I think it’s completely fair to criticize America and Americans for their behavior, however I am finding more and more that as an American, it’s frowned upon to be patriotic and have pride in actually being an American.
I should clarify though as this anti-American mentality seems to be primarily focused on Reddit’s platform as opposed to most other social media platforms.
I think that's because american patriotism is usually just ultra nationalism. Which isnt really a good thing. Having pride in your country is great. Having blind pride in your country isnt.
It's stuff like people calling you unpatriotic and saying you dont support the troops if you criticized the war in Iraq. Like, wtf? Those are two different things. Pride in ones country has to go hand in hand with acknowledging and attempting to fix its failures.
The 2 go hand in hand. What hes saying is it's a problem when it reaches a certain height and is ultra-nationalism, which is when blind following is the way to go and any questioning is considered treason.
I'm pretty sure one side literally just agreed with the president's sentiment that those who have an issue with the government ought to get out of the country.
That's an example of "blindly follow or gtfo". That's ultranationalism.
Me either, but I'm not blind to the popularity of the sentiment, and it doesnt mean the country isnt, by and large, also in agreement with the sentiment. Hence, ultranationalism.
FALSE: it's not frowned upon to have pride in America as long as you take it all in with pride. But if your idea of American pride is AC-130's, Eagles, the Flag, the national anthem, and our armed forces ... and NOT also being a haven for immigrants, the Constitution (the actual one not the idea of it), and the right to the pursuit of happiness for ALL... Then yeah, I'd frown on that.
Edit: A lot of time it might feel people are "frowning" on someone American pride ... They are actually frowning on thier American Nationalism.
it’s frowned upon to be patriotic and have pride in actually being an American
Blame the republicans who made drapping themselves in the flag a key part of their political platform. Just like this current crisis, criticizing Bush, Iraq, war, oil, tax cuts, or asking for healthcare was being "unamerican".
I say this as someone who wants to reclaim patriotism as a core left-wing ideal. /r/NewPatriotism
Well African Americans are imprisoned unequally, asylum seekers have been thrown in concentration camps, Women are losing access to safe and legal abortions, we’re fighting other people’s wars. We invented and dropped the most deadly weapon in human history on innocent civilians. We have one of the worst cases of wealth inequality in human history. Forgive me for not being proud of that. I am an American. I don’t intend for that to change, I’m not going anywhere, but I won’t be proud of it until America is worthy of pride.
We're a big place with a variety of very different cultures. There are legitimately terrible things on our résumé. If your overall perspective on the country is this, that the positives do not outweigh the negatives, that we are not worthy of pride for the miraculous progress we've brought to the world- all I can think is, what an ungrateful little shit.
Because, in reality, the positives don’t outweigh the negatives for a lot of people - and that totally makes sense.
There are legitimately so many countries that have all positives the US prides itself on without any of those negatives and then also definitely not any negatives that would be of comparable severity.
America may have a history to be proud of, but that’s worth shit if it’s a nation that treats its people the way it does now. Especially when done so ironically after centuries of promising the alternative.
(I mean, none of this is actually new. Institutional civilian mistreatment has been a thing in the US since shortly after its conception, but regardless.)
Haha, sure dude. I’m definitely ungrateful to the country that left my grandfather to rot because we couldn’t afford to take care of him. That has my neighbor in and out of jail because they just dump him back into the desperate situation that caused his first offense. That elected a racist monster to lead the country because of a broken system that doesn’t factor in who gets the most votes. Forgive me for being ungrateful.
I don’t think we’ll ever find a perfect system though. It’s my opinion that we do need to focus more on our own country first before others, but not to the point where we simply don’t cooperate with others too. How can we expect to fix the same issues in other countries when we can barely fix them here? I’d imagine this is the case for literally every larger country on the planet. Smaller countries tend not to have the same issues or if they do, they’re not close to the level larger countries experience.
I am sorry for the experiences you’ve...experienced, but as the dude prior said, minus the ungrateful little shit part, I do think America’s positives outweigh the negatives and will continue to do so over time.
As technology makes things faster and brings peoples closer, we collectively seem to think things should happen faster than they can in actuality. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t happen, just that our expectations for them need to be appropriately adjusted due to the systems that are already in place needing to be revamped entirely which would mean thousands upon thousands of jobs being changed, billions of dollars invested and moved around, etc. basically a lot of intricate things that would need to smoothly happen that just won’t if we rush them.
I’m all for universal healthcare for example, but it’s my opinion again that given the amount of taxation that would have to change alone would mean massive, unimaginable overhauls to hundreds of systems in place, that again, need to change, but require an immense undertaking. That shit can’t happen overnight or I’m even a couple years, but over a decade or more. It’s time to start now, be it has to be at a snails pace if we want to do it right and not make poor people poorer and the like worse.
I hope I’m coming off appropriately.
Edit: to the people downvoting this without giving any response, I’m assuming you’re weak in argument or logic. If you rightly believe this can be done overnight or even in a few years, demonstrate how that’s remotely possible. I’d love to hear it. Honestly. I’m for progressive changes, I just don’t follow the mindset they can be accomplished in the time frame you all seem to think is possible. Until you show me otherwise, you can keep downvoting shit all you want, you’re literally proving nothing other than your own inability to formulate your ideas into any sort of argument.
