Do you know where Alabama is?

[Terraoblivion]

Those are lines on the map that currently living people fought for their lives to make sure existed. Not just that, territorial integrity is one of the central parts of national identity and those lines are imbued with deep, abiding meaning for the Slovenes.

Not just that, I do in fact know where Alabama is. It's in the southeastern corner of the US with Georgia to the east, Tennessee to the north, Mississippi to the west and the Florida panhandle to the south except for a small enclave around Mobile which reaches the gulf. It is a major coal producing area and was the site where the civil rights movement started, just as it held the first Confederate capital. But mostly it's just a stretch of land in the US south that happened to be made administratively separate from Mississippi by a federal decree in the early 19th century. Alabama doesn't have centuries of being a subordinate part of the Tennessean empire or being threatened by a Texan invasion. It didn't have to win its independence from Georgia or avoid an ethnic purge by Floridians. It was just an area created completely arbitrarily to make the region easier to administrate as the very square borders suggest. Oh, and it only has 4.8 million inhabitants, which was the only part of this I had to look up.

In any case, Alabama is not a nation. It doesn't have a people who consider themselves ethnically distinct from their neighbors with an ancestral claim to this bit of land, it's an administrative division in a larger country that has defined all the major political events in the state. The end of slavery was a unified American event, the introduction of Jim Crow laws was a unified southern event, the end of segregation was an event for all of the US that was passed from Washington DC. The world wars were unified American projects as was the cold war. Nobody makes claims of an independent Alabama to preserve its ancestral, Alabaman culture either or want to drive those from other states out for causing a strain on this culture. It has less of a claim to being a unique political and cultural entity than Transvaal, Uttar Pradesh or the Yunnan province.

Oh, and Jay R, you seem to misunderstand. I don't personally have any major investment in Slovenia and I'm actively hoping for Denmark to cease to exist as a sovereign state and for the EU to become a true federation, we're really just a bunch of Germans in denial up here anyway. What I do care about is a representative of a large, powerful nation brushing the idea that he'd care about a less important state aside as an insult to even suggest. I care that the Slovenes care about their country and that their feelings about the topic deserve to be treated with respect. Failing to do even treat the idea that somebody might be curious about what you know about the country without contempt is the arrogance of a great, imperialistic power and nothing else.

[Gwynfrid]

Now this fellow should have researched his opponents to find out the secret Slovenian weaknesses in order to exploit them and gain victory (I'm pretty sure their main weakness is fire.) But not knowing where they are on a map? Is he going to be driving between countries?

No, I don't think he should know that, and I disagree with those Europeans who call it basic courtesy to get to know that information ahead of time. I believe, however, that his response to the question was a mistake playing into the Americans-are-arrogant stereotype. A maybe less witty, but better response could have been any one of:
- "Can I please have a question about the game?"
- "No, but if it is important to you, I will look it up on Google Maps as soon as this interview is over."
- "I know where the Slovenia team is, it is on the other side of this basketball court and we gotta beat them. Any other questions?"

@ Prince Raven & Anteros: It looks like you're going into a loop that this thread went through several times already. I'm not going to suggest you read through the entire 14 pages, but you may find this summary by Teddy helpful.

[Asta Kask]

No, I don't think he should know that, and I disagree with those Europeans who call it basic courtesy to get to know that information ahead of time. I believe, however, that his response to the question was a mistake playing into the Americans-are-arrogant stereotype. A maybe less witty, but better response could have been any one of:
- "Can I please have a question about the game?"
- "No, but if it is important to you, I will look it up on Google Maps as soon as this interview is over."
- "I know where the Slovenia team is, it is on the other side of this basketball court and we gotta beat them. Any other questions?"

- "Don't you? Well, if you do, why do you ask?"

But we can't all be stand-ups dealing with hecklers...

[JustSomeGuy]

From now on I shall lower my standard to "not wetting themselves in public". Please advise me if it needs to be lowered further.

You uh, don't remember Paula Radcliffe's "urinegate" then?

[Traab]

Those are lines on the map that currently living people fought for their lives to make sure existed. Not just that, territorial integrity is one of the central parts of national identity and those lines are imbued with deep, abiding meaning for the Slovenes.

