To all Americans out there: Happy Independence Day! 😀
Hope you all have a good holiday,
Peace!
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3 Comments
You missed Canada day .
SHAME ON YOU 😛
I congratulate the fact that the Americans actually managed to separate themselves from the UK back in the days, because they wanted to be FREE, but you forget that the U.S. is a country built upon the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans (the Indian people). Therefore I see no reason to praise this terror regime murdering millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore it’s economic and imperialistic world policies are draining the global climate of the world. USA is a catastrophic (in Danish: ‘sminket lig’) superpower, having the world’s second highest social inequalities between the rich and poor.
“You completely misunderstood what I wanted to say. As I said before, you are more than welcome to gratulate Americans as INDIVIDUALS for their independence.”
Which is what I did, re-read the post: “To all Americans out there …”.
1. A person born in, or a citizen of, the United States of America.
2. An inhabitant of the Americas. More often this is specified as either North American, Central American or South American.
3. (rare) The English language as spoken in the USA; American English.
“But as you might know, the American Independence Day was founded to praise the establishment of the COUNTRY, and THAT is wrong in my opinion, since the USA was built upon the murders and conquering of the country of another ethnic people, and I’m glad you don’t overlook that.”
You know, pretty much every country in the world today, is built upon murders and conquering in the past. The United States is just a big example that many people highlight and know about. I am not trying to overlook past misdeeds, but if you have to take every case of murder and conquest into consideration, when deciding on whether to congratulate anything or anybody, you aren’t gonna be congratulating more than a very very limited set of people, or events (And some people would see it as being wrong to even do those I can almost guarantee you). Also, I believe overlooking one case of murder and conquest, and not another, that I find even more “wrong” than not considering any at all.
Let’s take the example of Japan’s National Foundation Day, which is “a day to reflect on the establishment of the nation and to nourish a love for the country.”. If I sent my cousin’s wife an email congratulating on that event, am I then ignoring Japan’s conquest and annexation of the Ry?ky? Kingdom? Or am I glorifying their invasion, conquest, annexation and brutal oppression of Korea in 1910? A Chinese exchange student was living on the street next to mine for the past year, and I talked to her occasionally, very nice person to talk to. If I had congratulated her on the occasion of Chinese new year in February. Would I then be glorifying Qin Shi Huang Di‘s, China’s first emperor, conquests which unified China (Formerly a series of feudal, warring states) ? Or would I be glorifying China’s oppression of Tibet?
If I said “Happy Eid” to friends of mine, who are Muslims, am I glorifying Islamic conquests in medieval times? The list just goes on and on and on.
If you feel like the United States is so much more evil than say Russia (There are reasons that it’s so flipping big), China, Japan, then I can do nothing by shake my head, because then you’re essentially saying that one misdeed is less important to keep in mind than others.
To sum this up, the world (human civilization), as it is today, has been shaped by conquests and warfare, that’s just a fact. If you can’t live with that fact (Which I hope we can see less of in the future), well I’d volunteer for a manned Mars mission when one gets under way, that way you can go to different world.
“Therefore, I think AID is wrong to celebrate, just like Christmas is wrong to celebrate if you’re an atheist (most do it anyway, but I have decided to quit it the day I move to Aarhus into my own apartment, to stay loyal to my ‘faith’ in nothing).”
You know, I think you’re assraping the word “wrong”. What do you really mean? Glorifying genocide is definitely immoral, being a hypocrite (Actively celebrating Christmas if you’re an atheist) I can’t see being immoral, rather it’s just silly or stupid.
I’m an atheist, personally, in terms of my religion stance, but my life-style is increasingly being inspired by Buddhism. I see participating in Christmas celebrations, as positive, because I know my mother would be saddened if I simply shunned it, which, from a Buddhist perspective, causes dukkha, or “suffering” (” … roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha), which is something that should be avoided when possible, which I don’t find so hard to, from a rational standpoint, to agree with if you look at what the term means.
You missed Canada day .
SHAME ON YOU 😛
I congratulate the fact that the Americans actually managed to separate themselves from the UK back in the days, because they wanted to be FREE, but you forget that the U.S. is a country built upon the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans (the Indian people). Therefore I see no reason to praise this terror regime murdering millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore it’s economic and imperialistic world policies are draining the global climate of the world. USA is a catastrophic (in Danish: ‘sminket lig’) superpower, having the world’s second highest social inequalities between the rich and poor.
“You completely misunderstood what I wanted to say. As I said before, you are more than welcome to gratulate Americans as INDIVIDUALS for their independence.”
Which is what I did, re-read the post: “To all Americans out there …”.
So I’d say it’s you who misunderstood.
“But as you might know, the American Independence Day was founded to praise the establishment of the COUNTRY, and THAT is wrong in my opinion, since the USA was built upon the murders and conquering of the country of another ethnic people, and I’m glad you don’t overlook that.”
You know, pretty much every country in the world today, is built upon murders and conquering in the past. The United States is just a big example that many people highlight and know about. I am not trying to overlook past misdeeds, but if you have to take every case of murder and conquest into consideration, when deciding on whether to congratulate anything or anybody, you aren’t gonna be congratulating more than a very very limited set of people, or events (And some people would see it as being wrong to even do those I can almost guarantee you). Also, I believe overlooking one case of murder and conquest, and not another, that I find even more “wrong” than not considering any at all.
Let’s take the example of Japan’s National Foundation Day, which is “a day to reflect on the establishment of the nation and to nourish a love for the country.”. If I sent my cousin’s wife an email congratulating on that event, am I then ignoring Japan’s conquest and annexation of the Ry?ky? Kingdom? Or am I glorifying their invasion, conquest, annexation and brutal oppression of Korea in 1910? A Chinese exchange student was living on the street next to mine for the past year, and I talked to her occasionally, very nice person to talk to. If I had congratulated her on the occasion of Chinese new year in February. Would I then be glorifying Qin Shi Huang Di‘s, China’s first emperor, conquests which unified China (Formerly a series of feudal, warring states) ? Or would I be glorifying China’s oppression of Tibet?
If I said “Happy Eid” to friends of mine, who are Muslims, am I glorifying Islamic conquests in medieval times? The list just goes on and on and on.
If you feel like the United States is so much more evil than say Russia (There are reasons that it’s so flipping big), China, Japan, then I can do nothing by shake my head, because then you’re essentially saying that one misdeed is less important to keep in mind than others.
To sum this up, the world (human civilization), as it is today, has been shaped by conquests and warfare, that’s just a fact. If you can’t live with that fact (Which I hope we can see less of in the future), well I’d volunteer for a manned Mars mission when one gets under way, that way you can go to different world.
“Therefore, I think AID is wrong to celebrate, just like Christmas is wrong to celebrate if you’re an atheist (most do it anyway, but I have decided to quit it the day I move to Aarhus into my own apartment, to stay loyal to my ‘faith’ in nothing).”
You know, I think you’re assraping the word “wrong”. What do you really mean? Glorifying genocide is definitely immoral, being a hypocrite (Actively celebrating Christmas if you’re an atheist) I can’t see being immoral, rather it’s just silly or stupid.
I’m an atheist, personally, in terms of my religion stance, but my life-style is increasingly being inspired by Buddhism. I see participating in Christmas celebrations, as positive, because I know my mother would be saddened if I simply shunned it, which, from a Buddhist perspective, causes dukkha, or “suffering” (” … roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha), which is something that should be avoided when possible, which I don’t find so hard to, from a rational standpoint, to agree with if you look at what the term means.