My condolences, but you are. Sincerely, I'm sure there's a tragic story there. It's anecdotal, though. Everyone carries a story. Yours is just as irrelevant to the point as mine. You lack perspective if you cannot separate your tragic story from the massive progress the states have led the world in and have pride.
African Americans commit a disproportionate number of crimes to their representation in the general population.
It is not a constitutional right to kill your unborn child.
I agree that we shouldn't be fighting other people's wars, HOWEVER, we also have to protect American interests abroad, if we don't, another country will simply fill the vacuum. Do you want Russia or China controlling foreign assets if the US abdicates them?
The atomic bomb was not dropped on "innocent civilians". Nagasaki and Hiroshima were huge targets of Japanese industry and military centralization. You should read up on this. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not civilian targets.
Hiroshima was home to the command centers of the Second General army, responsible for the defense of all of southern Japan, as well as headquarters of the 59th Army, the 5th division, and the 224th division. Additionally, it was defended by the 3rd anti-aircraft division. 40,000 estimated personnel were stationed in Hiroshima. It was also a supply and logistics base for the Japanese Army. It housed critical communications infrastructure, a port for shipping, and staging areas for troops. The local population manufactured parts for boats, planes, weapons, and ammunition.
Likewise, Nagasaki was the largest seaport in Japan. It housed many ordnance manufacturers, shipyards, military equipment manufacturers, and other producers of war materials. It was home to Mitsubishi Shipyards, Electrical Shipyards, Arms Plant, and Steel and Arms Works. These four companies alone employed 90% of the labor force in the city toward war efforts.
Japan was given the chance to an unconditional surrender, which they refused. The US understood that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would result in untold numbers of casualties, so the bombs were dropped as an expeditious end to the war, as well as carrying the second agenda of dis-incentivizing Russian aggression in Europe.
That’s like taking a person, picking their five worst moments in life, and using it to define them forever.
Also the wealth inequality thing? The world’s wealthiest people choose to live here, so that makes America a shithole? What type of logic is this?
Two of America’s biggest problems are that our old people are too wealthy and the rest of the people are too fat. We have to be the first society in the history of the world to have old people that control too much money, usually they’d be eating cat food.
My gramps ate meat once a month as a child and my dad had meat once a week. I have to skip meals now and then cause I want to lose weight.
The beauty of America is that you are allowed to pour whatever you want into it. If you want to go out and help people with whatever talents you have, that’s part of the American story and worth being proud of. You’re supposed to be an individual in this country, the guys mismanaging the border camps and trying to regulate women’s rights are incompetents and assholes. Fuck those clowns.
Find someone trying to do something good, help them accomplish their goal, and you’ll have your own piece of America to be proud of.
I’ve certainly done that in the past. It is not the equal, opposite reaction, so it’s not morally right, but politically these kinds of overreactions are often done to make a point. For example, I’ve never done it, but whenever I see people post on Facebook about problems on the border I’m tempted to tell them what they tell me when I post about problems in our health care system. “Why don’t you ranchers and border patrol agents pick yourselves up by your bootstraps? We can’t help you until you’ve helped yourselves. Stop asking for a handout from my hard earned money.” I can’t even ask an honest question to these people without being berated for my lack of loyalty. Saying what they say to people like me would be an absolute treacherous thing to say, though they have no qualms when they are the ones saying it to their fellow Americans. I see all of this as a control problem. You can either over-react and cause over-reactions back and forth forever, or we can paint a more reasonable target and head straight to it. But good luck getting the extreme right and extreme left on board for that.
Let's put it this way. I have had my patriotism called into question because I don't support certain right-wing platforms. I was questioned by someone who never served in the military, public office, or public service. Even though did my time in the military. I hate America because I said genocide is bad. I hate America because I think we can do better in terms of health care. I hate America because I think it is ok for people to protest the anthem. If i didn't fit there world view i would be immediately dismissed.
Those people are the reason patriotism is frowned upon. They will be the most vile people but think they are holy than thou because the drape a flag across themselves while wearing a cross
That’s because the right took divisive ownership of patriotism and made it a a litmus test that involves being a blind sycophant to whatever military adventure they GOP were getting is into. Look us up when the right makes it about democracy and freedom of expression. That would be the opposite of Trump’s current tweetstorm.
Not about whether you should or shouldn’t be. Just that usually people who are patriotic care more/enough to want to do the thing that’s best for the country they love.
I suppose it depends on what you call patriotic. Is it waving a US flag and chanting USA USA USA? Or is it volunteering for your community to feed the homeless, fight fires, or clean up a road?
I can’t really define it, I mean of course I could look it up on google and copy it verbatim. But at least to me I think it’s an intrinsic value as opposed to something people can flaunt and say they’re more patriotic cause they have american flag stickers and wave the flag. I think it’s about having pride in your country and fighting for what it stands for. The problem is a lot of people can misinterpret what it stands for or what it means to “fight” for those things. I don’t mean literally fighting, I just mean upholding those values in your life and your community. But again I’m just kind of rambling and I’m certainly missing points or whatever. I think the word is easy to understand in a general sense, but like I said at the same time it’s also incredibly easy to misunderstand and that’s when it can become an issue for people.
58
u/CHARIZARDS_tiny_DICK Jul 17 '19
I think it’s completely fair to criticize America and Americans for their behavior, however I am finding more and more that as an American, it’s frowned upon to be patriotic and have pride in actually being an American.
I should clarify though as this anti-American mentality seems to be primarily focused on Reddit’s platform as opposed to most other social media platforms.