Not just that, I do in fact know where Alabama is. It's in the southeastern corner of the US with Georgia to the east, Tennessee to the north, Mississippi to the west and the Florida panhandle to the south except for a small enclave around Mobile which reaches the gulf. It is a major coal producing area and was the site where the civil rights movement started, just as it held the first Confederate capital. But mostly it's just a stretch of land in the US south that happened to be made administratively separate from Mississippi by a federal decree in the early 19th century. Alabama doesn't have centuries of being a subordinate part of the Tennessean empire or being threatened by a Texan invasion. It didn't have to win its independence from Georgia or avoid an ethnic purge by Floridians. It was just an area created completely arbitrarily to make the region easier to administrate as the very square borders suggest. Oh, and it only has 4.8 million inhabitants, which was the only part of this I had to look up.

In any case, Alabama is not a nation. It doesn't have a people who consider themselves ethnically distinct from their neighbors with an ancestral claim to this bit of land, it's an administrative division in a larger country that has defined all the major political events in the state. The end of slavery was a unified American event, the introduction of Jim Crow laws was a unified southern event, the end of segregation was an event for all of the US that was passed from Washington DC. The world wars were unified American projects as was the cold war. Nobody makes claims of an independent Alabama to preserve its ancestral, Alabaman culture either or want to drive those from other states out for causing a strain on this culture. It has less of a claim to being a unique political and cultural entity than Transvaal, Uttar Pradesh or the Yunnan province.

Oh, and Jay R, you seem to misunderstand. I don't personally have any major investment in Slovenia and I'm actively hoping for Denmark to cease to exist as a sovereign state and for the EU to become a true federation, we're really just a bunch of Germans in denial up here anyway. What I do care about is a representative of a large, powerful nation brushing the idea that he'd care about a less important state aside as an insult to even suggest. I care that the Slovenes care about their country and that their feelings about the topic deserve to be treated with respect. Failing to do even treat the idea that somebody might be curious about what you know about the country without contempt is the arrogance of a great, imperialistic power and nothing else.

Terra, what part of ANY of that has to do with a basketball game? This is not a group of european history majors working on their thesis, these guys are there to play basketball. The rich complicated danger filled history of slovenia is a fascinating subject im sure, but it has nothing to do with basketball. At all. And that is the problem with the reporter and his question. He was asking a basketball player there to play a basketball game, a question that had nothing to do with basketball.

[Anteros]

I suppose the fact that large portions of your post read almost exactly like the Wikipedia article for the state is pure coincidence.

Also, I know several people from Alabama who would take offense to your suggestion that they have no unique culture. The fact that you'd make such a statement only shows that you're just as ignorant of us as you accuse us of being ignorant of you. I think some people from Europe don't realize just how large and culturally diverse the United States are. Birmingham is wildly different from New Orleans, which is wildly different from New York, which is wildly different from San Francisco, which is wildly different from Honolulu...the list goes on. Our culture and homes are just as important to us as yours are to you.

Honestly, you also seem to be implying that since people living in individual states haven't fought a war over state lines in recent history it somehow devalues their culture. I'm not even going to touch that particularly enlightened viewpoint.

Keep in mind that none of this even addresses the misguided idea that because a basketball player didn't memorize the location of a country on a map that it means he somehow disrespects said country and everyone in it.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Also, I know several people from Alabama who would take offense to your suggestion that they have no unique culture. The fact that you'd make such a statement only shows that you're just as ignorant of us as you accuse us of being ignorant of you. I think some people from Europe don't realize just how large and culturally diverse the United States are. Birmingham is wildly different from New Orleans, which is wildly different from New York, which is wildly different from San Francisco, which is wildly different from Honolulu...the list goes on. Our culture and homes are just as important to us as yours are to you.

Having lived in three continents... no, they are not . That is just US provincialism. Culture differences across the US are minimal compared to culture differences within regions of Europe, Africa and (from what my Indian friends tell me) Asia. US is mostly homogenous anglosaxon culture, with slight regional variants based on minor immigration waves from other European countries that at this point have been subsumed into local festivals. You try telling a Basque that their culture is closer to French culture than Alabama's is to New York, and you will not even understand the answer because they don't speak an indoeuropean language.

Travel the world, learn local cultures, and then and only then you will realise how monoculture the US is.

