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Originally Posted by August
As for your views on other nations, mine in particular, please understand that i find them to be both inaccurate and condescendingly insulting, and suggestive of the superiority complex i have mentioned.
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Hm, is it Germans or Americans trying to convince other foreign people and cultures that they have to copy their way of living, the understanding of what democracy truly is, and their cultural value system? How many wars america has started since end of WWII, although the US were not directly threatend, and how many has Germany started in that time? Is america or Germany blocking even minimal ecological protection protocols that wpould need adjustements of the industry? Who tries to prevent the court in La Hague, and why, Germany or America? Is it Germany that operates dozens and hundreds of military bases around the globe, ensuring global strike capability, or was it America? Had the recent UN general assembly been ruined by over 750 demands for substantial changes to the original plan - by America, or by Germany? I know, you are tempted to give plenty of reasonable arguments why your country's policy is ,like it is. But must the rest of the world necessarily agree with that self-defintion of yours? Must we all be indirectly American, seen that way, then?
I will not withdraw my critizism on political issues simply because someone feels offended by a disagreeing opinion or view. With that method all critizism there is could be silenced immediately, and this I do not accept. I take care not make it sound personal, and turn it into personal things, as long as I feel the other side is answering that favour in the same way. In Germany people are not so easily personally offended when ill-goings in German politics are critizised, at least I know none like that. We also don't declare our leaders holy, untouchable saints, there was one such leader, and that one was enough. Why it is so easy to personally offend Americans if one is adressing political aspects of their country i do not understand. We non-americans necessarily must have a bigger interest in events concerning your country, than you have for ours, for we get mujtliple times as much affected by effects caused by the US, as the other way around. If it is this or that foreign minstre in Germany is of minor importance for you, at best, but for us it makes a very big difference if it is a more left or a more right administration in the WH. But if that sensibility towards critizism, understood as something like countercontrol, should be the reason why critzism of politics should no longer be allowed for reasons of politeness, than I reject that and prefer to be regarded as unpolite, then. Nice sideeffect is that when I say something that sounds friendly in your ears you can assume that i really mean it and that it is not just shallow politeness on the surface.
I often enough payed tribute to your nation'S constitutional values, for example, and I voiced many critizism of the present political conditions in convinced defense of this consitution, for I see a wide gap between what it is and what it should be. My respect for the historic document you can take as serious, and solid, for that reason. This does not mean that I must conclude that it is still the inner basis of the political shaping of your nation in the present, since let's say mid-20th century. you think it is, I think it is not. It simple is this issue for me, not more, not less. The question of if it is polite to question your opinion in this regard is not important. If you critizese the welfare system in Germany, for example, and give your reasons, I try to see it through your eyes, separate belief from information, and then eventually adress what I think is not correct in your thinking about us, and explain why it is how it is. As long as you don'T use word tricks, rethorics, rude manners to simply bully us out of the match i don't feel offended at all. There is enough in Germany, in personell as well as in institutions, laws, structures, you could hack away at if you are interested and where I even would lend you the axe all for free.
Just keep politics and pesonal things separate. If you think I am just about attacking american politcs, then you are wrong. I question modern pllitics on a global scale. It's just that america often is in the cneter of debates here, and that it ia a more improtnat player than for example the politics of Luxembourg.