Justice as fairness: we can do better than we are

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

I am not saying we change it, it seems way too late for that (and everyone already hates us)...I am saying we take a couple more seconds to say "US Citizens".

I am from the USA or US.

That is what I try to say

It would go a long way to mend fences.

Dare I ask how? I can understand "please, don't overthrow our governments, if you don't mind" or "if it's not too much trouble, you can give the mining of our harbors a miss" or "that's okay, you can keep your foreign aid" (although I bet people would be very upset if we cut the Latin American nations off) or even "look, he may be a kleptocratic son-of-a-bitch but he's *our* kleptocratic son-of-a-bitch, thank you very much". I can see how taking those sentiments into account would mend fences but not calling ourselves Americans? Are you saying that, for instance, a trade deal that might have led to more economic and cultural exchange between the US and Brazil would fail because the US delegates call themselves Americans but if they, again unlike every other people on the face of the Earth, made the extra linguistic effort to say, 'citizens of the United States' then the deal would go through? Are you going to suggest that citizens of 38 00 N, 97 00 W doing business in Brazil or Costa Rica would have an easier time of it if, instead of calling themselves Americans, they used, so that it is impossible to insult anyone, the circumlocution "I'm a 38Norther by 97 Wester"

Please help me understand precisely *how* not calling ourselves Americans would mend fences? "We can let the mining of the harbors go buy, since you call yourself a 38 Norther by 97 Wester." I mean, it would take some time to get used to the idea but calling ourselves by our longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates has the virtue of it being *impossible* to insult someone because there really is only *one* nation whose geographic center is 38 00 N, 97 00 W.

Cheers
Aj