To Kill an American

[rhino 0]

Written by an Australian Dentist...

To Kill an American

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.
So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . so they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)
" An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.
An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.
An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim.
In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan .. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.
An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.
The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence , which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.
An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.
When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!
As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan .. Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.
The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.
Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
Please keep this going!
Pass this around the World ?
then pass it around again.
It says it all , for all of us

[SpeedRacer 1]

The "What is an American?" article quoted above was not penned by an Australian (or a dentist), but by Peter Ferrara, an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law in Northern Virginia. Mr. Ferrara's commentary was originally published in the National Review on 25 September 2001.

(from SNOPES.com)

Speed Racer
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[Richards 0]

Truer words were never spoken.

Richards

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[Gravitymaster 0]

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The "What is an American?" article quoted above was not penned by an Australian (or a dentist), but by Peter Ferrara, an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law in Northern Virginia. Mr. Ferrara's commentary was originally published in the National Review on 25 September 2001.

(from SNOPES.com)

Why am I not surprised?

[JohnRich 4]

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The "What is an American?" article quoted above was not penned by an Australian (or a dentist), but by Peter Ferrara, an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law in Northern Virginia. Mr. Ferrara's commentary was originally published in the National Review on 25 September 2001.

(from SNOPES.com)

Why am I not surprised?

I'm not surprised that you gloat over an incorrect attribution, rather than rejoice in the message.

[shropshire 0]

I agree with you there John. Doesn't matter who wrote it...(Anon - would do the job and then it wouldn't be questioned)

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Gravitymaster 0]

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The "What is an American?" article quoted above was not penned by an Australian (or a dentist), but by Peter Ferrara, an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law in Northern Virginia. Mr. Ferrara's commentary was originally published in the National Review on 25 September 2001.

(from SNOPES.com)

Why am I not surprised?

I'm not surprised that you gloat over an incorrect attribution, rather than rejoice in the message.

I'm not surprised you misunderstand what I'm not surprised about. Next time try asking instead of jumping to a conclusion.

Here's a clue for you, it's not about the message.

[Skyrad 0]

I guess all those millions of Americans living in South America don't count then.

***An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.[/quote ]

America is in more debt than any other country in the west, it's way behind Japan on the prosperity tables. I guess the guy who wrote this patriotic propergander piece forgot to take into account all those people living in trailer parks. I bet the people of New Orleans feel much better knowing just how prosperous they are.
I'd agree with some of the 'letter' but after all is said and done America is no better than alot of countries and worse off than some.

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

I figured that you were saying you were not surprised that it was NOT written by an Australian, but by a fellow American.

What do I win?

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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I'd agree with some of the 'letter' but after all is said and done America is no better than alot of countries and worse off than some.

To some people, financial prosperity is not as important when considering how "well"- or "worse"-off their living conditions are.

I'd rather be a little poor, and FREE, than financial prosperous and under the thumb of an oppressive government -- forbidden from owning, doing, thinking, or reading a great many things...

I could be living in some arab state, sitting on millions (or billions?) of oil wealth, but unable to get a copy of many classic books without being an outlaw. Would my wealth be worth it?


-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[Skyrad 0]

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I'd agree with some of the 'letter' but after all is said and done America is no better than alot of countries and worse off than some.

To some people, financial prosperity is not as important when considering how "well"- or "worse"-off their living conditions are.

I'd rather be a little poor, and FREE, than financial prosperous and under the thumb of an oppressive government -- forbidden from owning, doing, thinking, or reading a great many things...

I could be living in some arab state, sitting on millions (or billions?) of oil wealth, but unable to get a copy of many classic books without being an outlaw. Would my wealth be worth it?


-

Err.. Yea, well I guess you'd better put your head back in the sand old boy! Even IF you could get the books just don't get them from your library unless you want big brother Opps...I mean Uncle Sam to know. Go tell Zoia Horn how lucky she is.

Also if you are at school in the US there is a good chance you won't be able to read the following books banned from US schools.


