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View Poll Results: Are you proud to be an American?
Yes - very proud 21 48.84%
Yes - moderately proud 5 11.63%
Only a little pround 2 4.65%
Not proud 4 9.30%
I am not an American 11 25.58%
Voters: 43. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1 (permalink)  
Old 04-July-2008, 09:10 PM
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Default Proud to be an American

This thread asks one simple question: Are you proud to be an American?

After taking the poll, please explain your response, if you care to respond.
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Old 04-July-2008, 09:16 PM
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Of course I am.

Just kidding. Long live the US! Happy 4th of July.
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Old 04-July-2008, 09:23 PM
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Moderately proud. We've done a lot of great things, but sometimes we stumble wildly, and we're not very adept at sifting the chaff from the wheat when it comes to making heads or tales of various technologies, taking advantage of various opportunities, or steering clear of easily avoidable threats. To put it in football terms, we're more like Larry Csonka than Mercury Morris.
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Old 04-July-2008, 09:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Argos View Post
Of course I am.

Just kidding. Long live the US! Happy 4th of July.
Thanks! How were your Boi Bumba and Festa Junina last month?

Até mais tarde...
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Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.
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Old 04-July-2008, 09:36 PM
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With North, Central and South Americas, don't you mean "U.S. citizen"?
I only bring this up because the Mexican TV news broadcasts that seep over into San Diego's airwaves are quite meticulous about these distinctions.
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Old 04-July-2008, 09:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mugaliens View Post
Thanks! How were your Boi Bumba and Festa Junina last month?

Até mais tarde...
Oh, It´s fireworks season here too [well, my dogs tend not to like it as the rest of the people]. Those were great [I just don´t know who´s won the Boi Bumba festival this year]. Thanks.
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Old 04-July-2008, 09:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sarongsong View Post
With North, Central and South Americas, don't you mean "U.S. citizen"?
I only bring this up because the Mexican TV news broadcasts that seep over into San Diego's airwaves are quite meticulous about these distinctions.
Yeah many Canadians I've spoken to are also perplexed by U.S. people thinking they are the only Americans. We tend to forget because we've got America in our name.
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Old 04-July-2008, 09:49 PM
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I'm a proud American.For all our faults,heck,running sores,we're still the greatest nation ever conceived.More people have achieved more in our short history than any other nation in history.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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Old 04-July-2008, 10:00 PM
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I voted very proud, but my pride is not without caution. I realize we have enormous challenges but we were born on an ideal we would do well remember:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Long live the United States of America and may our troops soon find peace.
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Old 04-July-2008, 10:04 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Veeger View Post
Yeah many Canadians I've spoken to are also perplexed by U.S. people thinking they are the only Americans. We tend to forget because we've got America in our name.
At least one Canadian of my acquaintance accepts "American" as an adjective/noun but not "America" as a place name for the US, because we simply don't have a better adjective.

At any rate . . . my feelings are too complicated for this poll. I think, personally, that mature love includes knowing where you've screwed up and working to make it better. We've come a long way. We still have a long way to go.
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Old 04-July-2008, 10:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sarongsong View Post
With North, Central and South Americas, don't you mean "U.S. citizen"?
No. Signifiqué el " un americano, " no " un ciudadano del " de los Estados Unidos.

E no português: No. Eu signifiquei o " um americano, " não " um cidadão do " de Estados Unidos.

Quote:
I only bring this up because the Mexican TV news broadcasts that seep over into San Diego's airwaves are quite meticulous about these distinctions.
North, Central, and South America. American.
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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. Human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.
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Old 04-July-2008, 10:36 PM
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Very.

At our worst, we're still better than most.
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Old 04-July-2008, 11:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mugaliens View Post
No. Signifiqué el " un americano, " no " un ciudadano del " de los Estados Unidos.

E no português: No. Eu signifiquei o " um americano, " não " um cidadão do " de Estados Unidos.



North, Central, and South America. American.
My Canuck friends call themselves Canadians,my Mexican in-laws call themselves Mexicans & my father's wife-from Bogota-calls herself Colombian.

Si me preguntan,digo "Soy Americano",no me necesito decir "Soy Estado Unidense"
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Last edited by Frantic Freddie; 04-July-2008 at 11:22 PM. Reason: edit
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Old 04-July-2008, 11:45 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frantic Freddie View Post
My Canuck friends call themselves Canadians,my Mexican in-laws call themselves Mexicans & my father's wife-from Bogota-calls herself Colombian.

Si me preguntan,digo "Soy Americano",no me necesito decir "Soy Estado Unidense"
People I’ve met in Central America use the geographical terms:

North America
Mexico
Central America
South America

For the U.S. they usually use the term "Estados Unidos". They seem to be very conscious of being “Americans” of the “Central American” kind, and of course citizens of their own particular country.
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Old 04-July-2008, 11:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam5 View Post
...For the U.S. they usually use the term "Estados Unidos"...
How do they refer to citizens of the U.S?
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Old 04-July-2008, 11:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sarongsong View Post
How do they refer to citizens of the U.S?
"gods from outer space"

Edited to add:

You mean, as to where we are geographically from, our own country?

I don’t recall hearing them call us by any one name other than “gringos”. In Central America, this just means a “Yankee”, someone from North America. In Northern Mexico, that word is considered to be insulting, but it’s not in Central America.
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Old 05-July-2008, 12:06 AM
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Since you quote the poetry-in-oratry of Lincoln, and the inspired lines of Emma Lazarus, who wrote nothing else of note, may I quote the words of a far better poet?

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


I too am proud of my country, which has much to be proud of and much of which to be ashamed. Countries and nations rise and fall, as Shelley says; nothing is for ever.

John
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Old 05-July-2008, 12:21 AM
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JohnD stole my poem.
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Old 05-July-2008, 01:11 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam5 View Post
...I don’t recall hearing them call us by any one name other than “gringos”...
The Mexican TV news stations refer to U.S. citizens as norteamericanos.
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Old 05-July-2008, 01:12 AM
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