Sick of Anti-American attitudes here!

ye! but mine are more like this..

Yep. That would just be plain old "Hard Candy" here in the US (rock candy is actually like cubes of suger turned into Hard Candy in big clumps). Of course there are different brands that have their own names and such, but that is basically how it would be refferenced.

Yay.. Mine are posh ones in a tin someone brought me back from their holiday.. And now theres a hairy one on the carpet where someone bashed me on the back to stop me choking

Taco you owe me some hard candy!

Bah.

Everybody's a friggin' bigot. American, Brit, Japanese, whatever. Get over it.

Arguing with the Brits, Australians, or Germans is like arguing with your cousin. You love your cousin, even though he frustrates the hell out of you. And you love to argue. Arguing with the Japanese, South Koreans, or Chinese is like arguing with your fascinating neighbors, who say and do weird things, but at the end of the day, you're glad they're there, because they lend you really neat tools. And so on.

Now arguing with the Canadians.... That's another matter. That's like arguing with a really odd, scary relative who lives in your basement. And you don't know why he's there, or exactly how he's related.

I think this can all be summed up and answered quite succinctly by the immortal words of Nigel Powers (Michael Caine) in Goldmember:

"There are only 2 things I can't stand: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch."

Thank you, America, for being tolerant of other forms of government.
Thank you America for being generous, especially to dirt-poor foreign governments that aren't currently in the news. And thank you for never being generous so that you can shine your Goodguy Badge.
Thank you, America, for always choosing peace over war.
Thank you, America, for never exercising a morality of convenience.
Thank you, America, for never trying to regulate private sexual conduct.
Thank you, America, for never gloating over your wealth.
Thank you, America, for never promoting a materialistic social goal to the apotheosis of human endeavors beyond knowledge or discovery; and thank you for frowning on your citizens who dare exemplify it with phrases like, "If you so smart, why ain't you rich?"
Thank you, America, for cutting taxes for the poor and raising them for the rich, especially the incredibly rich who live thousands of times above the other citizens, yet control a vast majority of the resources.
Thank you, America, for raising funding for schools and for disallowing advertisers into schools, which you have wisely kept as a refuge for the mind.
Thank you, America, for imposing strict controls on advertising space so that commodification of culture and the branding process doesn't undo in a single generation the social bonds that have taken thousands of years to develop between people, their families, and communities and replacing it only with fickle fads and an insatiable feeling of emptiness that people try to fill through consumerism and mindless entertainment. Thank you for not exporting this practice to other countries as well.
Thank you for thinking of your people before your corporations, and thank you for never giving corporations similar rights as your citizens.

In short, thank you for making this world a joyful and peaceful place to live!!!

I <3 you, America!!!

\

Remind me to never get a blood transfusion from you.

Yes I see my Arab friends called terrorists, and such.. but as a "normal" american I just don't get enough abuse.

I really think people should work harder on making fun of americans.

OMG..... WTF..... EH! What's all this ABOOT...... so everyone else are the wonderful neighbors..... and we are the crazy bastards in the basement!

I love living on Earth. I love my planet. I love the people on it. And the animals on it. (Animals are people, too!) I'm very proud of them.

I love Americans. The United States is a wonderful country, the likes of which has rarely been seen in history before. I love New Yorkers. New Yorkers are the best people in the world. I love Southerners. I love the endless, beautiful land filled with strong, kind, caring people from all walks of life that make up this wonderful country.

I love my country and its people.

coco

So glad to finally meet a Canadian who admits it....







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No-one can say such things who has not visited every country of this world, and acheived intimacy and deep cultural understanding in every location. Ten lifetimes would not be enough. Insufficient even to assess the beauty of landscape alone, let alone the people's nature.

The only possible thing you could mean is that the things you know best, accidentally located near you, are the best for you.

With respect, Cocoa, your post may seem to you to express caring, love and tolerance. But in fact it flirts with something which is totally the opposite. The feelings at the root of it are blind, and, in other people, could lead on to the intolerance, and evil which we do to those who we regard as "other".

I know your heart is in the right place intention-wise, but it is a dangerously xenophobic place as you express it in this post.

You say nothing more than "My mum is the best in the world". Meaningless. What kid who had not been frightfully abused would ever say less ?

