My country is better than yours so ner…

Australia is the best country on Earth. No really, think about it. We’re a young and vibrant country, with a history built less on aggressively taking what is ours, and more on opposing oppression with common sense and a humanitarian moral value in human life. We have vast tracts of untamed land to call our own. Our economy is relatively self-reliant, with good market exports to Asia, North America and Europe. We can drink any bastard under the table, and are great at parties. Our sporting teams are the best in the world at what they do.

Now, obviously, that isn’t the end of my rant. My point is I am Australian. And why wouldn’t I have nothing but the highest esteem for the country that raised me to be who I am?

There is the crunch right there. Australia raised me to be who I am. I was raised an Australian. I’m sure people from the USA have a similar esteem for their own country, even though others may have many conflicting moral values. They’re proud of their belief that Americans are infallible under God. The English pride themselves on their ability to be cheerful in misery (and with good cause really – You’d have to be).

So, why do people from every country feel their own country is the best? The answer is simple: because we are, one and all, a product of our birthplace.

We see things with rose-tinted glasses, if you will. Raised from birth, I have been taught that Australian values are the most important values. The countries with similar values are good friends, while the countries with wildly dissimilar values are to be shunned.

There are those among every country who choose to leave and explore the world, or move to another country. I believe there are two types of people that do this. The first group is made up of those who have taken their countries values completely to heart, and feel the need to propagate them elsewhere. This is basic human nature – send our best to convert others to our way of thinking, and we become stronger. The second group is made up of those who, at heart, don’t believe in their birth-place’s values. These people tend to visit a specific country, and become expats. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. It is all simply the distribution of wealth.

Problems will occur of course, when two countries that are extremely powerful have vastly differing opinions. Again, this is simply a cosmic state of life. The cold war between the USA and the USSR wasn’t fought over traditional small-scale, short-term things like resources, land or diversity of breeding options (from a biological standpoint), it was fought over something much larger. Something much more human. The two countries were at severe odds because they were of equal power and wealth, with almost opposite values, ethically and morally.

So I suppose the point I’m making here is that, while you should be proud of your place of origin, you should keep an open mind about other lands. To get right down to it, we are all human, we simply have different social compasses. And just for fun, consider this paragraph:

Australia is the worst country on Earth. No really, think about it. We’re a young country, with what little there is of our history built on aggressively taking what Britain thought was theirs, and on opposing rightful oppression (both from the British, and the native people from the Caucasian Australians). Because our general education is low, we consider the idiotic things we do common sense, but hey, we were recently forced to have a humanitarian moral value in human life, after the rest of the world became disgruntled with our White Australia policy in the 60’s. We have vast tracts of untamed land to call our own, but it’s mostly rocky desert and completely useless. Our economy is relatively self-reliant, with good market exports (rice and cotton, which destroy our rivers and landscape, sheep which ruin tenable land, and uranium, nuff said). We can drink any bastard under the table, and we think we are great at parties, but really most people hate our thuggish personalities. Our sporting teams are the best in the world at what they do, being that we only play sports that we’re good at, and think all the others are crap.

Now isn’t that interesting. Why don’t you do the same with your own country, and perhaps next time we meet, we can meet person to person, instead of clash our morals against each other in some sort of metaphysical rutting session.

Peace to all.