Any Chemists on this thread ?
Remember your first experiment in
Chromatography, how cool it was to watch
the different components separate out a
they spread out from their point of origin ?
We all came out of Africa, but some of us
have come further than others; The people
of Los Estados Unidos have come the farthest,
and hence are not just the best in kind,
but different in quality, due to both
natural selection and unnatural, social
self modification; Thank you, Founding
Fathers and Mothers.
Furtherandmore, our decline over the last
50 years was due to the corrosive effects
of excessive prosperity, due to having no
competition; This is changing, now. :>
P.S. The Devil’s Bargain which gave Dems
control over domestic policy, in return
for their allowing Pubs to control
foreign policy, and win the Cold War,
also contributed, and is also expired.
But don’t worry, Progressives, soon
there will be a Circulation of Elites,
and then everything will be _just_fine_.
See also R. A. Lafferty’s SF short story
“Mr. Hamadryad”; It too concerns African
species.
Why worry about what the Boston Globe or the New York Times says about the USA. They have been bashing the USA for years. I doubt anybody but liberals bother to read those rags. China, Russia and Cuba are their idols.
Thanks to Obama and the Democrats they will make sure there is nothing exceptional about America once they are doing thrashing it to within an inch of its life.
One of the best 15 minutes of video you will ever see on why America is exceptional is right here on PJTV;
http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/Bill_Maher%2C_Barack_Obama_and_the_Truth_About_American_Exceptionalism/2378/
Bill Whittle lays it out so even an idiot can understand how great this country is.
Did Gabler actually put the words “ape” and “Jimmy Carter” in the same sentence?
Why is America exceptional?
* Our Constitution – that guarantees certain inalienable rights like freedom of speech, assembly, trial by jury, the right not to incriminate oneself, the right to bear arms.
* Our freedom of business – sure we’ve got too many regulations, but America is the least regulated and taxed country in the West
* Our work ethic – Americans work harder then any other country in the West and it’s from our Quaker roots
18. Saltherring:
” Illegal aliens also suck, as do businesses who knowingly hire them ”
OK, let’s shut them down. One question first: How much of an increase in your cost of living are you willing to accept to do that? Gimme a number – 3%? 10%? 20%? Step right up and take a shot, sonny.
Here’s your choice: public option or removing anti-trust protection from insurance companies.
(You better think about that one. It’s coming.)
When you say: “We’re going on a holiday to America” or: “We’re going to visit friends or relatives in America”, everybody understands you are going to the USA. Nobody, going to visit Canada, would say he’s visiting America.
Also, I would like to say, please be as proud as you can! Please, fight President Obama’s intentions to destroy America’s exceptionalism as hard as you can. You will save America, for sure, and at the same time you might save Western Christian Culture as we know it today.
You still are the leading Nation of the world, I pray that President Obama may not succeed in his endeavoures to destroy this leading status.
So there’s room for improvement in the US.
What’s so offensive and unpatriotic about that?
While I have no problem identifying myself as “norteamericano” when south of the border,or talking about US policy as opposed to American policy ( which also saves keystrokes), I am an American. That is what the 300 million citizens of this country call ourselves. It would be chauvinistic for us to tell the Chinese they should not call themselves Han, or to tell the Germans they should not call themselves Deutsch. American is our name. At the time of the creation of the USA, we were the only independent political entity in the Western Hemisphere. American we call ourselves. Period.
Quite often in informal conversation in Latin America, the US is referred to as “Los Estados.” The States. Given that there are states all over the world, perhaps Vivo should lecture those south of the border to cease and desist referring to my country as “Los Estados.”
If America and American was good enough for Irving Berlin, it is good enough for me.
29. biblio44:
You can sum up Ms. Meister’s article with the headline of another silly PJM piece: Self-Righteousness on a Bumper Sticker
ROFLMAO That’s the LEFT’S thing, Biblio – I am beginning to think that one cannot own a Subaru (preferred car of leftists in Alaska) unless you agree to cover the damned thing with silly leftist propaganda.
43. Matthew
After living and working in Latin America, I was MUCH MORE INCLINED to say the US was the greatest country in the world than before I had worked in Latin America. The best way to turn a progressive of the left into an evil, flag-waving right winger is to have him work in the Third World.
