Quote Originally Posted by Toffee
1st he says

"american are Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish etc,"

and then he says

Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan

and

"The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America."

sort of contradictory


i am not american and i totally agree with hidden beauty

I don't have a bad word to say about Americans but I do have to comment on your big ego's.It personally makes me feel like you think you are somewhat better then us when I am sure England and some other countries deserve recognition too.

I AM PROUD TO BE MALTESE AND NOT TO BE AMERICAN!!!
The Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (to give their full name) were formed long before their reign on Malta. The Order was originally established in 1085 as a community of monks responsible for looking after the sick at the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem. They later became a military order, defending crusader territory in the Holy Lands and safeguarding the perilous routes taken by medieval pilgrims. The Knights were drawn exclusively from noble families and the Order acquired vast wealth from those it recruited and later from the ill-gotten gains of their privateering.

The Order of the Hospital was not only the first military-religious order of chivalry, but indeed the first order of knighthood of any kind. Previously, knights did not serve in corporate bodies other than the armies of particular sovereigns. The Order of the Temple, the Teutonic Order and the Order of Saint Lazarus were founded soon after the Order of the Hospital. Each of these orders had its own purposes, of which military defence was but one. Until this time, most knights had been minor feudatories obliged, as part of the feudal system, to undertake military service for a prescribed number of days each year; some were full time soldiers who served in garrisons.

The Order was ruled by a Grand Master who was answerable only to the Pope. Knights were chosen from the aristocratic families of France, Italy, Spain, England and Portugal. On acceptance into the Order they were sworn to celibacy, poverty and obedience. Few lived up to these ideals; many were very wealthy and the Knights' standoffish attitude towards the locals does not always seem to have applied when it came to temptations of the flesh.

In 1343, the Order conquered Smyrna, which it held for six decades. The knights of Malta took part in battles in Egypt and Syria, and supported the Armenians' in their valiant defence against the Muslims.

http://privateer.omena.org/knightsofmalta.htm

************almost sounds like America************