[Mr 5 0]

Originally posted by 82 GT :

I get tired of hearing people saying "America holds itself to highter standards than the rest of the world"
Don't get me wrong...I'm all American through and through but that statement is total bullshit.

I disagree with that conclusion.

What is meant by the statement that America holds itself to a higher standard than the rest of the world refers to the fact that it is not our policy to mistreat prisoners in a war and that we generally are helpful and friendly to those whose lands we occupy, as in Iraq. The vast majority of other nations have no such 'standards' and simply murder prisoners or really torture them before killing them. In addition, our justice system - as in Iraq - reports abuses, investigates them fully and punishes those found guilty, after a trial. Other nations hide their crimes or just ignore abuses. A look at history will verify this, as in World War II when American forces liberated Europe and found thousands of starving people in German concentration camps or more recently, over 300,000 bodies in mass graves, some children, in Saddam's Iraq. Americans do not do this. That is why we make the statement (and get so angry at idiots who make us look like liars) that we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We do.

To respond to the other questions you raised:

If we(americans) have higher standard then why:

1) is the amount of justice one receives proportional to how much money he/she has. Any high profile case serves as a perfect example of this.

That is not always true and you should not use highly-publicized celebrity criminal cases on TV as the basis for making such a broad indictment of our justice system, one of the best in the world but - being run by human beings - not a perfect system. It's still better than most. One of the problems is that on the whole, the sheer volume of criminal cases outrun the various local, state and federal court' ability to handle them and so, plea-bargains are made and 'pure' justice is not always done. In addition, the vast majority of crimes committed in America, as everywhere, are by poor people, obviously, and they cannot afford high-powered attorneys and instead, get inexperienced and/or overworked Public Defenders who hardly know their case. That can result in bad outcomes for the defendent but I believe that the overwhelming majority of convicted criminals are guilty, even when represented by Public Defenders with weak defenses.

2) Why do we pour millions of dollars into foreign countries to rebuild them when we have homeless people right here in America?

Foreign Aid is tiny portion of the total federal government budget in any one year. While some of the aid is military, most is humanitarian; food and medicine, etc. Not a bad thing for the richest nation on the planet to engage in and another reason why we talk about holding ourselves to a higher standard. As for the homeless, they are a tiny number (about 3 million in a nation of almost 300 million) and most are either drug or alcohol addicted or simply mentally incompetent. Some work at menial jobs but can't afford housing. The federal and state government spend millions every year on various aspects of homelessness and many private charities also help a lot of homeless people. The number of homeless in America has dropped substantially over the past 20 years but homeless advocacy groups tend to downplay that fact. In the final analysis, some homelessness cannot be helped by anyone because the homeless person needs to seek help and some do not want it. That noted, this country has many programs in place to help the homeless. Ending foreign aid would not help it one iota. Linking the two is a non sequitur.

3) Why do farmers destroy crops to create a loss and gain profits from that loss?

Because they have a very strong lobby in Congress that allows this madness to continue. In fairness, America feeds not only itself but a large part of the world every year. Truth is, we're just too productive and many farms should go out of business - but they don't. Kept alive on federal money long after they have ceased their rationale for existing.

4) Why is America allowed to have as many nukes as they want but will not allow any others to have them or we threaten to "disarm" them?

First: no one 'allows' us to possess nuclear weapons. The U.S. possesses what we feel we need for national defense. The difference is that America has had massive amounts of nuclear weapons and since August 1945, has never used them. We have long proven that we're responsible where nuclear weapons are concerned. Do you think Kim Jong Ill of North Korea is sane and responsible? I don't...and his country has a nuclear weapons program running right now. I'm not so comfortable with Pakistan and India having nukes, either. Ot Egypt or many other nations that now possess nuclear weapons. The point is that America has shown great restraint with our nuclear weapons while some other nations leaders are clearly untrustworthy and dangerous with the same weapons. Like a four-year-old running around the house with a loaded gun. Nothing may ever happen but if it did, people could die. With a dangerous 'leader' having nuclear weapons capability millions could die should they decide to launch a nuke...anywhere. That's too dangerous to ignore and we have a responsiblility to try and contain those weapons and keep shakey dictators (as in North Korea) from having them. It's simple common sense, not some sinister plot to disarm the world.

I can go on and on but that's just an example.
I believe America is the best country in the world and the mightiest but we are not without our flaws.

I thank you for your patriotism and agree that we have our 'flaws'. I doubt anyone ever said we didn't.

We are not "above" abusing prisoners. We are all human beings. How can anyone say that when Americans kill each other every day?
Maybe we should spend more time fixing our own problem rather than trying to fix everyone else's.

This nation does far more than most any other to help other people around the world, every day, both privately and via the government. Our foray into Iraq is a national security matter and we're doing a good job there in building up that nation into something that will make every Iraqi proud and offer respect and freedom to all of it's people, including formally oppressed women in a nation that fairly represents it's people. Nothing to apologize for. That some morons acted like brutes is a shame and has given us a black eye in some quarters but overall, America military people have performed exceptionally well in Iraq and have made me proud to be an American, today and every day.