|> And to whomever said that the US is dominant in the Olympics due merely to the population, I would be happy to point out the fact that China is pretty shitty in most proper sports, despite having 1.3-1.5 billion people.

Ah, but that is according to your (American) idea of "proper sports". In all kinds of intellectual sports (as opposed to physical sports), China is unmatched. Just look at all the International {Chemistry|Computer Science|Mathematics|Physics} Olympiads; before the competition even starts, everyone already knows China is going to win. And many of the top competitors from the US are from Asian descent.

|> We have the strongest military in the world. Well that has a lot to do with what I said about being an Empire. You NEED to have the strongest military, and personally, I would be ashamed of the huge amounts of money that are spent in the military **when you don't even have a welfare system.** I am sure much of that money would be more useful to US population if spent in education, for example.

We do have a welfare system; I know this because I'm on it and I'm mighty grateful for it.

Sorry RvW... I'm an engineer and in no way, shape or form should academic olympiads be considered sports. They simply aren't.

Hi Guys.

I'll answer u individually.

Richard Sharpe. I am actually not Danish, but Spanish :P I know my nickname is misleading though. In any case, I guess the same that you said applies to Spain too, as it is also a NATO member. So yes, we are also under the wing of the US army. Still, every member is forced to spend money on military, so it isn't for free.

Tacticus. About sports I said population AND resources (meaning money and facilities). During the Cold War, the URSS also won many gold medals, it's just a matter of power. It is also a matter of artificial selection, since during slavery, the fittest slaves were selected to breed.

On the other hand, Spain has done quite well in some sports lately, but this hardly makes me proud. I would be prouder of having great scientist and scholars, for example.

Vapor X. I guess I made a mistake there. I meant public helthcare system, ehich in my view is something every developed country should have.

In any case, there are things I admire about the US (altough I only have been there as a kid learning English) but also things I loathe.

For example, politicians like Henry Kissinger, who is arguably one of the worst criminals in History.

China does great at quite a few of the Olympic competitions, notably Ping Pong (no great surprise) and Gymnastics.

In any event, there are two primary things to be very proud of America for, which isn't to say that y'all shouldn't be proud of other things about the USA as well, but IMO these things are complete no-brainers on the being proud front:

1) The inception of large-scale democracy - Although many nations historically contributed to the rise of government by the people (The city-state of Athens, The British Empire,) the USA was the first major nation to be founded from the outset in democratic principles, and to maintain them more or less intact on a global scale. Democratic principles that were laid down in the American Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution were used time and again as models for other nations that were considering reforms or building a new government after the collapse of the "Ancien Regime". Even if democracy and human rights sometimes play second fiddle to maintaining the American world hegemony in the eyes of the US government, it is still something very important to the actual citizenry, and the occasional callous disregard of this has caused many a politican to fall from grace in the eyes of the public, after which they're voted out. Yay democracy!

2) Charitable giving - Americans consistently rank very highly in comparisons of charitable giving. The USA isn't currently on the top of the chart in terms of total amount given relative to GDP, but it exceeds the second place contender (France) for total amount given for global charitable aid by almost 100%, coming in at about 26 billion USD yearly. Privately, American citizens donate over 400 billion USD every year to charitable causes. The USA has also played a leading role in the formation and continuation of institutions such as the Red Cross and the United Nations that perform vital functions in mitigating the famines and tsunamis and epidemics that afflict the world. Yay charity!

americans should think what is really to be proud about about.

Rock and Roll, John Coltrane, Abe Lincoln, Normandy Beach.

John Tesh, George Bush, Mei Lai, Wal-Mart.

The U.S. is a bat-shit crazy place where anything can happen. You may find inspiration and redemption and the birth of a new dawn, or you may wind up shivering on a dead-end street with no money in your pocket. There's a big, broken beauty to it that I love, and yes, I'm proud to be American, in spite of it all.

sorry, My Lai, not Mei Lai.

|> the USA was the first major nation to be founded from the outset in democratic principles

That's not exactly a fair measure, seeing how the USA was founded (relatively) recent. To make it fair, it would have to be "the USA was the first major nation to use (and keep using to this date) democratic principles". Of course, in that case, the statement isn't true any more.

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|> Democratic principles that were laid down in the American Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution were used time and again as models for other nations

At least the Declaration of Independence was heavily based on at least the 1689 English Declaration of Rights and possibly on the 1320 Scottish Declaration of Arbroath and the 1581 Dutch Act of Abjuration ("Acte van Verlatinghe")
as well. I don't think it makes very much sense to claim being an inspiration for others if you yourself took a lot of inspiration from others as well. Besides, how do you tell the difference between the US Declaration of Independence being an inspiration for country X as opposed to the Dutch Act of Abjuration being their inspiration?

[Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_declaration_of_independence#Influences):
|> Jefferson's most immediate sources were two documents written in June 1776: his own draft of the preamble of the Constitution of Virginia, and George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Ideas and phrases from both of these documents appear in the Declaration of Independence. They were, in turn, directly influenced by the 1689 English Declaration of Rights, which formally ended the reign of King James II. During the American Revolution, Jefferson and other Americans looked to the English Declaration of Rights as a model of how to end the reign of an unjust king. The Scottish Declaration of Arbroath (1320) and the Dutch Act of Abjuration (1581) have also been offered as models for Jefferson's Declaration, but these arguments have been disputed.

[Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Abjuration):
|> The Act was remarkable for of its extensive Preamble, which took the form of an ideological justification, phrased as an indictment (a detailed list of grievances) of King Philip. This form, which is strikingly similar to that of the American Declaration of Independence, has given rise to speculations that Thomas Jefferson, when he was writing the latter, was at least inspired by the Act of Abjuration.

I'm not exactly an expert on the English and Scottish declarations, so I can't give detailed information about them.

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|> Even if democracy and human rights sometimes play second fiddle to maintaining the American world hegemony

How can you say that!? I don't know about you, but to me, that says "even if the most important thing of all has sometimes come second to a pissing contest"...

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|> The USA has also played a leading role in the formation and continuation of institutions such as the Red Cross

The formation of the Red Cross was mostly a European affair as far as I know (which, by the way, is not something to be proud, because of the reason behind it: we were waging lots and lots of war, so we just needed it badly).
I have no idea about *the continuation* of the Red Cross, you may or may not have a point there.

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ps. Am I the only one wondering what happened to the distinction between "I'm proud of my country" and "I'm proud *of being from* my country"? The first one I can understand, but the second one seems pretty ridiculous, since it's not something you actually had any influence over.

WOW this thread really took off....

I want to say this. I'm DAMN proud of my country and what it does here and abroad.

No country is perfect, not a single one.

There are issues in Denmark, Spain, China, etc... you name a country it has issues.

I think basing a country on athletic accomplishment is a bit immature. Though being obese isn't healthy either, and we do, here in the states, have one of the highest obesity rates.

I see more good than bad done at home and abroad, and for that I'm proud.

I once heard a story of some Dutch scientists who developed a new type of nuclear bomb, that could spread all kind of biological viruses and diseases in the air. As soon as it was reported, the US laid claim on it because they should have it and Dutch couldn't be trusted with it...

I can't find any sources for it, but it does sound pretty American to me. If they want more oil, they'll invade the middle-east and Libya and want to be rewarded as "saviours"

RvW, you were quoting me out of context. Here's the qualification I posted before my first point about the inception of democracy:

"Although many nations historically contributed to the rise of government by the people (The city-state of Athens, The British Empire,) the USA was the first major nation to be founded from the outset in democratic principles, and to maintain them more or less intact on a global scale."

As you can see, I give due credit to the British in specific, and allowed that there were other players in the drama that led to democracy. My point was that the US was the first nation out of the nations that currently exist to put in place a reasonable attempt at democratic government, and other nations have followed suit since then. Certainly none of the ideals of Jefferson, Madison, et al came fully fledged from America, they were continuations of political philosophy that had their roots in the rennaissance and the enlightenment. I didn't mean to say that the US "invented" democracy :)
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You also said:
devilnis: Even if democracy and human rights sometimes play second fiddle to maintaining the American world hegemony

RvW: How can you say that!? I don't know about you, but to me, that says "even if the most important thing of all has sometimes come second to a pissing contest"...

This was another quote out of context. What I said was:
"Even if democracy and human rights sometimes play second fiddle to maintaining the American world hegemony in the eyes of the US government, it is still something very important to the actual citizenry"

... meaning that it is well known to the populace of the US that the government sometimes betrays the lofty ideals that birthed the nation. Thankfully, since we have a democratic way of life here, we can (and do) express our displeasure at that fact by voting the perpetrators out of office. There are no perfect systems but we do the best we can - *OUR* absolute power hasn't corrupted us nearly as much as it did Rome or Spain, for instance.

You were right about the Red Cross, it was started by the Swiss (which seems rather obvious in retrospect) but is indeed primarily funded by the US these days. The example falls but the point remains, the US is remarkly giving to the people of the world, far more so than any previous hegemonic power, and the reason for that is because it is the will of the US citizens, who (like pretty much everyone else) are a friendly and caring bunch even if the truth of that is distorted by the infotainment media that only wants to report on child rapists and murderers and floods and famines.

Not sure how the text got so big in part of that heheh oh well!

+1

|> Vapor X. I guess I made a mistake there. I meant public helthcare system, ehich in my view is something every developed country should have.

