Is America a Great Country? Why?

[kallipolis]

My experiences of Americans and my visits to the United States, have always left me with a positive understanding.

 

[dwnsth]

What an incredibly myopic view on the world. Have you ever been outside the borders of the US?

Yes, I've been to Central and South America. I don't believe it's narrow-minded to be passionate about the country I call home.

 

[Inwood]

I don't believe it's narrow-minded to be passionate about the country I call home.

No it's not narrow-minded to be passionate about your home country, but to call it the greatest country in the world simply because you are an American is.

 

[LaloGS]

My experiences of Americans and my visits to the United States, have always left me with a positive understanding.

The majority of the American people are kind, generous and caring. That is why when disaster in any form strikes anywhere in the world Americans respond with donations of money, food, and goods to help. What we are not good at is recognizing what is happening to America internally. We believe as a whole our government's goal is to keep us safe and represent our values to the rest of the world. Many of us find it difficult to believe that we have installed a government of greed and avarice with plans to keep us in a perpetual state of war.

It's kind of like lifting a rock and being bitten by a poisonous snake lying under it. The first response is that it is hard to believe you have been so stupid to be bitten by a deadly snake. There is no time after the bite to ruminate over the idea that if you hadn't lifted that rock you wouldn't have been bitten in the first place. But now that you have been bitten, panic sets in, and with the snake now loose; what can be done to save yourself? If you take the time to kill the snake, its poison in your veins will continue to work and eventually you will die as well, and neither you or the snake will survive. If you seek help with reason for the bite, you might survive, but in a debilitated state, and leave the snake to bite some other unsuspecting soul. That is our current dilemma.

I believe our current dilemma crawled out from under that rock as Richard Nixon, and every Repuglican president since has been crawling around biting our asses ever since. That one snake under the rock, has now multiplied into many who are like the brownshirts of he Nazis. these little snakelets who support the big poisonous leaders, are the real threat to our safety and morals and values. The people have grown sick with the poisons they are fed in the name of our safety. We all walk in fear of the snake, not our piddling enemies living in caves. Until we take reason in hand along with that rock, and crush the snake before it bites us again, we are lost.

Like the old, old parable: of a man getting ready to ford a swift stream that is accosted by a poisonous snake on the shore. The snake speaks to him asking to be carried across in safety to the opposite shore.

"But you are a poisonous snake," the man says.

"I promise if you carry me safely across the water, I'll not bite you," says the snake.

"Well, if you promise," says the man. "Then I will help you." He lifts the snake in his arms, and together they start across the ford in the stream. In the deepest, and swiftest part of the stream, the snake coils around the man's neck, and bites him in the breast, injecting him with its deadly poison.

"What have you done," the man screams. "You promised you wouldn't bite me!"

"I couldn't help myself," the snake replied. "After all, I am a snake."

If you don't get the parable, then you must be a snakelet, because only a snakelet would trust the snake after it has bitten the man carrying the snake to safety. But snakes are often cannibals and willingly eat their own. Your time will come if you carry the snake.

 

[chance1]

^ what i would expect from u

so now nixon started the bad stuff
and the repub party is like nazis

broken record - key word being broken

Byro - thanks for the threads - u r a refreshing add to the JUB CE+P area - thanks for being u

u can see the varying responses from

love my country - here's why

to those who see those posts and say "ugly, myopic american" etc etc

to those who point out all the reasons why we're not great

to those who i guess say we used to be great and r no longer

what's great about this country i think is that people do care

i care when some on this board trash our country - i think they're ingrates - at the same time, what makes this country great is that ability to trash our country - kind of a tough one

so i defend ur right to say this country is no good
and i couldn't disagree more about ur opinion

im heading to LA for a few days - another great part of this great country - im in NY u see

great in Kansas (never been - wanna go), in Boston (fenway park), Chicago (a lake like an ocean), Florida (early bird special), CT (where NickCole has his 2nd home - doesn't everyone?), NJ (home of the NY Football Giants), Pennsylvania (Philly Cheese Steaks), Rhode Island (Misquamiqit Beach), Maine (lobster for breakfast?), Maryland (Inner Harbor and Fells Pt), Virginia (very sexy guys there), Nebraska (got stranded in Omaha 1x), Arizona (dry heat they say), Indiana (Notre Dame baby), Kentucky (great malls), Atlanta (Buckhead), North Carolina (duke, unc and nc st), new hampshire (where the gay guy from sopranos hid out), vermont (nutty judges and all), cape cod (my fav place in the world), wisconsin (brett favre country), tennessee (heavy but great bfasts) plus


i been a lotta places in a short period of time - and this is not an all inclusive list

all great

all

consider this my howard dean rant

cept - im not crazy

love this country

so criticize it all u want - shit on it if u want

ud be wrong

and someday, u will agree

 

[byro]

Byro - thanks for the threads - u r a refreshing add to the JUB CE+P area - thanks for being u

Thanks, chance; I learn a lot here.