Grey Wolf

[Terraoblivion]

It has something to do with the basketball game because said basketball game is a cultural exchange between the US and Slovenia. That's what international sports are for and understanding that Slovenia has a unique identity deeply tied to the land they live on is part of understanding them and you're supposed to at least pretend to want to understand them. More centrally, it's important because it points out why the comparison with Alabama is ludicrous and therefore insulting to even make in the first place and in no way a valid comparison.

And Anteros, let me get this straight...Because my knowledge about Alabama lines up with wikipedia it's clearly fake. Or did you actually think that my very casual, abbreviated speech in any way mirrors the language of wikipedia?

[Traab]

Thats very high minded of you terra, unfortunately I doubt very much that either team went to the game looking for a cultural exchange, they went looking to win a game of basketball. No matter how much you try to twist it to justify feeling outrage because some basketball player neither knows nor likely cares much what countries border slovenia, it was still a press conference about a basketball game and nothing more.

[Terraoblivion]

No, seriously, that's literally what international sports are for. Read the charter of the IOC or Fifa. Listen to those inane speeches at the start of all major sporting events. It's all fictive, but you're still supposed to play along and pretend or it will be taken as an insult.

[Chen]

Having lived in three continents... no, they are not . That is just US provincialism. Culture differences across the US are minimal compared to culture differences within regions of Europe, Africa and (from what my Indian friends tell me) Asia. US is mostly homogenous anglosaxon culture, with slight regional variants based on minor immigration waves from other European countries that at this point have been subsumed into local festivals. You try telling a Basque that their culture is closer to French culture than Alabama's is to New York, and you will not even understand the answer because they don't speak an indoeuropean language.

Travel the world, learn local cultures, and then and only then you will realise how monoculture the US is.

Alabama and New York may not be as different as French and Chinese culture, for example, but they are still different. I'm not sure why the degree actually matters. I could make the same argument that culture throughout Europe is far more homogenous than if you compared it to Africa or South-East Asia. What does that prove? And more importantly, who are you to decide what aspects of someone else's culture they should consider distinct?

[Aolbain]

Alabama and New York may not be as different as French and Chinese culture, for example, but they are still different. I'm not sure why the degree actually matters. I could make the same argument that culture throughout Europe is far more homogenous than if you compared it to Africa or South-East Asia. What does that prove? And more importantly, who are you to decide what aspects of someone else's culture they should consider distinct?

Those cultural distinctions exists in any nation with a population above a few hundred thousand.

[Aliquid]

No, seriously, that's literally what international sports are for. Read the charter of the IOC or Fifa. Listen to those inane speeches at the start of all major sporting events. It's all fictive, but you're still supposed to play along and pretend or it will be taken as an insult.

QFT

For those who disagree... what is the purpose of international sports to you? Simply to prove that you are the best in the world?

Another example of how American culture has lost this idea of international cultural exchange: The Olympics

From my observations, American TV stations only cover Olympic events where Americans have a good chance of winning a medal. Other countries TV stations have more broad coverage, and dedicate a fair bit of time to showing sports reporters exploring the local culture of the current Olympic location.

I guess that is why people are getting annoyed here. Non-Americans intuitively see international sports as a cultural exchange, and are confused by the American responses that don’t match that view. Terraoblivion was the first to finally put that intuitive thought to words. (or at least the first that I noticed… this is a long thread)

[Bulldog Psion]

You know, this thread is kind of instructive in another way.

Most of the Americans are responding to point out that one basketball player's geographical ignorance is no big deal, expressing respect for the Slovene culture, and noting that Slovenia is a small country of recent independence which someone from another continent might not know the exact location of. Most of them don't even say anything bad about the reporter; I'm the only one who went so far as to call him a jackass, individually, while not saying anything against Europe. I don't think anyone has condemned Europe, Europeans, Slovenia, or Slovenes as a whole.

Quite a few of the Europeans are ragging on the U.S. and basically all Americans, using insulting terms and terms of condemnation towards America and Americans, and generally radiating hostility not only towards the individual basketball player but towards every one of the 300 million people who happen to accidentally share his citizenship.

Huh -- it's almost like one group is being overly defensive of their culture, showing cultural arrogance, and hysterically overreacting to perceived foreign criticism in a manner so exaggerated and persistent that it seems to bespeak deep insecurity. And the other one isn't.

