The United States has done far more harm than good for humanity at large. The individualistic values it champions have led to a society that is fragmented and leaves many citizens in misery. Its global hegemony has resulted in the destruction of numerous countries, with countless lives lost due to its military interventions, coups, and regime change operations around the world. Moreover, the US’s extractive policies have prevented other nations from developing their own economies, perpetuating a cycle of underdevelopment and dependency. Additionally, as one of the largest consumers of energy per capita and major producers of fossil fuels, the United States is among the worst offenders when it comes to climate change, exacerbating global environmental crises with its unsustainable practices.
I couldn’t say it better so I’ll just second this.
Best part of Gondwana
Non-American here. You all keep making up the vilest “jokes” about French people. The sheer level of ignorance and disrespect deserves nothing but contempt and derision. And that’s what you’ll get from me and most of Europe.
Better learn to cope 😒.
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I wish it was, but then there’s posts like the recent Frenchposting in the memes community, you should see the comments.
Meh. I’m an American and I don’t hate it here. But I’m from (and moved back to) a culturally distinct place (New Orleans) so I don’t really identify with the dominant culture. I loathe the politics/corruption and how our government is structured. (The amendments are the best part of our constitution and maybe we should think about that for a bit.) I’m deeply ashamed that we’re the world’s biggest arms dealer and oil/gas producer.
That being said, we have beautiful landscapes and individual American people are usually kind, decent people, at least on an interpersonal level. The corruption of companies and elected officials doesn’t usually extend to the middle class. (Like, you don’t have to bribe someone to get a driver’s license or permits or whatever.) There’s obviously loads of advantages to being an American citizen, just as there are to being an EU citizen. I love our national parks. Just the western half of the United States contains enough varied forms of amazing landscapes to keep a person occupied for a lifetime.
So, I wouldn’t say I like America as a political entity. It’s definitely in my top 30 or so countries to live. I wouldn’t give up my citizenship for a random place but, having travelled extensively, there’s a lot of countries that have a better form of government and a healthier balance between oligarchs and labor.
Non-American here!
I’ve visited America a bunch of times and I really like it as a place, they have amazing scenery pretty much everywhere you look, and just about every individual American I’ve met has been really nice.
BUT…
I’d never want to live there. Their healthcare system is insane (sorry Americans but it is) and politically as a nation they’re pretty bonkers. Guns, religion, general sort of global belligerence etc.
Also as an aside, San Francisco is genuinely one of the strangest places I’ve ever been to. I dunno if I was just there at a weird time, but it seemed like every single person there was either a millionaire or homeless. Absolutely nothing in between.
Ask any San Franciscan and they’ll tell you that’s just San Francisco.
Their healthcare system is insane (sorry Americans but it is)
Don’t apologize! If anything that’s an understatement. And everything else you said is on point too.
Source: Am American.
Work takes me to Houston from time to time, and I wholeheartedly agree. I would never want to live there.
It seems that whenever you find something likeable about the place, it turns out to be a product of a predatory system.
I seriously hope the workers at T.J. Birria Y Mas down in Missouri City are well paid and cared for (I doubt it), because they’re doing an awesome job and it’s hard not to love that place.
Oh nobody likes the healthcare system except the people profiting from it and the people who think billionaires will love them and share if they sing their praises enough.
No, I live here.
I hate
- religious zealotry
- massive dichotomy in polotical ideologies
- identity politics
- warmongering
- brainwashing (pledge of allegiance?!)
- poor treatment of poor and homeless
- prison complex
- poor education system
- incredibly expensive healthcare
- terrible zoning laws and car centricity
- hiroshima, native genocide, iraq, and so many more. The US has shed so much blood and terror inflicted on the world population
- world police, vigilante, the US is basically every bad movie villian in country form
- regressing views on women’s rights
- the history of slavery
Love our land, loath our society.
The natural beauty of America is amazing, but the people seem to be mostly absolute shit.
The country was founded in large part as a nation for those escaping oppression and persecution for their beliefs. It was designed to provide everyone certain freedoms the founders claimed to be inalienable.
While this is still an immensely powerful idea, it can not function without guidelines and government involvement.
Two hundred fifty years ago, it made sense for sparsely populated states to operate mostly independent of the federal government. In time, land became more dense and borders dividing populations and cultures and commerce blurred. Now, the entire world is instantly connected.
Somehow, generation after generation, it was not self-evident that all people should be treated equally. The police force and prison system still largely resemble what they were initially intended to do - serve the wealthy and enslave people for profit.
The United States affords everyone the same freedoms and opportunities by way of doing nothing at all. Everyone has the opportunity to work hard and make a fair living for themselves. But some people win the genetic lottery and inherit extra opportunities and extra freedoms.
We all have the freedom to be complete idiots and that’s considered a win.
Our constitution needs to be re-written. In my opinion, it needs to be explicit about what all the citizens of the United States should be afforded: education, health care, clean air and water, shelter, the right to not be lied to by the people who draft and pass legislation impacting our lives, the right to a source of information that’s not subject to special interests.
No. I can’t say I like it. I don’t like how our government is intent on making our lives worse by their inaction. They take more and more of our money while we get less and less in benefits.