We do have public healthcare. It's called Obamacare and it sucks.

|> WOW this thread really took off....

|> I want to say this. I'm DAMN proud of my country and what it does here and abroad.

|> No country is perfect, not a single one.

|> There are issues in Denmark, Spain, China, etc... you name a country it has issues.

|> I think basing a country on athletic accomplishment is a bit immature. Though being obese isn't healthy either, and we do, here in the states, have one of the highest obesity rates.

|> I see more good than bad done at home and abroad, and for that I'm proud.

+10000000000000000000000

Now, is Obamacare the actual name for the public health system, or is that the name given to it by such intellectual lumnaries such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich (seriously, who names their child NEWT?!), and Rick Santorum? I am not really up on what's going on in America at the moment, I just can't be bothered. But as a general idea, public health care is the tits. Where I am living now, if you have no money, they will let you die in the middle of the street outside of the hospital. Maybe that is overdramatizing, but they will most likely put you in a van and dump your broke ass in the countryside to die.

|> We do have public healthcare. It's called Obamacare and it sucks.

My impression (and that seems to be the general impression on this side of the Atlantic) is that USA hospitals will simply refuse to help you if you don't have medical insurance. In my book that's ridiculous.

I understand that if a hospital has ten operation rooms and there's eleven people needing an operation they are forced to choose which one is least critical. But if ten people are brought in I cannot see how it is acceptable to not treat one of them for a reason as utterly irrelevant as "he doesn't have insurance". If you ask me, if someone needs medical treatment, you give him that treatment right away; afterwards you can figure out administrative details such as were to send the bill.
(There will of course always be people without medical insurance; in the Netherlands the insurance companies pay for them as well from a joint fund, which they each put money in based on their market share or something. That way hospitals will always have their bills paid. Because there's very few people without insurance that fund can be relatively small.)
Of course, doing it that way means it's very enticing not to pay for medical insurance (with the downside of possibly not getting treatment in non-urgent cases; I honestly don't know how that works, since it's a non-issue here). However, if lots of people do that, the system breaks, which is why you are legally required to have medical insurance.
I know America in general is not exactly a socialist country, but that doesn't change the fact that doing it this way is a *right* way (not necessarily "the" right way, other good systems might exist); letting people go untreated is simply unacceptable in any country which has the technology to help readily available.

The fact that the USA doesn't have a proper healthcare system is ridiculous. The fact that a huge amount of (mostly Republicans) were kicking and screaming when Obama tried to *fix* it (because *they* can afford the bills, so why should a tiny sliver of their money be spend on saving other people's lives?), ... I simply don't have words for (not in English, not in Dutch either).

I recently spent 3 nights/4 days in a Thai hospital unable to so much as sit up or walk due to a deep muscle pull in my back. Without any form of insurance, the total bill (including doctors' fees, hospital fees, back brace, medicine, the bed, etc.) was approximately $270 US. Plus the $15 for the ambulance fee.

If the same thing had happened to me back in the states (4 years ago, so I can't say now) I don't think I would have been refused care, but I do know that I would have been in debt to someone for a long, long time.

Here in Thailand, if you pay social security you have basic medical coverage. When you are sick, you go to the doctor, get your medicine and go home to get better. To me, that in itself is light years ahead of the US.

Hear, hear. (RvW)

Moros, what you're talking about is the enormously dangerous virus the Erasmus University of Rotterdam created quite recently.
It's a lethal bird flu variant that travels through air.
The Americans laid claim on it because it is such a dangerous virus.
It's basically the medical variant of the nuclear bomb.

But the Rotterdam wise guys decided nonetheless to send their information to countries that suffer badly from bird flu.
That doesn't seem such a bad idea until you see the list of these countries: Iran, North-Korea, Myanmar, Palestine (with our pro-Israël State Secretary that's double trouble), Syria, China (not really an enemy but not BFF's either, no sir) and the list goes on and on...

Really, all Rotterdam stereotypes are proven true by those Erasmus fools...

And yes, the Declaration of Independence was hugely inspired by our Acte van Verlatinghe.
That's because we were the first people to really break away from our king. I dare say that our Revolt was so revolutionary that without it France would have been a kingdom and the States a mere colony.

RvW, I am not entirely sure, as I was fortunate to be covered under my parent's insurance all thru college, but I believe that anyone with a serious injury gets treated at the ER (emergency room), regardless of insurance. Maybe they don't get to stay long, or get the best procedures, but in the US they won't let you die on the hospital steps. Of course, the problem with this is that since so many people don't have insurance, people are forced to go to the ER with things such as the flu, etc, which kinda screws things up. Then again, I live in the largest "Communist" country in the world, and social services (health care, unemployment, social security) are pretty much nonexistent.