One of the scariest things on this planet are the people who are immovable from their beliefs, have no sense of humor or insist on flexing their muscles to prove a point.
There you go! Something we both agree on one hundred percent!
Try looking down the barrel of a gun held by an Afrikaans militiaman at 3 o'clock in the morning on a quiet country road. No humor in those eyes! No chance of changing his beliefs! Plenty of flexing of muscles! Yes, people like that are truly scary. But that's what I mean, there are situations where humor just isn't appropriate! I tried humility, luckily that worked.

I only reacted to your characterization of my beloved country.
It wasn't my characterization of your country, it was what I see as becoming a very widespread view of America. Sadly.

… again, nothing personal......We aren't all self absorbed and arrogant.
But that's EXACTLY what I was trying to point out. As I said: "That's sad, as it obviously isn't true". And by the way, who's Ben Affleck?

You'll know I am in trouble when I lose my sense of humor....As a matter of fact I get a huge laugh out of the mirror each morning.
I'm like that too, though I don't want to ruin my day by looking in the mirror at all. I don't think ANYBODY who knows me well would accuse me of not having a sense of humor!! My only defense against the madness going on in the world today is my humor. Check out the other threads I have posted on - Dear Phred, Pet Talk Confidential, The Cruise of the Feline Princess etc. And you don't have to tell me about black humor, I was brought up on "The Goon Show" and am a complete fan of Monty Python, Black Adder and similar madness.
There's a time and a place for everything. The serious problems we are discussing in the Dog House do not harmonize with the use of our own personal sense of humor (anywhere else is fine). Keep them for other threads. I have no problem at all with silliness there, in fact I love it, as I hope others have noticed.

Yes, I am the ugly American...... I mean, if people think that already, who am I to change their minds??
I actually doubt that, but are you aware that you might really appear so to people who only read your threads and don't know you personally? Why aren't you interested in changing their minds? Just seems unnecessarily self-effacing to me.

… and by the way, I'm not very good at being the member of any "club", never have been. In fact I've always been a bit of an anti-social loner. I don't even really have a country that I can say I'm a "member" of! I'd much prefer it that way. I'm just a member of the human race. This gives me the chance to fool myself into thinking I can be a bit more objective and neutral in my views. I doubt that it works though.