I agree with you about the sheer geographical majesty of the country. I travel A LOT (far more than I would like sometimes) and there are few places I go that don't move me with their unique zeitgeist. To think that the East Village of NYC is a part of the same country as Appalachia is amazing to me. I sometimes think it's astonishing that we didn't all go our separate ways long ago, that we've managed somehow to stay more or less united with only one civil war in our history! In any case, a lot of the places you described and the things you love about them (with the exception of malls -- I'd rather be in a coffin!) I also feel embraced by.

 

[grantt]

Thanks Chance.

I read all the hate and trash talk about this country and wonder if it so bad, why stay?

Immigrants, legal and otherwise, would die to get here. Some do.

You already mentioned one of the reasons.....opportunity.

So many JUBBERs love the trash they spill here. Like they wake up each day just to add to the trash.

Things are not perfect.

Over two hundred years and perfection is not there. Will never be there.

You mention "care". Good word Chance!

People care here.

Is this a great country? You bet it is!

 

[Inwood]

Ingrates, eh? So to criticize the government and our country makes people ingrates? Why?

Perhaps people want more than the status quo. Perhaps people want our government to actually listen to them and do some good. Perhaps, just perhaps, that even though they criticize they still do love their country.

And grantt, by saying that all those who don't shout from the rooftops that America is the greatest country in the world are trash talking you diminish their opinions and muffle their voices.

As I said in my original post, I do love this country and I am a patriot. But when I see our government doing things that not only don't benefit the people but harm them, I must speak out. Nobody with a clear conscience can or should do otherwise.

 

[Kulindahr]

Chance, ponder this:

it was people who loved their country who wrote in the provision in the Constitution meant to guarantee the ability of the people to overthrow their government.

 

[chance1]

Chance, ponder this:

it was people who loved their country who wrote in the provision in the Constitution meant to guarantee the ability of the people to overthrow their government.

overthrow the govt?

why?

our govt is good

people make mistakes

the system is damn good

no need to overthrow

tweaking is fine

just fine

as in elections

etc

 

[Sammie13]

^ what i would expect from u

so now nixon started the bad stuff
and the repub party is like nazis

broken record - key word being broken

Byro - thanks for the threads - u r a refreshing add to the JUB CE+P area - thanks for being u

u can see the varying responses from

love my country - here's why

to those who see those posts and say "ugly, myopic american" etc etc

to those who point out all the reasons why we're not great

to those who i guess say we used to be great and r no longer

what's great about this country i think is that people do care

i care when some on this board trash our country - i think they're ingrates - at the same time, what makes this country great is that ability to trash our country - kind of a tough one

so i defend ur right to say this country is no good
and i couldn't disagree more about ur opinion

im heading to LA for a few days - another great part of this great country - im in NY u see

great in Kansas (never been - wanna go), in Boston (fenway park), Chicago (a lake like an ocean), Florida (early bird special), CT (where NickCole has his 2nd home - doesn't everyone?), NJ (home of the NY Football Giants), Pennsylvania (Philly Cheese Steaks), Rhode Island (Misquamiqit Beach), Maine (lobster for breakfast?), Maryland (Inner Harbor and Fells Pt), Virginia (very sexy guys there), Nebraska (got stranded in Omaha 1x), Arizona (dry heat they say), Indiana (Notre Dame baby), Kentucky (great malls), Atlanta (Buckhead), North Carolina (duke, unc and nc st), new hampshire (where the gay guy from sopranos hid out), vermont (nutty judges and all), cape cod (my fav place in the world), wisconsin (brett favre country), tennessee (heavy but great bfasts) plus


i been a lotta places in a short period of time - and this is not an all inclusive list

all great

all

consider this my howard dean rant

cept - im not crazy

love this country

so criticize it all u want - shit on it if u want

ud be wrong

and someday, u will agree

Fantastic post, Chance. I was ready to stand up and cheer!!! 100% agree. I love this country and all that if offers and its' lofty goals and ideals, and I do find our govermental institution at least adequate....it's a boat that floats slow and gentle...EZ does it..you can't sink it, but don't look for it to move swiftly and efficiently.