I wonder which group is which?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Alabama and New York may not be as different as French and Chinese culture, for example,

Strawman. Neither side is claiming any such thing. Anteros is claiming that the difference between Alabama and Louisiana is larger than any cultural difference within a European country. "[W]ildly different", was claimed, in fact - an extraordinary claim with no extraordinary evidence to back it up. To grab an example that came up in the office recently, even knowing nothing of India beyond what I've heard from co-workers, I can tell that the cultural differences between North and South India are far and away more culturally distinct that Alabama and Louisiana - language, history, religion variations, food, music, etc.

I'm not sure why the degree actually matters.

It matters if the defence for "the basketball player is in the right to equate Alabama to a sovereign country" is based on cultural differences between US states. If those differences are as large as cultural differences between sovereign countries, then he was right to equate them. But they are not. The cultural differences between southern US states are minimal compared to cultural differences between areas of sovereign countries with a history extending more than a handful of centuries, never mind between entire countries.

I could make the same argument that culture throughout Europe is far more homogenous than if you compared it to Africa or South-East Asia. What does that prove? And more importantly, who are you to decide what aspects of someone else's culture they should consider distinct?

Since I am not making the claim, but answering to a factual (and wrong) statement of someone else, I think I am entitled to be offended when I see implied that the differences between my country's culture and my neighbor's country is somehow insignificant when compared to the fact that Alabama does not celebrate Mardi Gras (but otherwise language, religion, music, history, education, etc. are almost identical to that of Louisiana).

Grey Wolf

[Chen]

Strawman. Neither side is claiming any such thing. Anteros is claiming that the difference between Alabama and Louisiana is larger than any cultural difference within a European country. "[W]ildly different", was claimed, in fact - an extraordinary claim with no extraordinary evidence to back it up. To grab an example that came up in the office recently, even knowing nothing of India beyond what I've heard from co-workers, I can tell that the cultural differences between North and South India are far and away more culturally distinct that Alabama and Louisiana - language, history, religion variations, food, music, etc.

They claimed wildly different. No claim was made that they were larger differences than any European country. The claim was that they were different.

It matters if the defence for "the basketball player is in the right to equate Alabama to a sovereign country" is based on cultural differences between US states. If those differences are as large as cultural differences between sovereign countries, then he was right to equate them. But they are not. The cultural differences between southern US states are minimal compared to cultural differences between areas of sovereign countries with a history extending more than a handful of centuries, never mind between entire countries.

So what level of cultural difference would be acceptable as the "defense" then? How unique would Alabaman culture need to be before you could equate it? And who makes that decision? I could list MANY ways in which US culture and Canadian culture is similar. Yet you'd offend a great many Canadians if you just told them their culture is pretty much the same as the US culture. The absolute distinction between cultures is almost impossible to quantify, and even minor differences can cause major sticking points. This is why my point about how distinct the cultures are is fairly irrelevant.

Since I am not making the claim, but answering to a factual (and wrong) statement of someone else, I think I am entitled to be offended when I see implied that the differences between my country's culture and my neighbor's country is somehow insignificant when compared to the fact that Alabama does not celebrate Mardi Gras (but otherwise language, religion, music, history, education, etc. are almost identical to that of Louisiana).

Again no one is claiming Alabaman culture is MORE distinct than any other culture. Just that it IS distinct. You're the one who seems to be somehow reading more into this and taking it as an insult.

[Aedilred]

You know, this thread is kind of instructive in another way.

Most of the Americans are responding to point out that one basketball player's geographical ignorance is no big deal, expressing respect for the Slovene culture, and noting that Slovenia is a small country of recent independence which someone from another continent might not know the exact location of. Most of them don't even say anything bad about the reporter; I'm the only one who went so far as to call him a jackass, individually, while not saying anything against Europe. I don't think anyone has condemned Europe, Europeans, Slovenia, or Slovenes as a whole.

Quite a few of the Europeans are ragging on the U.S. and basically all Americans, using insulting terms and terms of condemnation towards America and Americans, and generally radiating hostility not only towards the individual basketball player but towards every one of the 300 million people who happen to accidentally share his citizenship.

