I am proud of my country when it does good the same as I am proud of my
family when it does good. I am disappointed and not proud when we do bad.
Just as with my family, I encourage good and praise the good because
reinforcement and recognition of the good encourages more. I redress members
of my family in private because shame only brings about bitterness, and any
change that come about in the process is not through a desire to do good,
but to avoid shame. I don't remember ever having dumped the baggage of my
country's past (and we have plenty) on your country or your people, and I
would appreciate it if you would refrain from doing the same - that is,
unless you get off on generating bitter Americans.
Regards,
Bob...
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By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy;
if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates
From: "Frantisek" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Please, don't take me so seriously. I am sure there are things that I
say that others would think are kind of stupid. It is just my opinion,
that I am not very fond of "pride of ones country". Sometimes I just
say my opinion too harshly, as is common on this very list... Sorry
for that, I certainly didn't want to insult you, and my apologies if you
are insulted. I will keep my opinion, that I dislike when somebody is
too much proud of his country, simply because I think one should be
proud of individuals not a country. My feelings might also be kind of
geographically different, here in the Europe there were after the fall
of the empires many national states, unlike the USA (the problems that
plagued and still somewhat plague it with seggregation,
underprivilegised minorities etc. notwithstanding, it still was a less
national state than most post-imperial european ones at that time).
So I am quite allergic to sentences stating pride of ones country.
Because in national states, such pride is often connected with dislike
for all the different. I have seen plenty of examples. Perhaps now you
understand me more? In my opinion, there is a big connection between pride
of ones country and unpride of things that are different. And I think
that unpride of different things is even in the USA. However, I didn't
meant it personally at you, or anybody in particular. It is more an
observation of what I think are the dangers of too much identification
with a particular country or whatever. Of course people form tribes
and closely knitted nets, groups. I think it is worse when such a
group identification is too big, with a whole country. YMMV.
