Happiest country in the world? Denmark

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

I went to Denmark about 16 years ago. ('nother Scandi descendant here) I starting to lose finer details from the trip, but the people I saw out in public were a lot more easygoing than those you see out in the city here in the states.
I credit Legoland. Anywhere within a 200-km radius of one of those is going to be full of happy.

 

[quercusone]

I love Denmark. I've been twice in the last 5 years and it is my favorite place to visit. I love being able to cycle everywhere....nothing like being in a bicycle traffic jam at 10pm. The people are friendly, the women are amazingly beautiful and have a tendency to lay in the parks topless! And you used to be able to go to Christiania, the self proclaimed free country within the confines of an old military base in the center of Copenhagen, and get your 4:20 on. The new conservative government has put a stop to that but the beer garden there is still the cheapest place to drink in town.....I'm still waiting on a beautiful Danish woman to propose to me so I can live in Copenhagen!

 

[BIGBULL29]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you Wyld, but as a person with relatively modest goals in life, it sounds like I get to be a stepping stone for the few people who have the ambition, ability, and luck to live the big life you speak of, and the only thing I get is the miniscule possibility of someday using other people as stepping stones to live that big life myself.

I have no interest in that big life, and I'd trade away the possibility in a second to live in a country that actually takes care of its citizens and to work a job where I'm not overworked and underpaid.

I think "the way it is" here sucks. Those of us in the U.S. don't exactly live in the most caring, supportive, or forgiving culture. (That applies both to corporate culture and the culture as a whole.) The demands made upon individuals are high (often impossibly so), the sacrifices we have to make just to make ends meet are too great, there's very little support, and the cost of failure is high. Living a good life is out of reach for many. Far too many of us suffer chronic stress, resulting in various stress-related illnesses such as cardio-vascular disease, depression, and anxiety. Instead of recognizing that our culture is unhealthy, we blame the individual. Many of us end up dealing with things by self-medicating with alcohol, drugs, or other addictions, or we treat the problem with prescription medications and expensive therapy, which often can't solve the problem there isn't really anything wrong with the individual. The individual is having a perfectly normal, healthy reaction to living in a fucked-up, unheatlhy society.

I agree with many of your points. As for me, I'm not interested in the "American Dream." I don't think I should have to be the "stepping stone" for people who are trying to be. People are materialistic than ever before. For the minority of us Americans who are not interested in that life, we find ourselves "out of place" and ignored, or made to feel "abnormal." Wanting the American Dream is like sports: everyone expects that you like it and want to be a part of it.

I lived in Australia, England and France. So many men abuse alcohol in England and Australia for reasons that have nothing to do with stress put on them by the workplace (economic system). Denmark, I hear, has a very similar problem. People don't drink heavily all the time if they are happy (or take drugs). In the US, alcoholism is not near the problem it is many European countries and Oceania. That doesn't mean, however, that Americans are happier for it.

Unhappiness is a problem that has inflicted mankind since the very beginning. A buddhist would find it absurd to vote for the "happiest country." They would say that it's not in a country or an ecomomic system, but a state of mind of the individual, no matter where he or she is. That's not to say that they do not understand that living in a communist regime or under totalitarian rule makes things extra tough.

I meant a lot of unhappy people in France, Australia and England. In fact, in England and France, people have such a doom-and-gloom attitude, I began to feel blue from it. In Australia, it's very taboo for a man to talk about his emotions at all (a lot worse than in even in the US). That in itself really depressed me. There cultures wear making me depressed, which had nothing to do with their economic systems.

I never saw any more happier people overseas than I did in the US. Yeah, there were things that I liked better overseas such as Australians being less uptight in public. But that's a cultural trait, not a sign of happiness.

A more socialist economic system does not make people overall happier. Some of people's unhappiness in the industrialized world is due less to their economic system than their culture. But, it really boils down to the individual, I reckon.

American could become a socialist country overnight like many Scandinavian countries and still not have any more happier people. Yes, we need to reform our healthcare system (fingers crossed), but we aren't going to change American culture, are we?

What is happiness? Where does it come from?

 

[vince]

What is happiness? Where does it come from?

I've always like this quote from Allen Chambers-

"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."

The times in my life when I didn't have one or more of these items covered were the more unhappy times.

