On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 00:32:18 UTC, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Dan Drake wrote:
Actually, I considered putting a disclaimer in the
posting, but thought it
would be a waste. Wrong again. I need to be more ultra-patriotic
American, and assume that any praise of anything in my country will be
taken as an attack on the world, foreigners being quite unable (like all
too many Americans) to understand such subtleties.
Ultra-patriotism is one thing that will unite non-Americans of any
political stripe anywhere. Praising what is right is perfectly
acceptable to many of us foreigners. Just try to avoid gratuitous
superlatives; they are not subtle. :-)
I quite agree. In fact, ultra-patriotism of any kind will offend people
everywhere, including America (*). It's not clear to me, though, why you
admonish me in this way. It will surely have been clear that the post
(from which you chose to cite only a paragraph of sarcasm so heavy-handed
that perhaps I should apologize for it), as well as previous posts in this
thread, went to some trouble to avoid superlatives.
(*) Not all, of course. Some people approve of ultra-patriotism of the
_proper_ sort, here as elsewhere. By the way, thanks for giving us le mot
juste for such people; I infer that chauvinism is not unknown in the
country which M. Chauvin had the honor (insofar as he was real, and
separated from the mythology) to live in.