Re: the last 3 posts

So, right off the top, I want to say that even if the Olympics were in Beijing (which they are going to be), and I significantly disliked Beijing, I would probably not hate them, and still watch events that I found interesting. I guess maybe if you are like the US in the Cold War when the Olympics were in Russia, you might have an okay reason to dislike the Olympics, or not send anyone to them, or something similar, but I highly doubt that China is planning on launching nuclear bombs at Amir, and we know that in general he does like the Olympics (see the second sentence of his post), therefore I do not see why Amir should hate the coming Olympics. Plus, the whole point of the Olympics is to spread unity and peace, not spark debates comparing the US to China. But, as the debate has already been sparked, I will join in. Now, I probably don't know much about the situation in China at the moment, and I probably have a huge bias towards the US, as I, and most of my family that I know, were born there, but I'll try to not be too bias. Well, the next paragraph might make this seem unlikely, but just hold on.

First of all (to demonstrate my bias, it would seem) I think the founding fathers of the US were very smart people. The US declared independence on the 4th of July, 1776, because it got mad at Britain for implementing all sorts of taxes on them without their consent. In fact, they didn't even have representatives in British parliament. Nobody likes being taxed, especially when you don't even get to choose who is making you pay more taxes, and thus, people got mad. "No taxation without representation," coined by Jonathan Mayhew, became a prevalent view among people in the US. So, they fought the British for their independence. Right at the beginning of the war, however, the founding fathers drafted the Declaration of Independence, which stated very clearly:

"all men are created equal."

Basically, the US was made because its citizens wanted to be fairly represented, and choose what happened to them. Therefore, many years later, when Communism came around, it would make sense that they disliked it, as it was more or less what they had fought against for independence. Thus, everyone started hating communists, and, among other things, ignored fascists, which may have helped cause the Second World War, but that's another story. While it may be the case that democracy was good for the US, however, this is not the case for all countries. If what Cindy said is true (which I assume it is), then China needs communism to be able to do anything. Obviously, this is not the case for the US, for instance, as they manage to do things like declare war on Iraq, but once again, that's another story. But then, Amir says: "I also don't like how the Chinese government is letting hundreds of thousands of little girls and women be raped by Arab militants." I don't know whether this is true or not, and assume that there is at least a little bit of fib in it. It makes sense, however, that people in the US would blame the Chinese government for this, though. Basically, they see a country where the population has no say in what happens, and people being raped (or at least they are being told that they are seeing this by people like Amir), and probably think that the situation in China is similar to theirs back in the 1770s, and thus blame the Chinese government. Once again, I don't know enough to say for sure (maybe I'll look into it when I don't have stuff to do), but I think that the situation regarding Falun Gong looks a lot like Britain taxing the US without asking them first, too, and if the people of China started revolting against the government, I would be surprised if the US didn't help. However, I haven't heard of any revolutions in China recently, thus I assume that the people of China don't care as much about being persecuted for practicing Falun Gong as Americans did about being taxed, or that they value productivity more than they care. At any rate, both sides have pretty valid points. I guess it all depends on your perspective…

Now, in Jon's post, he discussed how hive-mindedness probably comes naturally when there are many people. To an extent, I agree. I guess I don't really know both sides to this one, but in the stereotypic view of most Western people, Chinese are mostly as Amir described in his post; they accumulate money, status, and achievement for the sake of achieving money, status and achievement. Stereotyping is very bad. I am sure that that is not the case with all Chinese people. I would be highly surprised if everyone just did lots and lots of work to get good grades. I know many people in the US and Canada don't. Then again, it may be in Chinese culture to make your children do lots and lots of extra work so that they succeed, which might cause lots of people to "strive" to do well, or copy their neighbors in playing music, which I have heard alot. Whether or not either of those are true, they do remind me a lot of the American Dream, as well. Though, there is one big difference that I see. The American Dream is that all Americans have the opportunity to do whatever they want to through hard work, because the US is a free country. While this opportunity is available, not many Americans actually seem to work very hard, which is true of most people, because they don't see the point in working hard when they could just not work hard (nor do I, in most cases). While Jon's point on the matter does have validity, I think that, if the Chinese did not make their children strive to do well, there would be a wider range of people's views on working hard in China, as there is in the US. Then, when he says that the American Dream is what is on the mind of all Americans, I disagree, because, firstly, nowadays, the American Dream is usually only associated with immigrants coming to the US so that they can do better than they were in their home country, but also, not close to the majority of Americans actually take advantage of the opportunity they have to work hard then succeed. Walking around any part of the US that is not a rich neighborhood will show you that (ie, Broadway probably doesn't count). Plus, the only time I remember hearing about or thinking about the American dream, with the exception of now, in the last 4 or 5 years at least, was when Harry Potter married his best friend's sister. I doubt that most Americans have just that on their minds. Anyway, that is all I have to say for now, and I have to go eat, so I will leave my comments at that. Maybe I'll write more if I can think of more to say. Or if Amir or Jon or Cindy writes anything else that I feel like commenting on. En tous cas, la prochaine!