 

[BIGBULL29]

I've always like this quote from Allen Chambers-

"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."

The times in my life when I didn't have one or more of these items covered were the more unhappy times.

I have two of them.

 

[Bbucko]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you Wyld, but as a person with relatively modest goals in life, it sounds like I get to be a stepping stone for the few people who have the ambition, ability, and luck to live the big life you speak of, and the only thing I get is the miniscule possibility of someday using other people as stepping stones to live that big life myself.

Taking it a step further, there's an argument for the inherent immorality of such ambition.

 

[TinyPrincess]

I'm still waiting on a beautiful Danish woman to propose to me so I can live in Copenhagen!

How hard can that be... Is it really necessary that I ask?

*listens to the rhythm and beat of backpedaling*

One of my favourite rhythms :biggrin1:

Those are my ancestors you're talking about.

Mine too.

'nother Scandi descendant here

So much for LPSG being American - it seems the Vikings are taking over the site. :biggrin1:

 

[CockpitJoystick]

BigBullshit
The USA is unique Sheer myth. Get an education, if you're capable of it. Besides, Denmark wouldn't be the "happy"country it is claimed to be if the US hadn't liberated Western Europe from Nazi Germany. That was the"greatest generation." Your generation can't even beat gangs of delusional camel jockeys and hallucinating sand monkeys.

Anyways, you can't assess happiness like you can poverty. It's you who can't. You have no concept of statistics. To say that Danes are happier than Americans is laughable. Every country has happier people than others. Every country has depressed people. Learn the difference between generalizations and absolutes. The whole debate is absurd, and thus going nowhere. No, it's you and your CUNTry that are going nowhere, except down the shitpipe you've made for yourselves.

You're programmed to think that you're aren't programmed. You spew the same stupidity and ignorance that most Americans get from the media while they ignore their smartest people:
Appel, Willa. Cults in America: Programmed for Paradise. New York: Holt, 1983.
Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003.
Berberoglu, Berch. The Legacy of Empire: Economic Decline and Class Polarization in the United States. New York: Praeger, 1992.
Berman, Morris. Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire. New York: Norton, 2006.
---. The Twilight of American Culture. New York: Norton, 2001.
Boyer, Paul. By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
---. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1994.
Brick, Howard. Age of Contradiction: American Thought and Culture in the 1960s. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000.
Brightman, Carol. Total Insecurity: The Myth of American Omnipotence. London: Verso, 2004.
Brooks, David. Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. New York: Simon, 2000.
Buell, Frederick. From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Environmental Crisis in the American Century. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony Or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. New York: Metropolitan, 2003.
Cobb, William W. Jr. The American Foundation Myth in Vietnam: Reigning Paradigms and Raining Bombs. Lanham, MD: UP of America, 1998.
Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Cose, Ellis. The Rage of a Privileged Class. New York: Harper, 1995.
De Grazia, Victoria. Irresistible Empire: America's Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005.
Degler, Carl N. In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.
Diggins, John P. The Lost Soul of American Politics. New York: Basic, 1984.
Edel, Wilbur. Defenders of the Faith: Religion and Politics from the Pilgrim Fathers to Ronald Reagan. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1987.
Engelhardt, Tom. The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation. New York: Basic, 1995.
Ewen, Stuart, and Elizabeth Ewen. Channels of Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1992.
Fousek, John. To Lead the Free World: American Nationalism and the Cultural Roots of the Cold War. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2000.
Frank, Thomas. One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy. New York: Anchor, 2000.
Franklin, H. Bruce. Vietnam and Other American Fantasies. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2000.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Economics of Innocent Fraud. Boston: Houghton, 2004.
Green, John Clifford, Mark J. Rozell, and Clyde Wilcox. The Christian Right in American Politics: Marching to the Millennium. Washington, DC: Georgetown UP, 2003.
Greenwald, Glenn. A Tragic Legacy: How a Good Vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency. New York: Crown, 2007.
Heard, Alex. Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End-Time America. New York: Norton, 1999.
Hellmann, John. American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York: Columbia UP, 1986.
Hochschild, Jennifer L. Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1995.
Hornstein, Jeffrey M. A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth-Century American Middle Class. Durham: Duke UP, 2005.
Hurley, Andrew. Diners, Bowling Alleys and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in the Postwar Consumer Culture. New York: Basic, 2001.
Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford UP, 1985.
King, C. Richard. Postcolonial America. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2000.
Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America. New York: New York UP, 2002.
Kuttner, Robert. The End of Laissez-Faire: National Purpose and the Global Economy After the Cold War. New York: Knopf, 1991.
Lears, T. J. Jackson. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. New York: Basic, 1994.
Marvin, Carolyn and David W. Ingle. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. New York: Cambridge, 1989.
May, Lary. The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way. Chicago: U Chicago P, 2002.
McDougall, Walter. Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776. New York: Houghton, 1997.
Nadel, Alan. Flatlining on the Field of Dreams: Cultural Narratives in the Films of Ronald Reagan's America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997.
Nye, David E. American Technological Sublime. Cambridge: MIT P, 1994.
Parenti, Michael. Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America. New York: ST. Martin’s, 1993.
Rasor, Dina, and Robert Bauman. Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War. New York: Palgrave, 2007.
Rifkin, Jeremy. The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream. New York: Penguin, 2004.
Rydell, Robert W., and Rob Kroes. Buffalo Bill in Bologna: The Americanization of the World, 1869-1922. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.
Ryn, Claes. America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire. New York: Transaction, 1993.
Sandage, Scott A. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2005.
Segal, Howard P. Technological Utopianism in American Culture. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1985.
Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in 20th-Century America. New York: Atheneum, 1992.
Smith, Paul. Primitive America: The Ideology of Capitalist Democracy. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2007.
Spigel, Lynn. Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs. Durham: Duke UP, 2001.
Todd, Emmanuel. After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order. New York: Columbia UP, 2003.
Wills, Garry. John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity. New York: Simon, 1997.
---. Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man. New York: Houghton, 1970.
---. Reagan's America: Innocents at Home. New York: Doubleday, 1987.
---. Under God: Religion and American Politics. New York: Simon, 1990.

