Liberals versus Leftists

[downbeatplumb]

You said patriotism is bad, and so is considering a country better than the others.

I'm an immigrant.

Patriotism is bad because it leads to conflict needlessly.
I don't think my country is better than others.
It may have a better health care system than most other countries, most notably it is superior to the system in the US and much of the world is less democratic and racially integrated but it also has an outdated system of aristocracy and there is a lot of a "little Englander" way of thinking that is xenophobic towards the rest of the world hence the tragic brexit vote.

So its nice but best no, nowhere is.

Most countries have different merits.

Can you say that if you came to England and went "I've come from the best country in the world AMERICA" in a café, that you wont end up with spit in your tea.

So you are an immigrant?
So what?

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For example, I favor regulations that serve common interests and safety of the general public such as anti-trust laws, pollution control, and building codes, but I generally oppose regulations implemented as means of social engineering with goals like redistributing wealth or that grossly distort the market place, like rent controls, protectionist tariffs, subsidies and tax breaks, etc. I’m not philosophically opposed to government control/ownership of specific infrastructure and industries but state-owned centralized functions are universally inefficient, easily twisted to political aims, and prone to corruption.

All that means is that for public run endeavours there needs to be better regulation and oversight not throw it open to the corrupt capitalist systems. Like in California where the electrical grid was privatised and companies purposely caused rolling blackouts because this made them money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California...ity_crisis

California had an installed generating capacity of 45 GW. At the time of the blackouts, demand was 28 GW. A demand supply gap was created by energy companies, mainly Enron, to create an artificial shortage. Energy traders took power plants offline for maintenance in days of peak demand to increase the price.[8][9] Traders were thus able to sell power at premium prices, sometimes up to a factor of 20 times its normal value. Because the state government had a cap on retail electricity charges, this market manipulation squeezed the industry's revenue margins, causing the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and near bankruptcy of Southern California Edison in early 2001.[7]:2-3

I would like to point out to CL et al. debating about whether it is right and proper to consider one’s own country the best that the article did not say that anything about considering one’s own nation the best; but rather, that nationalism is a virtue. I would say that America is the “best” place for American’s to live, Germany is the “best” place for Germans to live, and France the “best” place for the French to live; but only because of cultural norms, attitudes, shared language, and the unique sensibilities of each. Otherwise, the general values of liberty, freedom, and equality, are so broadly similar that living is one place is not all that different from another (IMHO) despite how those get expressed in their respective bodies politic. I have no problem with an Iranian who is very proud of his Persian heritage, the political struggles of his people, and the beauty of his countries and literature, the unique richness of the language. But it’s probably not the “best” place to live by any objective standard.

That is similar to my thoughts, you are allowed to like or even love your country, but to start claiming superiority, them's fighting words.

And I do not see anything wrong with a nation trying to preserve its national identity. I think it is laudable for the French to explicitly promote their language (in part because I think it is beautiful) and I think it is sad to see Dunken Donuts in Paris, not in itself. It is after all a kind of ethnic food, i.e. American, in the same way that I enjoy a good taco. But it isn’t inappropriate to recognize when something is lost when there are fewer frommage shops. Many many good and noble things were lost during Manifest Destiny and those should be remembered. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that it is better to live in a technologically advanced society than in a stone age culture. Organic change cannot be helped but I don’t understand people who what to recreate the countries they left in the countries to which they’ve moved and bring with them the very things they are moving away from.

So while like all countries, the US has moments of shame and historic failures, it should still be a source of pride. I think today’s Germans should be proud of their country, despite the Holocaust, and the Japanese despite its Imperialism. Prager makes a very good point. If you love your wife, it doesn’t mean she is perfect, but you don’t want to fundamentally change her into something else.

Bigger boobs would be nice.