 

[koontzfanwv]

One thing that makes this country great is that we can have discussions like this without getting beheaded or jailed by our government. God Bless America doesn't imply that America is better than other countries. God bless Ethiopia etal as well. One of the reasons i lve this country so much is that it represents the world. We have an ethnic diversity and a diversity of thought unlike any other country. W are the world in one country. So while my heart goes to countries like Ethiopia,Rwanda and Iraq,i will continue to love the term God bless America.

 

[SoulSearcher]

Ponder this: http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

 

[byro]

^ Pretty overwhelming, especially the number of times force has been used against our own citizens.

 

[JayHawk]

What is so amazing? Don't they teach history anymore? Or is it just history from the liberal teacher or prefessors point of view?

 

[LaloGS]

overthrow the govt?

why?

our govt is good

people make mistakes

the system is damn good

no need to overthrow

tweaking is fine

just fine

as in elections

etc

Chance, I've been trying to ignore you, but if you truly believe this government is good, then I have to say you've made it more than abundantly clear you haven't got a clue about what it is doing in your name. If you support the lying and killing and bullying this government is doing in all our names, then all I can say is you need to get off the drugs, and start looking around with a clear head. If that is possible for you. . .

Oh yeah, you ought to take a course in reading comprehension. You understand so little of what gets posted here. Your "Good System" has been corrupted, and you can't see it or don't want to.

And to your earlier post, you still don't get the difference between a Republican and a Repuglican. Must be a difficult concept for you to grasp.

 

[LaloGS]

Ponder this: http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

Thanks Soulsearcher. And this list does not even include the 50 year war against the American Indians. It only lists a couple of instances. One omitted is the famous Kit Carson excursion against the Piute tribes where a US military wagon train went from village to village distributing blankets supposedly to help the starving people through what looked to be a rough winter since all the buffalo had been killed off. It would have been a mission of mercy except the blankets were intentionally infected with Small Pox germs. Thousands died from what they called the spotted sickness.

This same technique was used against the White Mountain and other Apache tribes. Even to this day, survivors of those peoples won't eat speckled trout from their mountain streams because the speckles on the trout remind them of the spotted sickness that killed so many.

We've been real good to our own people.

 

[LaloGS]

What is so amazing? Don't they teach history anymore? Or is it just history from the liberal teacher or prefessors point of view?

What's your experience of history being taught Mazda? I majored in history through high school and college, but it wasn't until I began to do research and reading on my own that I realized my school courses were all biased toward America. America never did anything wrong. You ought to swallow your ignorance of this country's real history, and start looking a little bit deeper.

The Sand Creek massacre by the US military in the late 19th century(after peace treaties had been signed) was the murder in cold blood of old men, women and children of the Arapaho tribe not far from Denver. The reasoning for the massacre? The citizens of Denver didn't want the Indians so close to the town because the whites knew that since the buffalo had all been slaughtered, they Indians were more likely to steal cattle to survive because they knew the Indians were starving. Something like 500 men, women and children were killed and left to rot in the grass.

Or the Leadville miner's strike. That was put down by the US military at the request of old man Rockerfeller who had an interest in the mines. Dozens were shot down like dogs just for asking for more safety in the dark tunnels they were forced to work in. Many of the murdered miners were just trying to leave for better jobs elsewhere, but were still gunned down. Sort of brings to mind the Attica massacre by the National guard at Nelson Rockerfeller's orders. Dozens of innocent (Non striking) prisoners collected in the exercise yard of Attica prison because the real bad guys were inside the prison cell blocks with guards as hostages and had threatened to kill any of the prisoners who refused to join them.

Reckerfeller ordered the men in the yard back inside and when they were too afraid to face the insanity inside the cell blocks, he had the National guard to shoot them down. Dozens either died or were seriously wounded.

Then there was Kent State massacre. College students protesting the Viet Nam war were murdered by the National guard on then president, Richard Nixon's orders.

There's more, but if you really care, then get off you couch and start reading some history for real.

 

[Chalchalero]

For years I've struggled with my feelings toward my home country, the U.S.A.