Almost all of those are Americans, and some are conservatives. Not one would spend a trillion dollars to kill thousands of people and inrease the terrorism they are trying to decrease.

Goodby United States of Amerika, and hello United States of Europe.

 

[deleted15807]

Well that was nice.

 

[CockpitJoystick]

Turds of Wisdom from another American for Whom
the Pursuit of Happiness Has Become a Wild Goose Chase;
or, A short course in the Ideology of a Nation Goosing Itself

We have way more happy people as a total than Denmark has people.

Germany is a dying country. As is[sic] France and Italy.
Look at the happiness chart. America with 300 million people is almost equal to all those dinky little places like Luxemborg and Norway!!!!!!!!!

I love this chart you provided. It confirms beyond all argument how incredible capitalism is in making huge numbers of people happy!!!!!!!!!
You are one of the blame America firsters. I praise what we have done here. Arnold Schwarzneggar said it best "America is where you come to see your dreams realized." I can think of no higher praise.
Because there is little way to advance one's position in life, there is a lack of optimism for the future in a lot of European countries. Thats socialism. Germany's birth rate is .7 %. Denmark's is 1%. Same all over Europe. Replacement is 2.1%. They aren't replacing themselves. Very very me oriented, very self oriented. And economic. They don't see an expanding pie like many of us here in America do. They see the same pie, the same size and they don't want to share it.

However the ability to achieve happiness amongst 5 million people, with an excess of oil over their needs, is a far easier task than creating happiness for 300 million people. Of the very large countries, we are the best at creating happiness. We may not hit the level of Denmark but we beat the big ones rather handily.

Its fairly easy to make one very good cup of coffee. Making tens of millions of pretty good ones like Starbucks does is quite a trick. The difference between 273 and 247 given that the 247 encompasses a country of 300 million is pretty incredible. There is an old axiom *perfect is the enemy of very good* We don't hit perfect but we seem to be very good. Very good for 300 million is a feat.

BTW I am incredibly happy with my life. Its one fun thing after another. And count me as a true capitalist. No gloomy socialism for me. Those folks seem joyless.
To say quoting MB "How can the Danes be happier than Americans if capitalism is all about the American Dream? " and not recognize that a country of 300 million that is now entrenched in the role of defending freedom across the earth (John F. Kennedy set us on that course) and be as happy as a small truly insignificant ( and by insignificant I don't mean bad, or worthless, far from that, like I said its a great country in its own way) but 5.4 million people simply don't matter much statistically on a planet of billions.

