I am only anti-Norwegian in the same way you people describe me as anti-American. In reality I am pro-Norwegian and pro-American.
See, I actually believe that you are pro-American, even though some people don't. I think it really is an approach issue.
And my anti-Norway comment was just a joke. I have a disease that makes me make stupid jokes almost constantly. It's called "An Irish Heritage" :mrgreen:
I am not generalizing about Americans in the purpose of this thread, it was a general question!
But some people take it as such. That was the point I was trying to make.
By the same criteria many of you use to brand me anti-America, I could easily brand most of you people anti-French.
Ahh, you haven't read about my fantasy about being spanked by a French Jewess in another thread! :2razz:
I am aware of my biases. I am very biased against what America is becoming, compared to what it was 10-20 years ago.
That's good that you know your biases, although I didn;t really think you didn;t know them.
This thread has nothing to do with me, its a general question. I never bitch about the anti-American card, except I have perhaps mentioned it in a few posts where it was used unfairly.
I think that some people use the card unfairly. I think that simply discounting someone over one's perception of their biases can be a disservice to one's self as well. I think many of your points are salient, although with a decidedly anti-US governemnt spin.
Now, I ahppen to agree with some of your poitns, and on others I have a strong disagrement.
I wouldn't play teh "anti-american" card unless I think your post was needlessly anti-American to the point where it overshadowed your points.
My approach is definitely flawed. I am terrible at uttering my opinions in the same way I think them, not only written, but also in spoken interaction. I am a thinker, not a writer(nor talker), my writing is pretty much crappy and hastily done in most cases(because of other pressing issues in my life), but in most cases my opinions are about 75% correctly represented by what I write, then minus all the spelling and general grammatical errors I may have made that perhaps also have made it difficult to understand what I am actually saying, or really mean by what I am saying. Remember, English is only a language which fights with Swedish as being my second language(among also a handful of others I have to learn better or keep fluent).
I understand that English is not your primary language. I think that you do a damned good job overall considering, but I also think that you often come across harsher than you might mean to.
I think this is a causal factor in much of the negativity towards the views you share that you see.
This is an American forum... I am not bashing the US at all. I am just describing another perspective of the reality about it than most of you have, because I follow the US from the outside(and inside), while you guys follow it from the inside. I also follow many other countries on other languages in the same way!
I follow multiple news sources from outside the country as well. British, Irish, Italian mostly because I'm not very well versed on other languages, but I do see another perspective from these sources.
I also check out transaltions of other sources from Asia and Europe as well.
I think a good few people onthis board do that, but I'm not sure it would be somehting very common in the US in general.
We still have some of that Isolationsim from our past that lingers, but I think it is eroding as time goes on.
I bet you do not remember the end of that thread... The title was meant to get reactions.. The end said something along the lines of, "but in the end I do not hate America at all"..
But that would be an aproach issue. :mrgreen:
People see that thread over and over and they see "I hate America" far more often than they see the final disclaimer.
I usually never criticize Americans in general.. Perhaps I sometimes critisize a group of people at most(like Republicans).. I think in terms of American politics, American economy, American landmass, not just landmass.
And the way you think of things is in direct contradiction to the way we look at things. Of the people for the people by the people is how the American public views America. When you think what you are saying is clearly a criticism of the governemtn, our perspective is such that it appears to be a criticism of us as a people.
It's not saying that your views are wrong, per se, just that you should be aware of how we see things in order to prevent miscomunication due to a difference in relative paradigm.
And some criticisms of the general US populous are warranted, but Americans are such that they will accept these general criticisms more if they come form within than form an "outside" perspective. We're funny like that. As much as we can be at each others throats, we'll still defend each other to the death.
And finally, please don't take my comments here as a negative about you. It's just my attempt to help you understand what brings about certain reactions from some people.