When I was a kid there were a lot of bumper stickers that said things like, "America, Love It or Leave It" and "My Country, Right or Wrong." I would see my uncle get teary-eyed listening to the Star Spangled Banner, I pledged allegiance to the flag every morning in school, and I was raised by my (liberal Democratic) parents to salute it when I'd see it in a parade.

But even as a young kid I never understood blind allegiance to something so fluid, multi-faceted and obviously flaw-riddled as a country (though I wasn't able to think it through quite that way). I felt bad or vaguely criminal for not wanting to defend America simply because it was where I was born. I felt there must be something wrong with me.

To this day I've never understood the "God Bless America" bumper stickers which imply that the U.S. is somehow a better country than others. When people say, "Well we may have our flaws, but we're still the greatest country in the world," I want to ask, "How would you know? Have you lived in other countries?"

I'm reminded that we're responsible for the greatest genocide (Native Americans) in history and that our country was made possible and founded upon it. I remember that we're the only country in history to have dropped not one but two nuclear bombs on civilian populations. Slavery. Internment camps. Jim Crow. The invasion of multiple sovereign nations. My Lai. Waterboarding. The list goes on.

Obviously, other countries have their own laundry list of historical horrors, but I don't think that any other proclaims its greatness so relentlessly. Other countries don't fly logos of their flags on their news stations or deride their politicians for not wearing a flag lapel pin.

How am I supposed to feel proud of a country that has used its awesome power and wealth to destroy so much?

I think of the things I do love, mostly people (Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Studs Terkel, Martin Luther King...), but then I think of how Americans themselves stack up against many foreign populations I've come to know; we're more entitled, more acquisitive, and more reckless. I love the genius of what the Founding Fathers intended, but when people say things like, "I trust the wisdom of the American people," I think, "You mean the same American people who were led by the nose into Iraq and who gave Bush a 3,000,000 vote victory in 2004?

I'm not an America hater and I've given short shrift here to those things which do stand this country in a noble light. But I wonder how other people here define patriotism. If you love America, what, specifically do you love? How do you feel when you see an American flag waving in the breeze? Do you think America is the greatest country in the world and if so, why?

Non-Americans welcome to contribute, please.

What an incredibly well-written post!

I was born in Cuba and raised in Argentina until I was twelve. I was brought to America by my father and have lived here ever since, with various interludes in Paris, Geneva, Buenos Aires and Mexico City. I am an American citizen and have, until recently been well enough pleased with that.

When I was a boy in Argentina, I grew up under a vicious and violent dictatorship which was fully funded and supported by the United States and run by officers trained by the United States at the belatedly defunct School of the Americas.

My grandmother, who spent many of her early years in London and therefore spoke perfect English, refused to ever speak English again after the 70's, so great was her hatred for America. She was livid when my father brought his family to live in New York, despite the fact that it was his bank which requiered him to move here. She never forgave him for not simply quitting his job instead.

Whenever I am in a country where I do not speak the language, I have to address people in Spanish or French, because they rebuff me if I attempt to speak to them in English. I travel with my Argentine passport because an American one makes me a target of derision and mistrust when I travel even to Europe.

When I first came here, I was quite apprehensive about living here. I was actually afraid of Americans, thanks to all of the stories I heard growing up about the racism, the crime, the atrocious hypocrisy of their foregn policies and human rights record around the world.

In time, I have come to learn that this is no more what completely defines America any more than baseball and apple pie. I have come to respect and admire the diversity of this country and the ideals for which it stands (on the whole).

I despise the exportation of cheap American pop culture. I decry the foreign policies which have at times (in my opinion) caused grave problems for many people in the world. I am disappointed by the provincialism and overriding influence of the Evangelicals on civil liberties and overall freedom of expression in this country. I am somewhat surprised by the chauvinistic view of many Americans that allows them to gloss over what is wrong with their country and to proclaim its superiority throughout the world to the detriment of all others. I was (and remain) furious with the American voters for their stupidity in electing George W. Bush and allowing him to involve us in the disaster we know as Iraq.

But on the whole, I would say that I am glad I was raised here. I have been given enormous opportunities and been exposed to so many different people, places and things that just are not possible in any other country, and that, I believe is what makes it special. The best in the world? I wouldn't know. But a great country nonetheless.

 

[star-warrior]

Come to think of it, I have several wonderful friends there, so it's a great country because I have friends there.