Lets compare apples to apples. We are by far the largest country with the highest happiness rate and there is no one close. If you want to compare us, lets try Russia, or China, or India, or Germany or Mexico, or Brazil, or Japan.

The US is an absolutely unique country. The English and the Germans and the Danes and the Irish and really most of Western Europe stole this land from the Native Americans and built what is is today. Good or bad. Our life here is big. That means we use more of every thing but we can aspire to what i call a big life. We have always had this dream of *Manifest Destiny* and it exists today. Look at our houses relative to what Europeans are used to having. We want at least a half acre lot and 3000 square feet. You want to live by a beach and you can. You want to live in the mountains and you can. You want to live on a golf course in the desert and you can. You want to live in a hip vibrant urban city and you can. You want to retire to the Ozarks and you can. If you want a ranchette in Montana and you can. You want to surf, you can. You want to ski you can. You want to try and start a winery and you can. You want to open a small business and you can. Anywhere in America. You want to be a farmer and you can. You want to drill for oil as a wildcatter and you can. Hell some Chinese guy started Vizio TVs just a few years ago IN AMERICA and is a great success.

America is a *Can Do* country. There are so many countries where that attitude simply does not exist. Many in Europe. There is no way to compare the life available to a Dane with the life available to a US citizen. No way at all.

Now, is that big life open to all Americans? NO. In theory it is but in reality it is not. There are people in a country of 300 million who simply by their own inabilities or unfortunate circumstance cannot ever have that big life. But the opportunity however slim, is still there. I would never trade that away. And I think you trade that potential away by adopting a socialized system like you seem to have in the Scandanavian countries. There is no way to design a government or an economic system that will get every one to that big life. Thats the way it is.

 

[CockpitJoystick]

Turds of Wisdom from Another American for Whom
the Pursuit of Happiness Has Become a Wild Goose Chase;
or, A Short Course in the Ideology of a Nation Goosing Itself

We have way more happy people as a total than Denmark has people.

Germany is a dying country. As is[sic] France and Italy.
Look at the happiness chart. America with 300 million people is almost equal to all those dinky little places like Luxemborg and Norway!!!!!!!!!

I love this chart you provided. It confirms beyond all argument how incredible capitalism is in making huge numbers of people happy!!!!!!!!!
You are one of the blame America firsters. I praise what we have done here. Arnold Schwarzneggar said it best "America is where you come to see your dreams realized." I can think of no higher praise.
Because there is little way to advance one's position in life, there is a lack of optimism for the future in a lot of European countries. Thats socialism. Germany's birth rate is .7 %. Denmark's is 1%. Same all over Europe. Replacement is 2.1%. They aren't replacing themselves. Very very me oriented, very self oriented. And economic. They don't see an expanding pie like many of us here in America do. They see the same pie, the same size and they don't want to share it.

However the ability to achieve happiness amongst 5 million people, with an excess of oil over their needs, is a far easier task than creating happiness for 300 million people. Of the very large countries, we are the best at creating happiness. We may not hit the level of Denmark but we beat the big ones rather handily.

Its fairly easy to make one very good cup of coffee. Making tens of millions of pretty good ones like Starbucks does is quite a trick. The difference between 273 and 247 given that the 247 encompasses a country of 300 million is pretty incredible. There is an old axiom *perfect is the enemy of very good* We don't hit perfect but we seem to be very good. Very good for 300 million is a feat.

BTW I am incredibly happy with my life. Its one fun thing after another. And count me as a true capitalist. No gloomy socialism for me. Those folks seem joyless.
To say quoting MB "How can the Danes be happier than Americans if capitalism is all about the American Dream? " and not recognize that a country of 300 million that is now entrenched in the role of defending freedom across the earth (John F. Kennedy set us on that course) and be as happy as a small truly insignificant ( and by insignificant I don't mean bad, or worthless, far from that, like I said its a great country in its own way) but 5.4 million people simply don't matter much statistically on a planet of billions.

Lets compare apples to apples. We are by far the largest country with the highest happiness rate and there is no one close. If you want to compare us, lets try Russia, or China, or India, or Germany or Mexico, or Brazil, or Japan.