The US looks pretty damn good by comparison. I am not talking about potable water. I am talking about corruption, transparency, efficiency, giving the common man a fair shake, you name it.
You don’t really appreciate the US until you come back to it. Mr. Snarky Matthew.
What I simply do not understand is why Jews are overwhelmingly leftist and proclaim the loudest that America is not great, or even good. Did I miss something in my history, but is the USA not the best and most supportive country for the Jews? Is there some psychological issue regarding resenting those who help you and admirng those who would kill you?
Perhaps VIVO, David S. or Matthew could explain this condition.
Neil Gabler needs to back to his hole in the wall from whence he came; he hates America like every other liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Maoist, Communist DEMOCRAT. Yet he does nothing but whine incessantly about how awful America is. If America is so bad & Communism is good–leave. Totalitarian States exist such as North Korea, Cuba, & China. The Left has their pick for their favorite Communist countries. But they do not leave. Instead, they whine, sulk, & pout like spoiled children taking for granted the riches America possesses.
I lived the life of a communist, a socialist, NOT BY CHOICE – I breathed socialist air, ate socialist handouts and was told where to work, what to wear, what I could say and what I couldn’t say.
Short and simple, I found America or rather America found me!
Let me live in a hut in America, where FREEDOM is still a cherished ideal; than the life of a hollow-eyed puppet held by the strings of communist and socialist puppet-masters.
No one can take that away from me, I am an American! and if I were the only American left standing, I would scream “American” from a mountaintop.
Some people never realize or know greatness, until it is taken away…
God Bless America!!!
These comments remind me of my childhood days – my football team is better than yours …….
We are all proud of the country of out Birth or Adoption, each country has its good and bad sides, but as far as I can see there is currently no single outstanding country out there.
Greg (#61), you’re wrong. You have people coming to America legally & illegally to be part of the American dream; however, it does not happen by itself. The individual must work for his goal to make his dream real. In America, this can happen. But this cannot happen in another country. There is no other country like America. America is not Europe, Japan, Canada, Iceland, Norway, or Australia. America is unique. And we have thousands of people trying to get into America daily.
This guy keeps it up, he’ll be a Czar for something or another in the Obama admin. by the end of the week!
No, we aren’t the best. We didn’t manage to kill 70 million of our own during a political experiment (China), or starve 20 million with a five year plan (Russia), or run an island paradise into a third world dump (Cuba), or develop a drug trafficking network that murders thousand of innocents a year (Colombia and Mexico), and we haven’t developed a religion that desires to start a nuclear war in order to hasten the return of a religious myth (Iran).
You are right, we suck.
Seriously, half the problems the author sees as proving that we are a less than deserving nation is caused by the lefties in government. If we could outlaw dumba**ness, we’d be a far better nation.
“There is something bizarre about a country whose leaders have constantly to toady to their constituents and in which any criticism is tantamount to a lack of patriotism, but that describes America today”
Something bizarre about a country in which any criticism is tantamount to a lack of patriotism? Yes. I agree, but that statement is hyperbole if it is intened to describe the US. Now let’s see . . countries where any criticism is tantamount to a lack of patriotism:
1. China
2. Russia
3. North Korea
4. Cuba
[insert names of other corrupt, brutal autocracies here]
. . . .
. . .
175 (approx) The USA
176 [insert name of other western, esp. anglophone, democracies here]
(end of list)
“Neal Gabler” – with a short “a”? Olympic-standard navel gazing from from some low-brow, no-account scribbler.
So…Vivo…when the whole world says things like “those stupid Americans” or “those greedy Americans” are they referring to all americanos, including yourself?
why do people believe that average fly-over people are uneducated and haven’t traveled. those days are long gone. i have traveled to other countries, and just like Dorothy, comes a time when you gotta turn the nose back towards Kansas and click your heels and repeat there’s no place like home. American exceptionalism comes from the fact that only in America you can strive to be your best, and an opportunity awaits for who ever wants to take a chance at it… without the government wanting to control it.
People here get sooo upset because they make their own conclusion and don’t read between the lines.
Of course everyone will call you an American in your face. I happen to talk with people who feel comfortable around me because I don’t look the American stereotype. So they go ‘gringos’, ‘Los Estados’, and similar names.