I don't say this just to hurt or annoy you coco. It is an expression of something widespread and self-innocent, which is nevertheless not free of danger for us all. Such postings actually worry me, because it is not alone, but part of a pattern.

I could never dream of saying that British people were the best in the world. Except perhaps for me. It is not modest, it is not intelligent, it is not meaningful, it is not conducive to harmony with other peoples, and at root, it cannot possibly be true. So why ever imagine saying such a thing, in public, and even an international public. I really don't get your motivation here.

Is it true that only 6% of American citizens have passports ? Is this perhaps relevant ?

So go hate me some more, lots of you. See me as a bully for speaking my mind. Or a commie conchie pacifist which is not true.

I remember watching our aircraft carrier setting sail, men and aircraft lining her decks to recover a Faulklands we had neglected, almost abandoned, and pushed into the arms of Argentina. I stood on the shore with the cheering others, feeling all these warm, patriotic teamy feelings.

Then something cold struck into my heart. This, it said. This feeling, now. This is the moment when evil is born.

They were off to kill people from a little country thousands of miles away which could not pose any imaginable threat to those cheering around me. Evil was born.

Is this thread about anti-Americans, hard candy, or my neighbors cousin who I have locked up in the basement?

Ellie,

And yet that same "little country" that posed no threat to the UK was ruled by the iron fist of the Galtieri regime that had "disappeared" tens of thousands of Agentinians, and routinely practiced torture and mass executions. The war's loss allowed popular forces in Argentina to bring down the military regime and restore democracy; it probably wouldn't have happened had Britain not decided to defend the Falkland Islands. Likely far more Argentinans would have died under a strengthened Galtieri regime than UK forces killed during the war.

Morality in international relations can be a very tricky thing....

I know you can't, Ellie! But I've lived in Manhattan, and I say New Yorkers are the best people in the world! (Meaning, really, that they don't come any better.)

So don't argue with me, lol.

And there ain't nothin evil in it.

Evil was NOT born when you had pride in your country. I have pride for your country! Good people, with good hearts, who have done an enormous amount of good for the world.

coco

But that argument doesn't mean anything to pacifists, Seth. I think total pacifism is an extreme and unrealistic viewpoint. There are times where the "right thing to do" is not to do nothing, but to take action and even go to war if neccesary. And as one of my favorite quotes goes, "The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise."

I could make analogies, but rather than go further off topic with political crap, I'll stop.

A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. Says the prophet Bokonon:
Jingoistic claptrap such as "New Yorkers are the best" is the product of the the worst that human nature has to offer.

A nation in which 2/3rds of the people believe in the existence of Satan, 1 in 10 believes in evolution and only 1 in 3 college graduates do deserves to be the laughing stock of the UK, Norway, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and 21 other nations. If only we could export such willful ignorance for sale, we might be able to avoid being owned by the rest of the world in a few decades.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori indeed.

For such a "pathetic" nation that deserves to be made fun of, it sure has kicked alot of ass in technology advancements, not to mention across the board, for the past 60 years... And the US GDP, I mean, come on... it's pathetic!

Yep - and I, personally, think we're starting to see the end of it. Our public eduction system is pathetic and that will catch up with us - not toady or tomorrow, but give it 15-20 years. We'll be paying for it then.

You know, we aren't quite the technological powerhouse so many people seem to think we are. Between Sony, Siemens, Phillips, and all of the other foreign mega-corps which have embraced R&D, I'm amazed that we're even still in the game.

This, too, shall pass, Garoad. Remeber the late 1970's and into the 1980's? America had a corporate case of the blahs. Lots of self-loathing and introspection, and then, wham! The 1990's come along, the economy takes a quantum leap, technology soars, and for awhile there, it looked like we had finally created utopia on earth. If America is nothing else, it is resilient and ever-ready to redefine itself. That's what keeps us on the bleeding edge. F the naysayers.

We couldn't have known any of that. It did not feature in anyones calculations. No-one can claim credit for accidentally consequences of their actions. The real reason we did it was almost certainly for our prime minister to deflect attention form her catastrophic fall in popularity by assuming the mantle of "war leader" and stimulating all those patriotic feelings, with her at our head. It worked superbly. Before it she was in dire straits with no hope of a further term. After it she went on to win, and never looked back.