The US is an absolutely unique country. The English and the Germans and the Danes and the Irish and really most of Western Europe stole this land from the Native Americans and built what is is today. Good or bad. Our life here is big. That means we use more of every thing but we can aspire to what i call a big life. We have always had this dream of *Manifest Destiny* and it exists today. Look at our houses relative to what Europeans are used to having. We want at least a half acre lot and 3000 square feet. You want to live by a beach and you can. You want to live in the mountains and you can. You want to live on a golf course in the desert and you can. You want to live in a hip vibrant urban city and you can. You want to retire to the Ozarks and you can. If you want a ranchette in Montana and you can. You want to surf, you can. You want to ski you can. You want to try and start a winery and you can. You want to open a small business and you can. Anywhere in America. You want to be a farmer and you can. You want to drill for oil as a wildcatter and you can. Hell some Chinese guy started Vizio TVs just a few years ago IN AMERICA and is a great success.

America is a *Can Do* country. There are so many countries where that attitude simply does not exist. Many in Europe. There is no way to compare the life available to a Dane with the life available to a US citizen. No way at all.

Now, is that big life open to all Americans? NO. In theory it is but in reality it is not. There are people in a country of 300 million who simply by their own inabilities or unfortunate circumstance cannot ever have that big life. But the opportunity however slim, is still there. I would never trade that away. And I think you trade that potential away by adopting a socialized system like you seem to have in the Scandanavian countries. There is no way to design a government or an economic system that will get every one to that big life. Thats the way it is.

Who do you think Thoreau was talking about? You're still desperate. Too bad you're not still quiet.

 

[CockpitJoystick]

You were tricked into a war that does the terrorists' work for them. You were outsmarted by maniacs who enjoy beheadings but scorn toilet paper and deodorant. The terrorists want you to keep believing your own bullshit because it will destroy you. You have gone from the nation of Washington, Adams, Monroe, Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison to the nation of Reagan, Bush, Nixon, and Moby Keith.

"Hey, Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list.
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shakin' her fist.
And the eagle will fly.
Man, it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringin' her bell.
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.

Justice will be served
And the battle will rage.
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage.
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass.
It's the American way. " Moby Keith


"I don't know about the hierarchy or the upper regions, I only know about the people." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"America is unique in world history because it has a genius for leaders." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." Dan Quayle.
"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history." Dan Quayle.
"Universities should not subsidize intellectual curiosity." Ronald Reagan
"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world." Dan Quayle.

"Think for a moment how special it is to be an American. Can we doubt that only a divine providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people on the world who yearn to breathe free?" Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"America is the only idealistic nation in the world." Woodrow Wilson.
"We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"In America, our aristocracy is not by accident of birth or royal favor but by virtue of accomplishment." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings." George W. Bush.
Regarding the Presidential election: "In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we think of as normal is nothing less than a miracle." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"You have shown the watching world that we are a united people pledged to maintaining a political system which guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than any other." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"We do not need an Energy Department to solve our basic energy problem: as long as we let the forces of the marketplace work without undue interference, the ingenuity of consumers, business, producers, and inventors will do that for us." Ronald Wilson Reagan.

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy--but that could change." Dan Quayle.
​

"Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world...." James K. Polk.
"I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men." Woodrow Wilson.
"The Almighty . . . has made choice of the present generation to erect the American Empire…. It bids fair, by the blessings of God, to be the most glorious of any on record." William Drayton.
America's international role "is not a burden we sought." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"There was a cry of 'Remember Custer' and at it they went. Men, women and children fell like hickory nuts after heavy frost. Men, women and children were piled up on that little flat in one confused mass. Blood ran like water.… Big Foot's band was converted into good Indians." Unnamed Soldier at Wounded Knee.
"You are Americans. You're the product of the freest society mankind has ever known." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"We Americans have never been morally neutral against any form of tyranny." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"There is absolutely no substance to charges that the United States is guilty of imperialism or attempts to impose its will on other countries by use of force." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
I believe in "shaping American policy to reflect God's will." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
America's presence in Berlin "is a sacred trust." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Corporate managers are "the great generals of the modern industrial army…. If we should set a limit to the accumulation of wealth…, it would be like killing off our best generals in war." William Graham Sumner.
"That which is good for communities in America is good for the Armenians and Greeks and Mohammedans of Turkey." The American Board of Foreign Missions, 1881.
Every war "without exception has left us better off, taking both moral and material considerations into account, than we should have been if we had not waged it." Teddy Roosevelt.
"The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government. While the Chief Magistrate and the popular branch of Congress are elected for short terms by the suffrages of those millions who must in their own persons bear all the burdens and miseries of war, our Government can not be otherwise than pacific." James K. Polk.
"I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth." Teddy Roosevelt.
"We always seek to live in peace. We resort to force infrequently and with great reluctance--and only after we've determined that it is absolutely necessary. We are awed--and rightly so--by the forces of destruction at loose in the world." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life." Woodrow Wilson.
"Drive the USA
In your Chevrolet.
America’s the greatest land of All." Dinah Shore.
"My God is a God who wants me to have things. He wants me to bling. He wants me to be the hottest thing on the block. I don’t know what kind of God the rest of y’all are serving, but the God I serve says, ‘Mary, you need to be the hottest thing this year, and I’m gonna make sure you’re doing that.’" Mary J. "Bilge" Blige.
"The chief business of the American people is business." Calvin Coolidge.
"Men serve God in America . . . through striving for economic efficiency." An English productivity team, 1953.
"To us, diversity, the right to choose, ...is the most important thing.... We have many different manufacturers and many different kinds of washing machines so that the housewives have a choice." Richard M. Nixon.
"What's good for Fiat is good for Italy." Benito Mussolini.
"What is good for General Motors is good for America." Chairman and CEO Charlie Wilson, 1955.
"Our pledge of allegiance states that we are one nation under God, and our currency bears the motto, 'In God We Trust'." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"There is a spiritual revival going on in this country, a hunger on the part of the public to once again be proud of America, all that it is and all that it can be.... Now the first step... must be the rejuvenation of our economy." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
America's mission depends on restoring "material affluence on a scale unequalled in history." Otherwise, we "will put an end to everything we believe in and to our dreams for the future." Ronald Wilson Reagan.

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
America is characterized by "a rich and varied sameness." Edmund Fawcet and Tony Thomas.
"I won't be happy till I'm as famous as God." Madonna
"While the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government, its functions do not include the support of the people." "It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens." Grover Cleveland.
"I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering.... The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune.... Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." Grover Cleveland.
"They built the west without federal planners." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"Unemployment insurance is a prepaid vacation plan for freeloaders." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Social security is "the biggest sacred cow in all of the United States." Ronald Wilson Reagan.

US forces could have won in Vietnam, but the government was "afraid to let them win." Ronald Wilson Reagan.
"We mould men while we make commodities." James Emery, National Association of Manufacturers.

 

[deleted15807]

Thank Gawd I took some Ex-Lax.

 

[CockpitJoystick]

Thank Gawd I took some Ex-Lax.

I wish Bull and Goose would. They need to take a good crap of the mind.

 

[Drifterwood]

Its fairly easy to make one very good cup of coffee. Making tens of millions of pretty good ones like Starbucks does is quite a trick.

Having such low expectations of quality must make it relatively easier to be contented.

 

[Drifterwood]

You Doodle Dandy guys obviously missed this. :smile:

YouTube - Eurovision Helsinki 2007 - Semi-Final - Denmark - DQ

 

[Bbucko]

You Doodle Dandy guys obviously missed this. :smile:

YouTube - Eurovision Helsinki 2007 - Semi-Final - Denmark - DQ

I don't know about "happy", but that's the gayest thing I've seen all month.

 

[Guy-jin]

I just found a cache of evidence that throws this whole study into question:

 

[Drifterwood]

OK - short history lesson for the non-europeans. The Danes are a homogenous people. We have the oldest national flag in the world, we have been a major power in the baltic area for thousands of years - controlling (occupying) countries like the UK, northern part of Germany, Norway, southern part of Sweden, the Baltic countries, western part of Russia for centuries....................

Old Cnuts :tongue:

 

[TinyPrincess]

Having such low expectations of quality must make it relatively easier to be contented.

Geez, Wyldgusechaz. I've never heard anyone call Starbucks quality before - well, at least not in Europe. So true, Drifter. Having such low expectations to quality (i.e. life) makes it very difficult not to be content - and still the US are only at 23rd place...