Huh -- it's almost like one group is being overly defensive of their culture, showing cultural arrogance, and hysterically overreacting to perceived foreign criticism in a manner so exaggerated and persistent that it seems to bespeak deep insecurity. And the other one isn't.

I wonder which group is which?

You must have been reading a different thread to me. I haven't noticed any particularly American way of approaching the issue, nor a particularly European one. While a couple of posters might have behaved in the way you describe, they're not representative of the whole group, and moreover you've managed to conflate all the nice things that one group has done while focussing on the negatives from the other. I haven't seen anyone "ragging on all Americans", although I have seen a few people pointing out that some responses in this thread have played into the stereotype. But that's less "all Americans" and more "individuals". In fact most people have been very careful not to apply the stereotype, rather just talking about its existence.

The only really common features I've observed are that, for the most part Americans have tended to be more defensive of Cousins's statement (on whatever basis) while Europeans have tended to be more critical of it (on whatever basis).

This thread depresses me.

[Mauve Shirt]

You know, this thread is kind of instructive in another way.

Most of the Americans are responding to point out that one basketball player's geographical ignorance is no big deal, expressing respect for the Slovene culture, and noting that Slovenia is a small country of recent independence which someone from another continent might not know the exact location of. Most of them don't even say anything bad about the reporter; I'm the only one who went so far as to call him a jackass, individually, while not saying anything against Europe. I don't think anyone has condemned Europe, Europeans, Slovenia, or Slovenes as a whole.

Quite a few of the Europeans are ragging on the U.S. and basically all Americans, using insulting terms and terms of condemnation towards America and Americans, and generally radiating hostility not only towards the individual basketball player but towards every one of the 300 million people who happen to accidentally share his citizenship.

Huh -- it's almost like one group is being overly defensive of their culture, showing cultural arrogance, and hysterically overreacting to perceived foreign criticism in a manner so exaggerated and persistent that it seems to bespeak deep insecurity. And the other one isn't.

I wonder which group is which?

I like you, you'll survive my new world order.

I'm just gonna up and say it, this thread demonstrates the sheer amount of pent-up aggression on these forums that is barely controllable by banning religion and politics. Y'all just want to fight so bad!!!

[Elemental]

Personally, I can't believe you people are still going on about this.
A reporter made an irrelevant, and frankly rude, question at a press conference. A player responded to that question with an answer that wasn't exactly witty*, but I've heard worse. Everyone's time was wasted and nothing accomplished.

*A better response would have been "Why? Do you need directions?". But not everyone has the benefit of hindsight.

[Amidus Drexel]

Yeah, saying that there is any sort of consensus in this thread is like saying that WW1 ended peacefully and with relatively few lasting effects.

I'm just gonna up and say it, this thread demonstrates the sheer amount of pent-up aggression on these forums that is barely controllable by banning religion and politics. Y'all just want to fight so bad!!!

But Mauve, we live for internet arguments! We bicker, therefore we are!

[Aedilred]

I'm just gonna up and say it, this thread demonstrates the sheer amount of pent-up aggression on these forums that is barely controllable by banning religion and politics. Y'all just want to fight so bad!!!

I thought it was basically an open secret that this forum (Friendly Banter more than many other subforums, despite the name) was a thin veneer of civility over a seething pit of antagonism and snark.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

They claimed wildly different. No claim was made that they were larger differences than any European country. The claim was that they were different.

They made the claim in the context of excusing a comment that said "Alabama = Slovenia". The difference between Alabama and Louisiana are enough to require the rest of the world to know them distinctly, or accept a US player would conflate Slovenia with the rest of Europe. The implication is clear: Alabama, culturally, is of an equal standing or higher standing to Slovenia. This is preposterous in the face of it.

So what level of cultural difference would be acceptable as the "defense" then? How unique would Alabaman culture need to be before you could equate it?

I cannot quantify culture levels, but definitely a larger difference than the difference between Alabama and Louisiana.

And who makes that decision? I could list MANY ways in which US culture and Canadian culture is similar. Yet you'd offend a great many Canadians if you just told them their culture is pretty much the same as the US culture. The absolute distinction between cultures is almost impossible to quantify, and even minor differences can cause major sticking points. This is why my point about how distinct the cultures are is fairly irrelevant.

