Offense Remarks

Sometimes I think I offend my co-workers or just people in general because I mis-speak or do not articulate accurately what I intend. I actually attribute the problem to my sarcasm, which others do not always get, or see as funny. I should really try and be more careful about it!

For example, today we were discussing politics at lunch (first mistake). I don't know how we got on the subject of North Korea, but it came up some how. Now, most of us don't even know enough about the details to be arguing with each other about the problems but we do anyway (second mistake). Then, someone makes a comment which basically amounts to an anti-American remark and I get a little defensive. I know that I don't always agree with US policies but I don't think my co-worker knows anything about what they are saying. So I sound like I'm defending the US when I really feel like I'm just clarifying the issues from America's point of view (third mistake, I should just let it drop).

I should be diplomatic about it but when a Swiss starts to tell me how the US policies are screwed up and they don't know what they are talking about it kind of makes me defensive. I mean, come on, when was the last time Switzerland has conducted international diplomacy? They're suppose to be neutral!

We then move on to discuss the middle east (fourth mistake!). I mention that I read about Lebanon today and I was not aware of how screwed up things were between Lebanon and Syria. Well, my coworkers started to give me their two-cents worth on Lebanon and Iraq and Israel. Then, I made some comment that I don't want the USA to be the world's policemen but many people have regarded the US as just that for a long time (fifth mistake). They jumped on me and said the US is not the world's policeman, which I agreed with, we shouldn't be. They said the UN is the policeman. But, I pointed out, the UN does nothing! It's the USA that usually does things and....well you can see that it got out of control because none of us are really educated to discuss who should be the police man of the world versus who actually is.

I think the initial point I was trying to make, however, was I was sort of playing the devil's advocate and musing about the US having apparently bad international policies but they interpreted my behavior as too nationalistic or something.

Humm....maybe we should stick to the weather.