Is the USA the Greatest Nation

[cwelsch]

I'd say the Bill of Rights, Constitution and the Declaration alone put the US high in the running.  It's not perfect, but I'd say it's the best out there today, no real question in my head.

[cwelsch]

In my experience the English make jokes to mock you.  I've spoken with a few dozen separately, most are standoffish and like to insult you or demean you on first meeting - but they do it in a roundabout way, something they can deny if they want.  If you respond back with an equivalently small amount of aggression they back off.  Sometimes they mock you again, but if they like you then that first insult will be the last.  I'm shocked by how consistently this pattern is followed, although obviously tons of English people don't do this.

The Canadians, English, Irish and Australians tend to be funny, in roughly that order.

Anyway, the English may be funny but I find they're not kidding when they mock you.  Canadians and Americans often mock in jest.  English stand-ups don't do that so much, but English people have done this with me repeatedly, very few of them knowing each other and from all over England.

[cwelsch]

Yeah, the English lead the world in humanitarian efforts when they flirted with recognizing the Confederacy, slaughtered Indian protestors, engaged in the Suez fiasco, and generally screwed with their colonies.  Real humanitarians, there.  I think the Scots and Irish would disagree.

And the French are apparently split between communism and fascism.  They worship the state since Richelieu and Louis XIV.  They have a couple dozen Communist parties, enough to spoil Jospin in the last election and allow Le Pen to come in.

Forty percent of French in 1999 admitted to being racist in a countrywide poll (cite: The Economist).  Enough said.  Majorities and supermajorities of French think there are too many Arabs and too many Muslims in France.  Sorry, I'll side with the Anglos against the Francos.

[cwelsch]

While Scotland and NI may have gained or not in economic terms of the last century or two, both suffered from English misrule, and the Irish have TONS of valid complaints against the English.

Yeah, thanks for introducing slavery into the colonies, England.  Let's check a list of English and british humanitarian successes.  Hey!  I happen to know of a handy one.


He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.


Yeah, nifty humanitarians.  Limey bastards.