you all speak so loudly of america..
So how come americans accepted all those measures after 911 that are so discriminating against non-white people or poor people? they are restricting against everyone to a degree, but to those minorities there is no degree.
and how come american highschool kids are... to put it bluntly, dumber than their european counterparts? you say you learn more in total? it's totally the opposite. not only americans learn less than europeans, they learn less specific. only your colleges somewhat remedy that situation. but even population at large is so ignorant. ask 100 people in any american place where is europe, about 50 will ask what is europe?
and why is it that more than half a scientists are non american?

it provides nice cash influx (unless they send away jobs)

Sadly for you they do, i work at ibm(argentina) and here they make software for other countrys, cause they pay a lot less tax and to the programers.


PS:india does a lot of america soft. the other country the us. i mean is good for us cause is work(even they dont pay that much!!) but for you no, that why coorporation has to be controled.

Sadly for you they do

the truth is that this, while not exactly benefitial, is not entirely detrimental. sure its not exactly great, but why do we send away jobs?
because it makes way more money come back to us. yes it feeds viciously off lower classes, but its overall pretty healthy for a national economy.

So how come americans accepted all those measures after 911 that are so discriminating against non-white people or poor people

poor people?
well, you have to understand that this hit the center of American life. it created a fear uprising. this sort of thing was bound to happen. but its far better than the camps during WWII.

and how come american highschool kids are... to put it bluntly, dumber than their european counterparts? you say you learn more in total? it's totally the opposite. not only americans learn less than europeans, they learn less specific. only your colleges somewhat remedy that situation. but even population at large is so ignorant. ask 100 people in any american place where is europe, about 50 will ask what is europe? and why is it that more than half a scientists are non american?

for your sake I'll forget you said this.

Now, thanks to the "American way"

lets get this straight: this is something that has been occuring for centuries, the only reason people see this era as more money based is because you can no longer buy anything with reciprocal trust.
dont think for a second that the world was ever about benefiting the 2nd party. thats never been true.

now you're just being obnoxious and insulting. i don't know if they have "fox news" in europe or where ever you live but it sounds like that's where you get your information from. why does every arguement in this thread boil down to the fact that you know several capitals of several european countries. any grade A student in the USA can name all fifty states and their capitals. i know i wasn't a grade a student and i can. sure, there are crummy school districts. not all states have great education. but i'm sure everyone in the czech republic goes to top notch schools...

if you are going to quote random facts and statistics like "more then half of scientist come from eu..." or whatever you said, you need to be able to back that up with some facts. you can't say, it's from personal experience. that's BS. so from personal experience, you've met every scientist in the world and conducted a census on their nationalities?

To Obi Mark: Personal experience... so you actually went around to every single school district in America and compared it to every single other one in Europe? And then after that did you go up too 100 random people that u picked based on a logical mathematical formual and asked them what europe is and then counted who said no and yes? A piece of advice then, make better use of your time there is so much more out there in the world   

This thread has not become just about America, but it is clear that is the world leader currently, we arent saying that it is the best(some of us are). We are just stating the obvious everything else here is based upon the views and opinions of the individual posting.

Every single country has a lot to contribute but the US contributes the most to the world in terms of money, market, and products. Lets not get into an arguement over education, because none of us here can truely say that one system is better than the other, we havent experienced both enough to truely say what the disadvantages and advantages are to them.

Next, this countries economy does benifit the rich the most and usually the white person still gets better treatment, but that doesnt mean that the rest of the world isnt like this. Everyone is racist its in our nature, its just the extent to which we are that really matters. Plus, this country has the biggest rift between the poor and the rich, but thats only because we also have the largest middle class so the rift is self explanitory.

Lets get back to the real issue here, not economics, not politics, but rights of the people.

Repressing what we dont want to hear or see is human instinct, so he beat you there too obi mark. As for where the money could go, it might not go to the people many comapanies store it away in off shore accounts or they use it to invest in other companies. Most companies dont give back to the population any surplus they have usually goes towards the company and only then do the people benifit, but only very little.

well it took a lot of time to bring down rome , you cant compare like that school systems like that, i live in argentina we a have horrible highschool system, but when we get to university, we are at the same level in a lot of carrers. Is true american dont know a lot about the world but neither europe people, an maerican may no know were EU is, bur EU dont know were other parts of the world are.

in what way is inefficent?
so i guess you went to mathematical school, that would be equal to our mathematical gymnasium where you'd get more mathematics 5 hours, with 3 hours of computer science and more for physics.
what exactly you mean by science, biology, chemistry, physics? we have those
I guess it boils down to that you have more tehnical orientation, while we have more scocial sciences. Of course, if you want to specialize in something we have technical highschools where you focus on sciences. highschools, we call them gymnasiums, give more broader education. Specialization takes place in universities, but I think that we are differently organized there.
but I was talking about highschools in general. meaning EVERY highschool has that.
You? EVERY highschool has that?
Of course they do. Of course, there are also additonal lessons for those falling behind in the classes.

it's not like that, you start with the beginning and work up. so in 1st grade of highschool mathematics you learn inequations, equations, that sort of thing, second grade is trigonometry, logarythms and exponantial equations, third grade is algebra, polynoms, fourth is more algebra, with derivations, combinations and probabilites if there's enough time.
history you start with learning about prehistorc and old age - roman empire -
second grade is early middle age, third is late middle age, rennesiance, and fourth grade is what's left. so you always learn something new.
chemistry you begin with periodic table, non - metal elements and work all the way to polymers, organic compounds. you learn very much very broadly.
sure not everyone learns everything, but close enough. Those that wish to learn will learn on their own as well.
so forgive me if I say you lack broader education and seem somewhat unaware of world at large.  