I never said you shouldn’t be proud of your country. But plastering every inch of media with it is laughable to many people in the world.
3. Rich Vail has a good observation:
“Of course the decline has (nothing?) to do with our education system which has over the past 30 years de-emphasized teaching useful things such as mathematics, science, choosing instead to teach multi-culturalism.”
Our engineering and scientific population is lagging other countries and we can’t compete.
Besides, exposing the flaws of the country is not anti-patriotic. The source of the problem needs to be identified to find its solution. But you guys get all emotional.
12. Marc Malone:
“We are about 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of its GDP! Last year it was 30%. It used to be 50% after WWII. We are in decline, but we are still the best. We have fallen by 50%, and we are still the best! That’s how great we were, and how great we could be again.”
I’m glad you feel proud. But don’t rest on your laurels. We created the housing bubble, huge deficits, stock market collapse, and it infected the rest of the world. We have to dig out of the hole.
25. Takoma Mom:
“Okay really vivo. Please do tell us. If you are so unhappy here, why do you live here?”
I never said I was unhappy here. What’s wrong with complaining about unkempt roads, Expensive health care, crime, substandard education, etc?
And, finally, I’m not advocating to change the name of ‘America’ (USA). Just making a comment.
Maybe DS is right by signing ‘Peace’.
65. Sonja:
In the parts of the world where I have been, it means USA, sorry.
Just on the fabled “low taxation” that some posters see as a virtue of living in the US . . the combined local, state and federal tax grab in New York state is astonishingly high, at welfare state levels. The interesting thing is that New Yorkers get nothing like the welfare state in return. Where on earth does all the money go?
People are literally dieing everyday to get to America. I don’t see much of a line to leave.
I live in the greatest country on the face of the earth! And, I don’t really give a damn who doesn’t like that I say it. We taxpaying AMERICANS support and give aid and comfort to the same people who bitch the loudest about our country. If I had my way, the tap would be shut off to each and every one of them. As for Obama, he can bow to dictators, monarchs and despots, but I never will. I was born free and I plan on dying the same way.
vivo
The whole world got greedy, it wasn’t just the US. Europe had its own housing bubble. Now China is going through the same thing. Easy money in every country.
So the, vivo, you concede the point that its not just Americans who refer to ourselves as Americans, but so does everybody else.
We are all going to find out,during the next
few years, whether the US is still exceptional.
If you would have peace…
Figures lie. Simple. To compare the comprehensive American high school student to a high school student in just about any other country is to compare apples to oranges. In America our high schools try to educate all students as far as the 12th grade. In the rest of the world, kids take exams around the 5th grade level and then are carefully tracked so that only the best and brightest go on to “high school” – a 12 year track which leads to university. Google “gymnasium” to get an idea of how many countries follow the gymnasium high school model. Then, check to see how many of the test takers come from only boys schools? Or wear uniforms. If only the AP students in each school district took these high stake tests, then we would do as well as any other country. Our democracy in education hinders us but I would not suggest we change our model in order to prove ourselves on the world stage.
As for infant mortality rate: a careful investigation shows that we count every birth. In some countries, babies have to be a certain age in order to be counted. Also, we try to help babies while in the womb and after early births. Other countries let “nature take its course” and do not count the results as part of their infant mortality rates. Why this information is not well know is another mystery to me. Plus, it might make sense for our bean counters to use the same standards as the rest of the world when making a report to the world organizations. It’s like they want us to look bad.
Knowledge is a powerful tool. Why don’t we use it?
“We created the housing bubble, huge deficits, stock market collapse, and it infected the rest of the world. We have to dig out of the hole.”
Problems caused by trying to copy other nations instead of continuing to evolve along the almost uniquely American path of individual liberty.
And name me another country that has “America” in its name. That’s why we’re called Americans. Similarly, the people of the CAR are called centrafricains. Even though there’s more countries in central Africa than the CAR.
In closing, anyone who’s sensitive enough to care whether someone laughs at him for something as stupid as talking shit about what we (and most of the world) calls ourselves is a wuss. Man up.
And vivo, why call Mexico Mexico? See, the Spaniards and then the “Mexicans” killed off most all of the mexica tribe centuries ago. Why don’t they stop being lazy and always call themselves the Estados Unidos de Mexico? Geez, it makes me so mad!
