Music Banter - View Single Post - The Official Religious/Political Debate Thread

Moniker · 12-21-2004, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by covle

^^that was humorous.

i think the worst thing about america is that it is the world power. i love america, iv been there 3 times in my life, im going again next year(after canada, before south america). but the ignorance of the majority of the citizens about the world is aberrant. ask anybody from australia who the prime minister of new zealand is, or the president of indonesia and they'll be able to tell you. ask any german who the leader of any country in europe is and they'll be able to tell you, and so forth. america is such a powerful country that they dont need to care who is leading where. in your schools you learn about your own history, not the worlds history. this isnt just accusations by the way, iv spoken to numerous people about this, the latest being matt peterson from wisconsin. he stayed at mine for a few weeks last year just after he graduated. this has been the topic of many interesting convos over the past year. i know i know "oh its a conspiracy. the government controlling our lives" all that crap. but matt spent two weeks at my school here in aus and said he'd never learnt so much about other countries than in that time. not in any geography classes or french classes, nothing like that. just in normal english classes where we debate about whats happening in whatever country. america hold america above all other nations. i know all countries do that, when the bali bombings happened(did you hear about that anywhere other than aus?) 202 people died. but the headlines in australia were "88 aussies murdered" or something. who cares? its not about the country its about the people who were killed, but america appears to be the extreme in this. do this to yourself, name the 12th president. easy? now, who fought the spanish inquisition? which political team won the russian revolution? whats the gaza strip war all about? who was the british leader of world war 2?
and i dont want any smartarsed americans looking up the answers IF they dont know them and telling me off. im not saying, every american is unable to answer such questions. but the majority is. i love your country, and im returning as soon as i can, but the fact that you are the strongest nation in the world, and by such a margin baffles me, as in comparison, your people are taught and subsequently know a lot less about the world they rule.

Very true. I was talking to some girl from Australia about schooling and history classes, and I was surprised that she'd taken a mandatory American History class. And then a Russian history class. It seemed so odd, since I'd only had to take American history and World history (mostly European). It was funny describing to her how America very literally sees itself as the bastion of all that is good in the world. I mean, Superman fights for the American Way. When you're defeating an alien race, you can bet an American is firing the death blow. It's just so insane, when you think about it in an international view, but that's what it's like to be American. All actions are justified because you already think you're the good guy. If nothing else, our educational system ingrains that into our children very effectively.