Give America the credit due

[GWarface]

Well, the US WAS a great country wich could inspire others to fight for their personal freedoms..

Today, you inspire the rest of us to not trust our governments and fight even harder for our freedoms that your "leaders" is trying to take from the rest of us (and yourself)..

 

[AssassinFisH]

Nice place to visit, but certainly would not like to live in the US. Considering they enjoy trying to police the world, they are not very good at looking after their own.

On the flip side, Americans in general are very friendly. Any time I walked into a bar, I was made to feel welcome and knew everyone's name by the end of the night. You don't get that here in England.

 

[electric_warrior]

I don't know I think Europe has benefited the world the most so far as technological advances are concerned. Cars were german/ the first was made by a french guy, before USA existed, the telephone was invented by a Scots man. Penicillin was invented by a scots man. T.V was invented by an American so you win that one.

One- the telephone was patented by Bell, but is quite widely believed to have been invented by an italian called Meucci first. In fact the governments of Canada and the USA have more or less officially recognised this fact. Also, Bell did all of his work towards the telephone in North american and lived there from the age of 23
Two- penicillin was rediscovered and given a name by a scotsman, but had been observed before. Fleming also did nothing of use with his discovery, and it was an Australian called Howard Florey (and another man named Chain, i don't know his first name) who put in all the work to make it into the mass produced drug we know today. So yes, Fleming "discovered" it, but the real heroes were Florey and Chain.
Three- the television was invented by John Logie Baird, although, in fairness, the sort of television that gained ubiquity around the world was invented by Philo Fanrsworth, an american. Interestingly, baird invented a system in the 40s that would have had similar resolution to today's HDTVs, but something went wrong with the funding and it was axed. It worked, though, and he gave practical demonstrations of both that and a 3DTV over 60 years ago. Pretty amazing, huh?

You were right about cars, I always find it amazing that they've been around for so long.

and sorry to be such a pedant

 

[Private Custard]

You owe the internet to our military, now be nice.

I wasn't aware that Tim Berners-Lee was American!

I'm just going to clarify something,

He invented the World Wide Web (hypertext). Not the internet itself, it was developed by a U.S. science team to try and gain a technological advantage over the Soviet Union.

Just saying.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

The Romans aren't getting enough love here, they invented ROADS!
Anyway, Amercia is great and everything but just Stop taking credit for WW2, seriously.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

You also paid people to slaughter all the natives bison, which the natives used for just about everything, food, clothing, materials.

Google "American Bison killings" and the first image on Google Images is of a mountain of bison skulls. That is the genocide, of both the animal and the people who depended on the animal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20181774/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/study-blames-europe-bison-mass-killings/#.TmNk1o4i-_w

 

[FallenRainbows]

Nationalism. The bane of progress.

 

[dangoball]

... Its the reason that black people can now be seen as people rather then objects, and something that in other countries would require a massive change in government and possibly a revolt.
...

Now this is a funny statement. You know, since slavery was long banned in the rest of the civilized world by that time anyway and could someone refresh my memory as to what was the US Civil War about? Something about economical differences between the North and the South, unification and something... Oh! Slavery! Oh my, there was quite an armed conflict about considering black people objects, now wasn't there.

OT: I em not US citizen neither a patriot, however I think that US deserves respect. At least in retrospect. It's past deed were quite helpful to the world, I'll give you that. However I have my doubts about recent US conduct. Sure, terrorist are bad, but they had oil. And Lybia is even more questionable. Those "oppressed citizens" were actually mostly illegal immigrants dragging their economy down and the first thing US does after invading (yes, for me they "invaded" not "came with help") was to make deals about oil export with those revolutionaries. We don't, and likely never will, know the whole story, so my opinion on that is as good as anyones else.

So all things consider, do I give the US credit? Then - yes, now - not so much.

 

[FEichinger]

The problem is the US has taken a lot of credit for things they shouldn't have. They're obviously responsible for a lot of inventions and anyone who'd argue that they're unimportant is an idiot. But they're not the centre of the world.

This. I am quite certain we can all agree that the fact that America grew from British settlements to a global power later-on funding the British intervention in the World Wars ...
Or how it was discovered by the Iberians trying to find a faster route to India ... Which then again was part of the British Empire, just like Northern America ... So much irony here ...

Nonetheless ... Americans being ignorant and 'patriotic' to the extent we often see is, in all honesty, disgusting. A large chunk of the inventions the US take credit for were often invented by other countries' scientists and then advanced by scientists in the US - or invented by exiled scientists on asylum in the US. Clearly the US play - be it only the funding - a great role in the development we saw over the past two centuries, but the all-so-beloved patriotism takes it a good chunk of notches too high.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

You owe the internet to our military, now be nice.

I wasn't aware that Tim Berners-Lee was American!

I'm just going to clarify something,

He invented the World Wide Web (hypertext). Not the internet itself, it was developed by a U.S. science team to try and gain a technological advantage over the Soviet Union.

Just saying.

Here's the thing, web pages (once again hypertext) were invented by him. The Internet is the system of servers and networks that the webpages are hosted on.

I leave you now to Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web (the first sentence explains my point)

 

[Daveman]

You've got some pretty cool buildings. Also I secretly want to live in Nevada. That place is fucking awesome.

 

[Giest4life]

I hate patriotism and nationalism and any form of fundamentalist fervor--ironic, I know. But when it comes to our freedom of speech and other personal freedoms, this country is beyond par.

England was passing it's freedom of speech laws when you were still fighting a war to see if you should follow us into abolishing the slave trade. (Don't hate me, that's a semi-joke comment )

The credit was about USA, which is why I didn't mention England. But if ever there was a country that I wanted to be a national of, tis England that I'll chose. I'm in love with Liverpool FC so much that I'm almost a scouse--I still don't have the stabbing, rioting, and stealing hubcaps part down quite right.

Also, it is well known, even amongst patriot scholars in the USA, that there is very little original thought or ideas in the Constitution. The Cold War may have propelled us, technologically, forward (we've lost that lead now, btw), but we in USA were never much for original thought and intellect.

 

[Aur0ra145]

I love the US and I love Texas. It's a great place; lots of friendly folks, good hunting and fishing, great music too. I get to go to church every Sunday with my girlfriend, 'tis a great thing.

Friends, I really couldn't be happier with my life right now. I just graduated from the University of North Texas and I'm getting my life started.

I think that when the lot of you get a bit older, and a lot more independent, you'll appreciate the US a whole lot more. It's hard to see the immense business opportunities in the US (even now) without having a couple of years under your belt, and a proactive mindset.

Things never just fall to you. You only deserve what you earn. The US gives you the opportunity to obtain a better (or worse) status based upon your actions. I believe in dedication and hard work until a job is finished. It's worked for me so far.

 

[Popadoo]

Doesn't China basically have to buy out the American dollar now?
From what I heard, America is China's *****.
...
Sorry about that, anyway, I'm thankful for Rise Against, great band.