Impressions Edited by Jack Booth et al.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Blubber by Judy Blume
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman Christine by Stephen King
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Cujo by Stephen King
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
I Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
My House by Nikki Giovanni
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts:
The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz

[URL]http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/banned-books.html[/URL]

[URL]http://www.politechbot.com/p-02768.html[/URL]

[URL]http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/spok/most-banned.html[/URL]

In the 1999-2000 session, the US Congress quietly slipped similar bans for "dangerous" information on drugs and explosives into various bills. The Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999 (S. 1428) had a section 9 outlawing certain dissemination of information on drug use, patterned after a law outlawing certain dissemination on information on explosives that was signed in 1999. Given that conspiracy or solicitation to commit federal crimes was already illegal, it's hard to see what practical effect is intended by these bills other than to censor the open dissemination of information deemed too dangerous for the public to learn.

The Tennessee law prohibiting teaching evolution theory was finally repealed in 1967, but further laws intended to stifle the teaching of evolution in science classes have been proposed in the Tennesee legislature as recently as 1996.

More recently, in a 2005 case pitting a Pennsylvania family against the Marple Newtown School District, accounts in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press reported that the family was invited into a kindergartener's class to read from his favorite book, which in this case turned out to be the Bible. After the school said the student's mother could not read from Psalm 118, the child's mother sued. In an opinion article later published in the May 31 Inquirer, ("Doing right by students, law") Sereni cited the New Jersey decision from the previous paragraph, and claimed that disallowing the reading was required by Pennsylvania law. Section 1515 of Pennsylvania's Public School Code, also cited in the article, does allow the Bible to be taught in secondary grades as part of a literature class. Sereni's article interprets this permission as an implicit prohibition of other uses of the Bible in a class, effectively banning the Bible in Marple Newtown classes prior to the secondary grades, even in a student-initiated presentation.


Well PJ, sorry to burst you bubble old chap, thats freedom of thought, privacy and freedom to express religious belife off the menu; I guess that just leaves you with 'poor and little worse off'. But don't worry maybe you can claim political asylum from France

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Also if you are at school in the US there is a good chance you won't be able to read the following books banned from US schools.

Uh, okay, way to totally misrepresent anything remotely resembling facts.

SOME school boards have refused to allow certain books to be assigned, true. I have read about that. But you palm this bullshit off as though all of those books simply cannot be found at any U.S. school. I happen to know, for a fact, that this is untrue.

You might dredge up horribly ignorant -- and isolated -- examples of ultra-conservative school boards that make asinine decisions to bar certain books from the curriculum, but at least several of the books you assert are "banned from U.S. schools" were assigned reading in the schools I went to while growing up.

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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Lord of the Flies by William Golding

All assigned reading in various classes I took.

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How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Blubber by Judy Blume
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

I read and did book reports on these in elementary school. Oh, I also did The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton in fifth grade. I'm sure that's on a list of yours somewhere.

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The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs

John Bellairs is AWESOME! I did a report on his The House with a Clock in its Walls in fifth grade, too. Far better wizardry book than the drivel they fill pages with in the Harry Pooper series...

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Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite Curses
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman

LMFAO! Ahh, gay lifestyle indoctrination! The idea that these would be in schools makes me laugh. If people want to learn about such alternative lifestyles as "two mommies" or "why is daddy sticking that into another daddy?" I really think those subjects should be handled at home.

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Well PJ, sorry to burst you bubble old chap, thats freedom of thought, privacy and freedom to express religious belife off the menu; I guess that just leaves you with 'poor and little worse off'. But don't worry maybe you can claim political asylum from France

My god, do you really believe your own ridiculous hyperbole?

Just because the school won't allow passages from the BIBLE to be read, that means there is prohibition on freedom of thought, and on religious expression?! Hoookay...


-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[rhino 0]

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I bet the people of New Orleans feel much better knowing just how prosperous they are.

EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US are responsible for our lives, feelings and EVERY result we get. If the people in New Orleans are in a jam it's because they set themselves up to be in one.

And once again you missed the point of the post and tool a militant stance.. It was expected.