Put down the pitch forks and flaming torches! This is not a fuck America thread, so please don't turn this into one. I am just hoping to get a discussion on an observation that I saw, and nothing more. So please don't turn this into the above mentioned thread.
While reading through several threads started over the last few days on various sites to celebrate the USA's 4th of July, I realized that a lot of the time whenever Americans are feeling patriotic and wish to celebrate their country they do so by insulting every other country and proclaiming to anyone in ear shot that they are gods gift to earth and that we should all be thankful that they allow us to exist. I'm wondering why Americans tend to have this mindset and desire to insult every other country to promote their own as a means to feel better about themselves instead of just being proud of their countries accomplishments and showing them off, or if this is just a vocal minority that makes everyone else look bad by association.
The reason this always stuck out to me, is that in almost every other country when they want to be patriotic and celebrate a national holiday, like their countries equivalent to the US 4th of July, they boast about their countries good qualities and their past deeds and leave it at that. So when you contrast that with the US, and all I ever seem to hear is them proclaiming that: they are better then everyone else, they are perfect in every way, and we should all be lucky to be on the same planet as they are; it just seems odd and out of place that they feel the need to do that. To me it just comes across as being extremely self-conscious and as if the individual feels the need to compensate for something by trying to be flashy and boastful as a distraction that only does the exact opposite and highlights all the bad parts. It just seems so odd to me coming from a country that could be proud of so much, to instead feel the need to insult others in place of just simply being proud of their good parts and admitting that they need work in other areas. It's as if the individual has this weird mindset of never admitting something is anything less then perfect because that would mean admitting there are problems that need to be fixes.
Anyway, that was my observation from reading various 4th of July threads and I just wanted to make this thread and to try and get a civil discussion on the topic started. I know this will just degrade into chaos instantly, never touch on the subject, and end up getting locked; but I got my fingers crossed for something otherwise.
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