*sigh* s always there are some informed and non informed parts to this sort of all encompassing summarization of any one country.
TheKinkyFinn wrote...
Now mind you, I could be, and likely am, wrong on many accounts here (especially when it comes to history), but I'm just too lazy to look everything up so I'm writing this from memory.
Well in order to make an informed post on a serious topic that will if not sway people into one way of thinking at the very least provide information that one may not hvee nied, it's best to look up your sces or things you say. But at least you'e honest about how much effort you feel like putting into the thoughts you have to share with others.
The Good:
-Historically a pioneer of freedom, equality, modern finance and modern democracy. I can't deny their influence in the end of aristocracy as the most common form of government, nor the example it's set on the subjects of slavery, women's rights and the rise of capitalism.
I'm not sure what you mean by "odern finance" or "modern democracy". Historically the U.S. has been split as to how a democracy should be run, or even how economics should be handled, down to our founding fathers. Today we're not even a democracy, we're a democratic republic. I think this leads to what I actually think is positive about the united states, the free exchange of ideas.
-Very high political influence. Listed as good mostly to balance out the wall of text a little, and because this has potential to be good. If the US makes a sound decision on something controversial, the rest of the welfaring world is like to follow en masse soon.
I think it's good because it provides us with many common amenities that we usually would not have access to otherwise. For instance, the fact that we have army bases in foreign countries is one of the main reasons we have any sort of import system, and it's how we're able to keep and maintain an internet, communicating with the rest of the world. It also allows us to keep in touch with what's going on all oer the world so that if anyone needs help, we can get them that help expediently, which we do.
-A superpower against the threat of communism (or rather, it's corrupted, power hungry dictator-based leadership) during the Cold War. A fact much of the world will admit, I'd wager. As a finn who paid attention during history classes, I'm very aware how close my country came several times to being a full fledged communist country, and won't hesitate to say it was the existence of the US that, through opposition in both political and military means, stopped USSR from taking over all of Europe, and perhaps the entire world one way or the other.
A historical god thing but a good thing nonetheless. The only problem is all the bad that came out of an almost(or not really almost, it really was after a time) dogmatic anti-communist policy.
The Bad:
-Nowadays stuck in it's tracks in the farce of a democracy with only two viable parties constantly butting heads on virtually everything imaginable. What one party tries to fix in the country, the other party is viable to bring down as soon as humanly possible.
Ok, so partisan politics exists. I don't see this as a bad thing. Would you prefer to have to vote for people who believe the exact same things ad will attempt to fix issues by using e exat same means? I'd find that to be far more of a farce of a democratic system than only being able to realistically vote for one of two viable candidates that have a possibility of winning. Besides voting third party isn't a waste of a vote. During elections people who win look to all the voters and try and find ways to garner those votes in the future, because they're careeer politicians and want to stay where they are. So when you vote third party along with other people, as small as that number may be the person who wins will look at those votes and say, "What can I do to make sure I get those votes next tieme, what are the important things that these people want addressed?"
-The actual political and financial systems are effectively joined at the hip so badly that it's really no secret that the country is run largely through filthy lucre by thoroughly corrupt politicians backed by huge companies driving their own interest.
It's funny when someone says something patently untrue is "no secret". Things aren't as corrupt as the vast majority of people seem to think they are.
-Dated public anything related to healthcare and schooling, high prison population mostly because of the ridiculous war on drugs, ludicrous military budget for the sole superpower of our time (count China if you want, but I'm excluding them because I believe they're not quite there yet).
Pretty much agree with this one. Id like to pont out that China has no reason whatsoever to become a military superpower. They can already make or break countries around the world just by stopping their trading with them. The amount of treaties China has with other countries means that when China says, "No trade for you", that country is going to be economically destroyed in no time.
The Ugly:
-The country's constant pot shots and outright disregard of it's own constitution, as in, the highest decree of law in the country, I believe. The recent wiretapping, indefinite incarceration of it's own citizen's without proper trial, and denying the people's right to protest (free speech) to name some.
Can you give me a single unconstitutional thing the government has done in recent years? It'll be fun to see. Because if you're referring to the NSA thing, or the Patriot act, or the NDAA, or any other bill sort of similar, I think you'l lbe hard pressed to find that any of them are actually against the constitution in any way at all.
-A country where you're free to believe in God, Jahwe, Zeus, Flying Spagetti Monster or just about anything mythical, yet if you openly identify as an atheist you're shunned and hated by damn near everyone. Apparently having freedom of religion doesn't mean you have freedom from religion.
This is dependent on where one's from. As has been explained before the bible belt is certainly a place where atheists are going to be distrusted and outright hated on by the public if they come out. I myself live in Pennsylvania and it's...sort of similar to what one might find in the bible belt. However there are other states where one is almost EXPECTED to be atheistic...like California or New York.
-The country's self-centered attitude in general. Americans are known to be VERY proud of their country and it's past achievements (or at least that's the stereotype, feel free to correct me on this one). The youth are not-so-subtly brainwashed with patriotism starting from around preschool and while information about the surrounding world is not (debatably, I don't know what their current stance on the evolution theory is in schools) outright falsified, it is often presented in a heavily one-sided light. Now, I don't generally like drawing the '
Godwin's Law-card', but the biggest difference I can see between the US and The Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea is that NK is more transparent about what it's doing.
Transparent to whom? It's not transparent to its own people that's for damned sure. And if you can't tell the difference between the United States and North Korea when it comes to the 'education of children' or self centered attitudes, then you have a LOT of information you're missing out on. At least the U.S. helps other countries. At least court cases have been completed that have banned ID from schools and more or less made sure that children are learning real science. At least the U.S. has modenr textbooks written by someone other than our leaders, you know, written by people who actually know what they're talking about. The comparison is completely and totally innacurate.
So in summary, the US's greatness stems mostly from it's role in recent history, but today it's barely a shadow of it's former self when compared to the rest of the world that used to follow in it's footprints. I'm not saying it's a bad country, but what I know about it doesn't allow me to call it a great country either. In fact, it seems rather ironic that the country that helped the rest of us rid ourselves from aristocratic governing is using it's own heritage to reassure us of it's own importance.
This seems to be purely opinion based off of what was said previously so I'll just say my own little piece here.
The U.S. is not a great, nor bad nation. We have faults, some of them are more obvious than others. However one of the big things that cause people to think the U.S. is a worse country than it is is nothing more than ignorance. Too many of the U.S.'s own people, and of course people from middle eastern and european countries, get biased views on what's going on in the government and the country that are built upon to appeal to the lowest common denominator of viewers, soversimplifying stories or spinning them to the point where information that is accurate is not getting out to anyone who doesn't do thorough research. I can't tell you how many people I speak to that think the governmnet has violated the constitution in some way who can't tell me what part of the cosntitution has been violated, and besides that, don't even know how unconstitutionality is ruled upon or how it works.
Fuck some people still think the FED banking system is unconstitutional.
Ignorance can beget bliss, but it also begets confidence. And too many people are confident that they know exactly what's wrong in this world, and the U.S. takes a lot of the blame when it's completely and totally unnecessary.
Main source of information on the subject has been the Youtube personality of 'The Amazing Atheist', and while I admit the man's not exactly the most neutral source of information himself, at least he's entertaining enough while providing a logical argument when he wants to, and still being informative even when he doesn't need one.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAmazingAtheist
I know him, I've watched him, and while SOME times he has some neat things or entertaining things to say...for the most part he really doesn't know what he's talking about.