Stop argueing about things you barely dable in, those statistics are outdated and have no reliability on even a national scale. All school districs only have the national standard program of education if they have the funds to support it. Otherwise they have to make cuts in certain areas, first would be arts, then science, then math, and finally english. Some school dont even offer advanced sciences(especially in Europe, looks at any of the southern countries). I have experienced both school systems and i have to say that neither is better or worse in a global scale(to my understanding), they each have their advantages. In Europe the education program is very excelerated, but generalised in many areas, usually if a student become prominent in a certain area than his scheduele is readjusted(by teachers and administrators) to fit his new found talents, if that person is exceptionaly gifted than they might even be sent to prep college or college years in advance to advance that persons skills. Now here in the US they dont generalise the student has freedom to choose their future not only on talents but wants, they get a choice and have to follow a losely constructed requirment system, this allows for them to be more creative but it also allows to much freedom for a young mind. Many will just pick the classes they think are the easiest and wont really work to their full potential keeping their true skills locked away untill to late. This ruins a lot of future potential in what might be good for that individual, but because the system keeps its doors open the person can quickly adjust and find new things to enjoy learing. Thats the thing here in the US learning in my opinion is a lot more geared to whin them need. In Europe you are more forced to follow more what they think is best and less of what you think is good for you.

Both systems have their advantages it really matters upon the individuals themselves to make the right choices to make the system function properly. Sure there will always be those easy goers that throw statistics off, but thats why i dont pay attention to statistics cause evey single one of them is wrong, its either biased, or calculated incorrectly, or doesnt take in a wider range of "norm". So dont have a statistics battle have an opinion battle.   

Thanks it just got annoying watching you too argue about education over and over again, i want progress from this thread not repetition.

I feel absolutely compelled to respond to this thread. Haven't posted here in a while.

(good ridance, stem cells dont work anyhow!).

Aha, really, Schem? Is that so! Well, this is amazing, you, in all your sixteen years of glory, have managed to singlehandedly disprove an entire scientific discipline occupied by tens of thousands of medical professionals and PhD holders. Bravo. Sorry, but I think I'll ditch the uninformed teenage opinions and defer to the guys who managed to cure a 19-year old spinal cord injury with stem cells. Yeah, they definately don't work...

I have to admit, I was rather annoyed when reading this thread. Mostly because 95% of the posts here are blatant, self-rightous flauntings of one's own exaggerated knowledge. Schematic, let me tell you right now that you know very little about the world in general. You may think you're all powerful at what, sixteen years of age, but the fact is almost everything you "know" about the world and have said in this thread is entirely theoretical and learned from someone else. When you get out into the world and test some of this stuff, then you'll be ready for a real discussion or debate. I'm not saying this to be insulting or condescending, I certainly have a lot to learn myself too, but what you've said in this thread has inspired mostly laughs from me. I see lots of improvised theories and opinions presented as fact, and no proof at all.

While I agree that socialism is a flawed ideal, it certainly does not breed laziness. Fact is, most humans are not lazy. Most of us genuinely want to improve our lives and make them as great as possible within the limitations of our social and political environment. From what I've seen, laziness is more of a developmental issue that is completely unrelated to your form of government. If your parents pampered and sheltered you, odds are you'll be fairly lazy and unaware of obligations. If you were never told to do anything in life, odds are you'll be lazy. Laziness doesn't just suddenly pop up inside you because your government is socialist. Socialism tries to create progress and a stable society just like capitalism does, they just try to achieve the same thing through different ways. You can't possibly tell me capitalism is flawless.

I also take quite a bit of issue with this statement:

russia and china are the world's pinnacle of oppressive governments

Sorry Schem, but this statement shows an enormous disconnection with the real world. The epitome of oppressive governments? WHAT? I'm pretty sure that the Russian government doesn't practice kipnappings of political dissidents and door-to-door rapings like some governments, such as that of Myanmar, do. Russia places some restrictions on the internet and personal firearms, and suddenly that are the pinnacle of an oppressive government?

As for China, nobody can doubt it's a repressive government, but I wouldn't call it oppressive. China is on its way to becoming the world's major economic power - China is supposed to have the world's largest national economy by 2020. China certainly shelters its citizens, but it's lightening up in some respects (it's gotten much looser on freedom of speech restrictions in recent years) because it realizes that the freedom of intellectual development is absolutely critical for becoming a major world power.

I also have to agree with Emp's big post (#95). Well done. You phrased much of what I wanted to say there.

The point is that the world is a damn big place. America is a small part of it. We can sit here and feel safe on our computers in our mid-sized suburban houses that our parents pay for (well, generalizing on the ages here for intellectual purposes ) arguing about world politics on an internet message board, meanwhile people are being blown to bits in Tikrit, men are dying for their religion and state in Somalia, and some woman was just raped and murdered in Johannesburg. We know nothing about the world, therefore we shouldn't be sitting here aruging about something we don't understand. We all have a very limited knowledge of how things work, so anyone who offers their opinion as if it is the paramount truth to all others is simply wrong. Instead of sitting here making grand pronouncements about the world, maybe we should go explore it a bit.

-S[link="http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200411/kt2004112617575710440.htm"]WWW Link