We have no leadership. We have influencers and celebrities. Some people complain about globalism because they know we can’t compete on a global scale. People are prejudice of foreigners who take their jobs because they’re complacent with doing as little as possible. Our most successful form of entertainment is ragebait. Who’s helping us progress as a country? Who’s helping to make us smarter and healthier and happier? Who exactly is promoting general welfare and domestic tranquility?
It’s the land of the me and home of maybe. And our constitution supports your freedom to be this way. Some people love that and claim the freedom to do nothing is what makes America great.
A great America, to me, is one built for everyone to prosper, that promotes self-worth and civil respect, that strictly enforces the idea that my freedoms can not be infringed upon by you freedoms or beliefs. A great America is one that doesn’t have elections where you have to vote for the person you dislike the least. Politics should be positively engaging. We should give a damn about our leaders and they should have to deal with consequences of their actions, like anyone else.
Though it’s not perfect, the one thing I really love about America is our immigration policy. It’s the best place on the planet for people to escape for a better life. Our country is built by and thrives because of immigrants. It’s the one thing that has held true for hundreds of years. How we treat immigrants is a sin. How our government fails to properly fund our immigration system is appalling. I believe most people are in support of legal immigration yet they fail to support proper funding of our immigration department. It wreaks of racism and bigotry.
America is, by design, the land of the self-righteous. The only people in favor of that are the self-righteous.
I love America. I’m rather less fond of some of the people in it. The land is beautiful and varied. There is so much space here. And the constitution is really special, I think, though not perfect. The biggest flaw is people haven’t been taking politics seriously and have elected unserious people.
I swore to defend it many years ago. At the time I was a kid just paying lip service to a required oath, swearing to a god I never believed in, but the truth is I do love it and I would fight for it, warts and all.
I love this take. I was the same way when I raised my right hand.
people haven’t been taking politics seriously and have elected unserious people.
This is the inherent flaw. We have a representative government that never intended “people” to take politics seriously. Politics was for the landowners.
I love it, and that’s why I want to improve it. And you can’t fix a problem without acknowledging it exists.
I like your America, you Americas are so unlike your America.
I consider myself an Oregonian first and American second. Most of the country I can absolutely do without.
Oregon though…
I could do without most of Oregon too
I hate it despite realizing what a good life I have because I was born here with a lucky set of circumstances (cis white male). But I love parts of it, like the Bay Area and Oakland and all the surrounding hiking spots. If we didn’t share it with lunatics I’d feel a lot better about it from a policy perspective.
I’ve always thought of America as a teenager - we’re sophomoric, rebellious, and self- centered. We don’t have the history of most other countries. Our settlement and the beginnings of our government are really not long ago and most of us are just a few generations deep. I’m thankful for my life here and appreciate the struggles my family endured to make life better for the next generation.
You’re past your teenage years; Australia and New Zealand are younger. America is more like someone in their 20s fucking up their life with party drugs. You might make it, you might not. Either way it seems right now you need a hard reset.
Either way it seems right now you need a hard reset.
Yet, half the country seems to be choosing to go back to Trump. There’s no cure for stupid.
Careful with the idea that you’re a young country with limited history. Your indigenous peoples may view the matter (rightfully) quite differently.
In Australia we actually changed the lyrics to our national anthem a few years back. It did say “…we are young and free”. Which is a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to the people who have lived on and cared for the land for upwards of 50,000 years. So it’s now “we are one and free”.
I’m not chastising you, just prompting you to think about things differently.
Arguably, many people groups indigenous to what is now the US (and often times into Canada and Mexico as well) were each their own countries and sometimes joined into confederacies (for example the Iroquois Confederacy and some others). I do think indigenous voices frequently get lost (and that does need fixing), but I don’t know if there’s value in representing them as a single unit as though they were a single nation before. Many groups came over at different times, migrated around, etc. They’re not even all in the same macro language families (and may have come from separate peopling events, but that’s a whole other can of worms).
It’s important to remember that what was before is not now.
Saying it’s all the same is disrespectful to what was taken
Not sure I share that viewpoint for the US, the history of the indigenous is the story of the people, not the nation.
And the US has many more populations that have great history, from EU and Africa.
But the beginning of its history is founded on the gathering and interaction of all those different cultures.
So for me saying the country is young doesn’t quite have the same connotations of erasure from colonialist, it mostly makes me think of how current the melting pot of all those different cultures are.
I still agree we shouldn’t diminish the importance of indigenous people in it.
America is the center of the world, hate all you want. This is the cutting edge today. Hollywood is the dominant music/media power. Silicon valley is the dominant technology power. NY is the dominant financial hub. The hippie cultural revolution was largely here, and the civil rights revolutions that inform modern morals. America spends more on military than the rest of the world combined, and therefore has massive influence
So that’s my context for being here. I was born pretty far away in Europe, which is great in its own ways. But if you really want to play the game at the highest level, America is the place to do it. Everyone else is just trying to catch up. Or they are enjoying a happy low stress life of wine and women with a high standard of living and low inequality — which are definitely unamerican ideals XD
But if you really want to play the game at the highest level, America is the place to do it.
I mean if “the game” is having the largest prison population per capita then sure, but otherwise America is mid in almost every category.
