Is the USA uncivilised?

[Jason]

Apologies. Some Americans get tetchy when criticized.

[Ian]

Accepted.

And dare I say that when criticism is inaccurate, exaggerated, wildly biased or just plain mean-spirited, lots of human beings get tetchy about it. But some of us can roll our eyes and ridicule it instead.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

You get judged by how you treat the blues in the long run nothing else.

Well, pretty much all of the best blues is Merkin. Gotta give em that much. From Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughan to Jimi to BB to Bessie Smith to Billie Holliday to about 100 guys with "Blind" for a first name.

Of course, there have been a few to try their hand from elsewhere. Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jagger/Richards, Peter Green, Ali Farka Touré, Santana, Rory Gallagher.


Or were you referring to the disturbing prevalence of smurfism among American youth, where, "Fuck off back to Smurfland, you blue bastard!" is becoming an all-too-common refrain.

[Seabass]

Apologies. Some Americans get tetchy when criticized.

You are conflating criticism with something else. I would not characterize what Blind Groper, Mistermack, and Sandinista do, as criticism.

[Seth]

Apologies. Some Americans get tetchy when criticized.

It's not criticism that we get tetchy about, it's bald-faced and mendacious broad-brush gratuitous insults and attacks on Americans intended only as an insult with no actual intention or interest of rationally and logically examining any of the areas of concern presented.

[Seth]

Hmmmm

I do not really agree that the factors I am quoting are purely arbitrary. Going to war, for example, is hardly a minor matter. Yet, aside from civil wars like Syria and a few African places, the only wars involving several nations in conflict in the last several decades have been pretty much all started by the USA. I know that the US government will come up with some high minded rationalisation for going to war, but only an idiot will believe that.

The interesting thing is that your opinion is complete bullshit and has no connection whatsoever to actual facts or history. With the sole exceptions of the Revolutionary War (and that's arguable because the Brits started it and the US didn't exist yet when the Shot Heard 'Round the World was fired) and the Civil War, the United States has never "started" a war. Ever.

In each and every case the US has responded to the belligerence of other nations either attacking us, attacking an ally, or committing such gross and offensive violations of human rights that taking military action authorized by the United Nations is the appropriate thing to do.

In other words, you are simply spouting utterly false anti-American rhetoric that sounds like it comes directly from the mullahs in Iran. Aren't you proud?

Each war started by America will be for the benefit of the US government, or the US president, even if, as so often happens, it backfires.

Bullshit.
One or two of my original list could be called trivial, like resisting a change to the sensible system of weights and measures. But some of the others are not trivial, and not arbitrary.[/quote]

[Blind groper]

A reply to Seth, since I managed to glean one small point out of the stream of obscenities.

Seth disputed my point that the USA started pretty much every war in the last several decades that was between two or more countries, as opposed to civil wars.

Seth failed to note that I am talking of the present, not 1776. So my point stands.

[Hermit]

Whoops

[Clinton Huxley]

To be fair, the NSA has really annoyed the French with its data-hoovering, so the Yanks aren't all bad.

[Hermit]

To be fair, the NSA has really annoyed the French with its data-hoovering, so the Yanks aren't all bad.

Also, if the per capita consumption of resources is an indicator of civilisation, the USA is undeniably at the top of the pile.

[Clinton Huxley]

And they always win the World Series...

[Hermit]

And they always win the World Series...

...both baseball and basketball.

[Ian]

To be fair, the NSA has really annoyed the French with its data-hoovering, so the Yanks aren't all bad.

Also, if the per capita consumption of resources is an indicator of civilisation, the USA is undeniably at the top of the pile.

Untrue. In terms of energy consumption, for example, the US is well behind some others, including Canada. As far as trend lines go, per capita consumption in the US is dropping.

[pErvinalia]

Last I heard Australians are the most energy intensive humans. We iz civulized!!

[Seth]

Get off Seth's ass, people.
How could a Texas sharpshooter not be all over a thread like this?

Thanks, but I keep telling you I'm not from Texas, I'm from Colorado...for now. Texas is sounding better and better though. If things don't change in Colorado next election I might well become a Texan, at least officially.