h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"My nation, right or wrong"!? "One Nation, Under God..." "We the People..." Are you still a patriot now!??

I'm surprised this has been here for a whole hour with no response. Well, I'll start it off for you: No, I'm not proud to be an American.
I'm fed up with George Bush's smarmy lipless paternalistic grin and Dick Cheney's weird leering grin and -- no, wait. I'm Canadian.




anhaga

As you can tell by the end of my nickname, I'm not proud to be a U.S. citizen.

But the lyrics of "God Bless the U.S.A" still make me cry: "I'm proud to be an American," Lee Greenwood sings, "Where at least I know I'm free/ And I won't forget the men who died/ Who gave that right to me".

I feel so sorry for the U.S. military and for the Middle Eastern(not just Iraqi) citizen.

So while I am grateful for my background, my education, my up-bringing, experiences, and especially for my beloved Colorado land, I find myself weeping. Lady Liberty wants to stomp all over the world, it seems. Very unlady like!!!!

...it's got to be better than being...

ohhh....say...er...Fr.....


never mind.



alec.

hahahaha... that raises another question: Better to be passive or agressive!??

jeez, I've been wondering how long you'd take to get here, alec. look out, dragonfly!

Look Out!??? Life is worth debates, and worth taking risks. Thanks for the advice, though!!!

I forgot to put my on my last post. Don't get to raucous, eh Alec? Remember, Pride is the most fearsome of the seven deadly sins.

...hey...i'm just happy to be a resident alien


alec.

Hey, I think I knew that. You mean there are three of us on this thread and only one is a real American?

It can be a FANTASTIC country... we have TREMENDOUS potential...

I agree. Enormous potential. My humble opinion is that you've hit the nail on the head by asking about Pride. That's the thing that is the greatest failing (and danger) of America (my humble opinion again). Up here we have a reputation for being kind of the opposite, being nervous and overpolite (apologizing if someone bumps into us). Canadians are desperate not to piss anyone off (I think that's what gets the Americans so pissed off at us). I mean, our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are desperately running around trying to get the Americans, the Germans, and (yes, Alec) the French to come up with some kind of compromise resolution on Iraq. What the Hell would Bush make of shenanigans like that?

Can't everybody just get along?

(I hope I haven't made anyone mad.)

Well....good question. I certainly appreciate my liberties. I certainly abhor the price those liberties exacts on the rest of the world, or that they are relegated to certain folk-of-fortunate-birth in the first place. Of course, what with the emergence of a kind of Neo-McCarthyism, it may not be long before my liberties are taken as well, so...*shrug*

Nyssa - Una Americana

wehave to jump through all sorts of hoops that the ordinary citizens are not subjected to...INS for example.

So i'm not allowed to vote, but i DO get to pay my share of taxes.

Still a GREAT PLACE though.

alec.

Ah..I didn't have to indicate I was American..my bad grammar was evidence enough .

I've got a niece (named Andrea) down there who, because of a typographical error is a draft-dodger. For about a year before her eighteenth birthday they kept getting notices that somebody named Andrew needed to register for the draft. My brother-in-law (the real model for Homer Simpson) just kept throwing them out. One night they were telling me the story of these draft notices for a guy named Andrew. You should have seen the look on my brother-in-law's face about ten seconds after I said "maybe it's a typo" when it finally sunk in.
My niece is hoping to come up here to work for me this summer. I wonder if they'll let her out of the country.

Nyssa...have you checked the grammar and spelling in some of the other threads?

the 'Counciling' thread was about twenty posts in before anyone realised it should be 'Counselling'...

and these people are at universities

alec.

I seem to remember a little debate about how to spell "bear" on another thread, too . . .

I am proud to keep fighting ,stressing the INTENDED ideals.
We need an "Axis of Humanity"
We are far from where we should be, leading in ways I am not always proud of.

The current administrations power and budget reflects "private affluence and public squalor" and was NOT an intended result of Democracy.

We can still be proud to be Americans, in spite of what Bush is doing to tarnish the office of the presidency and misrepresent our nation to the rest of the world. We have to remember that justice is supposed to be an important ideal to Americans, so if we believe that the war is unjust, then the only way to be a patriotic American is to oppose it.

If anyone tries to tell you that you have to support the war in order to be patriotic, tell them to recite the Pledge (forget about the "under God" hubbub for a moment) and stop them when they get to "JUSTICE." That's the part that makes it our duty to stop the war.