so why make a big deal out of it?

What's noteworthy is there wasn't a lot more. Please excuse me all to hell for pointing that out.

Our society, already far better than that of those who wish us dead, is getting better still. That which killed only some of us made the rest of us stronger. Odd you guys aren't celebrating that.

Ya know, out there in the wider world, I'm often called a pessimist and a Gloomy Gus. But here I feel like an optimist in a roomful of severe depressives. Cheer up, guys! It's not the end of the world.

Maybe there are too many left coasters here. Whenever a competing culture calls the West or America "decadent" they always go to Hollywood or SF for evidence. All this proves is that parts of California are decadent. But we already knew that. Hollywood isn't America. And Berkeley sure as hell isn't. That's why they gloat at our problems and chafe at our successes. Well, let them chafe.

It's sad that so many parts of the world have such an overcompensated inferiority complex. But whose fault is that?

Other than you, that is. I certianly never spoke of any collective. Collectives are no part of my notion of what being American is all about. Quite the opposite. Only weaker cultures than ours base themselves on subsuming the individual identity to the collective. They do that because it seems a cheap and easy way to be stronger than disorganized savages. But we - at our best and purest - function as individuals within a society. We get that from England, by the way. Yeoman spirit. But we've improved on it. (Yes, the Athenians had it too, once. But that went nowhere. Maybe it was the homosexual pedophilia corrupted them. Or the keeping of slaves. Or the combination of the two. So glad the North fought and won that bloody Civil War. Now if can just keep NAMBLA from getting accredited victim group status.)

And in any instance we don't function as individuals, or within society, you can always take a good look and spot some imported European or Oriental ideology. Socialism or racism in the first case, anarchism or elitism in the second.

I said first, that New Yorkers are getting better, at a fundamental level. Otherwise, why would, for example, racial tensions be on the decline?

Second, that we've markedly gotten better in very recent years. I've noticed it myself, so don't try to tell me it's a fantasy. Probably it's in part a long-term effect of better police protection. But it's hard to believe 9-11 had nothing to do with it. You'd have to be living in a cave not to notice how the national mood has changed since then.

Thirdly, we handle this sort of thing way better than people do in other parts of the world. Note the DIY spirit of civilians directing traffic. The rest of the world could stand to learn from that kind of initiative. (Some American citizens could stand to learn from that too, but that's another matter.) No punting to the authorities. No waiting for orders or permission from above. Something needs doing, you're there, you do it. How can you not be encouraged by that?

That's somewhat an Anglophone thing, by the way, rather than uniquely American. But the American culture magnifies it substantially. The rigors of frontier life must have magnified it in the 17th through 19th centuries, and the effect hasn't had time to die down yet.

Drop the straw man and the attitude, and just admit I have valid and noteworthy points here.

Why is it so hard for you to face the fact that we're good and getting better? Why would that notion get your defenses up? Of all the things to get all out of joint over, you have to pick an insinuation that some people might not be entirely nasty, selfish and stupid? Or was it the insinuation that people can change for the better that gave offense?

I admit I can see how the notion that individual humans can display individual initiative and/or growth - while interacting with others sans regard for race or tribe - may be problematic to a "transnational progressivist". But reality is not obligated to conform to the dictates of an absurd and stifling ideology. And neither of us is a subscriber to such decadent nonsense, right?