Sebastian (#62), having lived in a few countries, I can truthfully say that each country is uniquely unique, but to say that people can only realise their dreams in the USA, is totally insular.
People can and do fulfil their dreams, (lifestyle, business etc), every day in every country. I do agree that is some countries this is easier, but to rule out the 194 other countries as places where dreams can come true is one of the reasons for all the squabbling going on in this post.
By the way the USA was the 8th country per capita that people wanted to move to.
America (oops, sorry, didn’t mean to offend, please advise as to the reparations necessary), the US does suck. In fact, it’s the worst country on the planet excepting, possibly, Israel. That’s why no one immigrates here. We need so badly to be admired that we have faked moon landings. We faked a terrorist attack to get oil and now it costs more than ever. We are pitiful. Why should we think our nation/culture is exceptional. Think of all the harm it causes. My stars! People might go around leading productive lives and feeling good about themselves. They could become proud of their country. What could be worse?
51: Sonny? Still laughing at that one.
For a fraction of what illegals cost American taxpayers each year, we could fence our southern border, cut all “entitlements”, fine the hell out of anyone who hires them and send them walking south next week. At least we could if it wern’t for dumbasses like you.
vivo, how totally snobbish to name yourself after all living things.
#67 Vino – stirred up a shit storm, didn’t you?!
I agree with goy on #17. The numbers and tracing of our history as well as reflecting upon the history of man kind makes it clear America is in decline and it’s due to a betraying of what made us American. In the end Rome fell because the Germanic people became more Roman then the Romans where at that point.
PS: Vivo, we are called Americans cause we were the first people in the Americas do become independent post colonialism and thus the creation of the need for the name of this “new world” which no more knew about the old to distinguish from then the old knew about it.
76. knoodsen:
Not snobbish at all, when one considers what it means in the Southern Cone(Argentina, Chile, Uruguay)and other places. A vivo is an operator, a fast talker, a flim-flam artist, a con man. That is what he calls himself. Sounds like an appropriate name to me.
The biggest puzzle for me, personally, remains how come collection of 300M of unspoocked idiots (the author of the piece is the prime example) managed to achieve such outstanding results…
This is a lot more ink than Gabler deserves.
Life’s tough, vivo, it’s a lot tougher when you’re stupid!
To those of us who are regular readers and posters, I’m convinced that vivo has been in the vino again!
80. Saltherring:
So, you’re saying that your cost of living will go down if you throw out all the illegals and shut down the companies who employ them. Is that your final answer?
America is the greatest country in the world-we are the worlds most successful and longest running democracy. How about them apples vivo?
88: America’s cost of living would certainly go down. Far less welfare, law enforcement, emergency room-based healthcare, education costs, etc. I would rather jobs went to American who need them, rather than to illegals who work for cash under the table. Only those with something to gain want illegals to remain. And those are: (1) Businesses who hire illegals for far less than they would have to pay American citizens, and (2) Leftists looking for another class of “victims” to victimize.
America does suck, at least a little bit. No — strike that. America has people in it that suck — really badly.
It sometimes feels like America is infested with scumbags. Scumbags like Neal Gabler, Michael Moore, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Ayers, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, Charlie Rangel, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters, Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill…
I could go on, and on, and on and on and on… Shouldn’t America take some blame for producing thousands, or perhaps millions of self-loathing severely damaged psychos, victim pimps, race hustlers, charlatans, and other various forms of human sewage? But to be fair, I suppose in regard to producing human sewage, America is very unexceptional. Neal Gabler knows that first hand.
@ 91. Morton Doodslag: America takes the blame ?
See my #45 above. Long story short:
The Human race came down from the trees
last week, came out of the caves yesterday,
and is still trying to adapt to being self-
aware; Do not expect perfection from prototypes.
#92 M Report:
“The Human race came down from the trees
last week, came out of the caves yesterday,
and is still trying to adapt to being self-
aware; Do not expect perfection from prototypes.”
I like that epigram, and I think this graphic captures that feeling perfectly:
http://phonedifferent.com/articleimages/2008/04/Picture%201-26.jpg
Excuse me “dude” I do not wish you to upset but here it your real America —>>> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197#