Tell you what, I'll use that as my unit of cultural difference: I shall call it an USCanadian. My position is that the difference between Alabama and Lousiana is smaller than one UScanadian, and the difference between Slovenia and Italy is larger than one USCanadian.

Again no one is claiming Alabaman culture is MORE distinct than any other culture. Just that it IS distinct. You're the one who seems to be somehow reading more into this and taking it as an insult.

On the contrary, it is being claimed that the differences are large enough that the rest of the world should consider each of the 50 US states as distinct as sovereign countries, thus making Cousin's retort appropriate. It is also being claimed that they are wildly different, which at the very least makes me wonder: what adjective would you use to characterise the cultural difference between Basque country and France? Also "wildly different"? Because then the words are stripped of meaning.

Grey Wolf

[SiuiS]

This could all have been avoided if the player had just purchased a genuine or fake passport, drivers licence or visa for Slovenia. Or several fake 'pope warrants' for Alabama, thus increasing it's popes:sq mile ratio and upping it's international clout. That would really have shown the reporter who's bawss.

Pffff

It might be geographically trivia to you, but there are two million Slovenes to whom it's the most important geography in the world. You're continuously saying their opinion doesn't matter because it's just trivia. It's not, it's a bit of land they fought a war over thirteen years ago and which they successfully salvaged from getting trapped in the maelstrom of the Yugoslavian Civil War. To say that that bit of land is just trivia is hugely disrespectful to those two million Slovenes, as well as all the people living in similarly small countries.

Those are lines on the map that currently living people fought for their lives to make sure existed. Not just that, territorial integrity is one of the central parts of national identity and those lines are imbued with deep, abiding meaning for the Slovenes.

But people in Alabama fought a war for their arbitrary map lines too. They fought for what their name and culture would be aligned with too. They have a deep and almost nationalistic pride too. Why aren't they important? Because they're 'only' a state? Why does state mean something different here than in any other use of the word state?

I like you, you'll survive my new world order.

I'm just gonna up and say it, this thread demonstrates the sheer amount of pent-up aggression on these forums that is barely controllable by banning religion and politics. Y'all just want to fight so bad!!!

Ha!

[Jay R]

Near as I can tell, the European position on this thread seems to be:

1. This was not a pop quiz to see if he was properly respectful of Slovenia, and Americans have no right to see it as that.

2. He failed the pop quiz, so we can conclude that he is not respectful of Slovenia.

3. There could not possibly be anything rude about asking him about his knowledge of their home.

4. It was completely rude for him to ask a question about knowledge of his own home.

5. Nobody has any right to infer any unstated motive or underlying attitude in the simple inoffensive question, "Do you know where Slovenia is?

6. Everybody has every right to infer any negative unstated motive or hurtful underlying attitude in the clearly offensive question, "Do you know where Alabama is?"

7. Everybody must defend Slovenian's right to be proud of where they came from, and must prove their support by memorizing a specific fact (location), chosen at random and asked with no warning.

8. No American can be proud of where he is from, beyond his country. Pride in their home state is unacceptable.

Does that cover it?

[AtlanteanTroll]

Joys of a well moderated forum, indeed.

[Bulldog Psion]

Near as I can tell, the European position on this thread seems to be:

1.

Spoiler: Spoilered for brevity

Show

This was not a pop quiz to see if he was properly respectful of Slovenia, and Americans have no right to see it as that.

2. He failed the pop quiz, so we can conclude that he is not respectful of Slovenia.

3. There could not possibly be anything rude about asking him about his knowledge of their home.

4. It was completely rude for him to ask a question about knowledge of his own home.

5. Nobody has any right to infer any unstated motive or underlying attitude in the simple inoffensive question, "Do you know where Slovenia is?

6. Everybody has every right to infer any negative unstated motive or hurtful underlying attitude in the clearly offensive question, "Do you know where Alabama is?"

7. Everybody must defend Slovenian's right to be proud of where they came from, and must prove their support by memorizing a specific fact (location), chosen at random and asked with no warning.

8. No American can be proud of where he is from, beyond his country. Pride in their home state is unacceptable.

Does that cover it?

Yes, this appears to be spot on.

Which I regret, because I think there's a lot to like and respect about Europe and Europeans when they aren't busy spitting on Americans for being Europeans on the other side of a body of water.

This thread made me go from amused to ticked off to rather depressed in the space of about one page.

[Kornaki]

And Anteros, let me get this straight...Because my knowledge about Alabama lines up with wikipedia it's clearly fake. Or did you actually think that my very casual, abbreviated speech in any way mirrors the language of wikipedia?

I hate to say it, but for example

It's in the southeastern corner of the US with Georgia to the east, Tennessee to the north, Mississippi to the west and the Florida panhandle to the south except for a small enclave around Mobile which reaches the gulf.

Alabama (Listeni/ˌæləˈbæmə/) is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west.

actually does sound pretty similar. I personally don't care one way or the other but the idea that you're going to show off all your knowledge about Alabama as some sort of show of authority on an internet thread is pretty silly.

There are two arguments being conflated: he should know where Slovenia is because Slovenia is a nation and that makes it Very Important, and that he should know where Slovenia is because he's playing the Slovenian basketball team, and cross arguments between the two lines of logic I think are drawing this thread out a lot longer than it should be going.

[Traab]

You know, this thread would have ended a lot sooner if people would just stop being stubborn and admit that im right. Disagree? I will gladly fight y'all!

Spoiler

Show

[Terraoblivion]

Alabama has fought exactly one war for their state, as opposed to for the US. It was the American Civil War and the thing they were protecting their state against was people saying that they weren't allowed to keep other people as property. Nobody ever proposed dissolving Alabama as a state during that war either, nor did they force Alabamans into a status of second class citizens or try to purge them. And that's taking the brutality with which the north fought the civil war into account. The Alabama Territory is from after both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 which were the only two times foreigners attacked the US. Every single other war on American soil has either been the civil war, Americans as the aggressor or not American soil yet. So, no, Alabama has in fact not fought a war over its right to exist, nor over where its borders are. The only war it has fought as anything other than a part of the US was the civil war, which was over different matters. Also, you probably shouldn't state your pride in Alabama's role in that war in polite society, just saying.

And, let me get this straight, because correctly listing the neighbors of Alabama would look similar to other people correctly listing them you have to plagiarize, Kornaki? Do you also believe that if indigenous people use spears in both the Amazon and New Guinea one has to have learned from the other? Of course a brief listing is going to be similar to another brief listing, it's the same four states and one body of water that Alabama borders and the relative locations are quite unambiguous compared to, let's say, the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

[Aliquid]

Near as I can tell, the European position on this thread seems to be:

Well... my view as neither American or European...

1. This was not a pop quiz to see if he was properly respectful of Slovenia, and Americans have no right to see it as that.

Sure it was a pop quiz. What else could it be?

2. He failed the pop quiz, so we can conclude that he is not respectful of Slovenia.

yes he did fail, and yes that is a fair conclusion.

3. There could not possibly be anything rude about asking him about his knowledge of their home.

It was rude. The reporter was deliberately trying to make the player look ignorant.

4. It was completely rude for him to ask a question about knowledge of his own home.

I don't think the Europeans are thinking this is rude, they are thinking it was arrogant to think that knowledge of Alabama is equivalent to knowledge of Slovenia.

5. Nobody has any right to infer any unstated motive or underlying attitude in the simple inoffensive question, "Do you know where Slovenia is?

Of course there was an underlying attitude.

6. Everybody has every right to infer any negative unstated motive or hurtful underlying attitude in the clearly offensive question, "Do you know where Alabama is?"

No there wasn't any unstated motive or underlying attitude, it simply demonstrated an innapropriate assumption that a state is equivilant to a country.

7. Everybody must defend Slovenian's right to be proud of where they came from, and must prove their support by memorizing a specific fact (location), chosen at random and asked with no warning.

NO... This is where you are completely misunderstanding the other side's argument. The question wasn’t at random and without warning. As mentioned before the whole purpose of international sports is for creating a cultural exchange. If the player had followed the spirit of international sports he would have taken the time and effort to learn a little bit about Slovenia. His dismissive response showed that he both didn’t know about Slovenia, but he also didn’t see it as relevant or important.

8. No American can be proud of where he is from, beyond his country. Pride in their home state is unacceptable.

Pride in their home state is perfectly acceptable; it is the false equivalency that is the problem.