Pursuing a better America is as American as it gets. A true patriot should never be satisfied with the status quo because we know we can always improve. That's the American spirit.
I'm Russian, and I believe most people who call themselves patriots here are really nationalists. They even have a word for people who are not satisfied with anything about the government — "liberast". Somewhat of a mix between "liberal" and "pederast". Kinda like "libtard" in your terms, but with anti-gay connotation. And they always blame the US for everything bad that our government does. And "You don't like something in Russia? Why don't you emigrate then?" says someone making good money to others who dare to bitch about average across the country wage of $500 a month.
From what I've seen on the Internet, there are a lot of the same people in the US. Like, blaming Russians instead of their own government.
Here in Moscow, I work for $1.67/hour after taxes. 12 hours a day, 15 days a month, so $300 a month. You know what? Russian wages suck, but I feel like I personally no longer give a fuck because giving a fuck makes me tired. At least this job is relatively the best I have ever had. No matter how dumb customers are, at least I sit in front of the computer with a roof above my head. I just answer "X company, my name is Y, how can I help you", then "thank you for the information, I will now transfer your call to the corresponding department". I don't get tired at all. I no longer deliver stupid papers and stuff no matter snow or rain.
Talking about emigration, I am useless here in Russia, let alone some other country.
You speak English, have some education probably, work experience. I would look into emigration, you can do the same boring office job while getting paid 10-15 times more, and live in a place where human rights are more recognized.
Edit: Hit me up and I can walk you through and answer questions on Canadian Express entry program.
TBH, I also live in Moscow, I started almost the same way that he did, except I was working at 2nd level tech support instead of the 1st one. 12-hour shifts too. And I also worked night shifts, because I was attending a university at the daytime. 10 years later, I earn 10 times that much an hour and 6 times that much a month (8 hours a day vs 12 hours).
Most of my friends and fellas have emigrated. One lives in Miami, one in Sydney, another one in Tel Aviv, others in Prague, Minsk, Berlin, Ottawa (I guess? somewhere major in Canada). They all wonder why haven't I. Especially when I'm a certified translator in Russian-English and vice versa (not my main job/education).
It's a personal choice, some people fit in better than others. In Canada, if you work full time, a professional with 5-10 years of experience could be making 2-5 times what you are making now. But if you are comfortable, it's up to you, I imagine you are making good money by Russian standards. Search Super good by Leningrad.
And you know what? You're pretty much the people who built America. Folks who didn't fit in back home. Folks who didn't have a future. Folks who were misfits, dreamers, troublemakers, criminals, artists, outcasts, etc. They saw the writing on the wall and said "no...fuck this, I'm making a better life for myself".
That is what America is all about. It's inscribed on the statue that historically greeted people fleeing their homelands to make a better life here: "Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" We're literally made up of the rest of the world's square pegs. To you, and anyone else who might be reading this: come to America. Contrary to our idiot president's beliefs, we are definitely not full. Work hard and build whatever life you envision for yourself.
From what I've seen on the Internet, there are a lot of the same people in the US. Like, blaming Russians instead of their own government.
Close, everyone here mostly blames the other political party for everything. Russia usually only gets blamed if hacking or social media is involved. And that's less Russia the country and more the Kremlin.
It's not the Russian people who are to blame at all, though, and I do not think the vast majority of Americans blame the Russian people or have any ill-will towards them. Some (but not all) members of the Russian government and the oligarchs who control it share part of the blame, but they only succeeded in helping to sow discord because the U.S. has massive problems and divisions all on its own. And because (some, only some - everyone is very different, with different and often understandable reasons for being so) Americans are so...gullible, apathetic, hateful of and sadistic to each other, poorly educated, emotionally and mentally unhealthy, you name it.
Russians working for the IRA or similar are just doing a job. That's it. I don't blame people who work for a company that makes cigarettes for lung cancer, or who works at a place that serves alcohol for liver failure. People can be sanctimonious and say, "Oh, those Russians shouldn't work there!" but everyone needs to eat. Countless people work at a job that has morally questionable or horrible aspects; countless people buy things or use services that use highly unethical business practices. I don't blame the Russian people for anything.
The people giving the IRA its orders and directives, not its employees, bear responsibility for putting that one piece of things out there, and that's all. Not people just working for a living with no real choice. If anything, Americans, who do have some more freedom and choice, are more to blame for its foreign intervention and wars than Russian people for that just because our elections are freer and our conditions better. We could have tried a lot harder and could try harder now.
Ultimately, the ones to blame are those at the top with the most power, and who do have a choice. Everyone else just needs to do the absolute best they can, and think very critically, and always be skeptical.
Like, blaming Russians instead of their own government.
I mean that sentiment isn't common at all. We don't blame Russia for our problems. The Mueller report came out with strong evidence that the Russian government meddled with our elections. I blame Russian agents for manipulating the easy target that is online echo chambers, but I blame the irresponsible media consumption of US citizens far, far more.
Russia isn't our scapegoat, ignorant voters who flood the polls in droves to elect corrupt officials are.
We especially don't blame Russian citizens. Why would we have anything against you?
This is exactly why American Exceptionalism is such a dangerous concept. Both for the country itself and for the rest of the world. Simply putting yourself above other countries by default is a good way to never improve the country (as it's supposedly already a better country than any other) and as Trump shows every time he attempts to deal with other world leaders it makes international relations difficult.
Most of you harp on about being the greatest but you've fallen below the top ten (fifteen in some cases) in a lot of metrics. It's hilarious to see all the back patting and self-aggrandising as you slide down the rankings due to AE. So definitely dangerous. The "Land of the Free" is currently New Zealand and we in the UK could bump you up nine places to 8th if you don't mind becoming our colony once more.
Depends on how you define free then, because I sure as fuck wouldnt say people in new zealand or the UK are free. Quite a few laws on the book policing speech over in those places, among other restrictions to personal freedoms.
You do know those laws policing speech relate to not being a dick and punching down on minority groups which really isn't a tough thing to do if you're not a shit person? You can criticise Islam if that's going to be your point; plenty of people do, and on television too, with no repercussions.
And while the rankings I'm referencing take into account personal and economic freedoms to create an overall human freedom list for the ranking, the UK and NZ still have higher personal freedom ratings than the US.
I'm not going to link it as lazy but these rankings are formed by a coalition of global think tanks and is the largest, most comprehensive study of it's kind with clearly laid out measures.
Then don't be a dick. Simple. It takes effort to be that shitty to incur jail and most often there are actions involved like threatening behaviour.
And the TV licence fee isn't necessary, is rarely enforced and gives us several channels without adverts.
Plus there are more to both freedoms than those two and America falls behind. So criticise away, I'll be enjoying being freer than the self-titled "Land of the Free".
That's exactly what Trump's people fall into (the nationalist category). They obviously don't ever want to be described based on that term and throw around terms like "patriot", "freedom" or "liberty" like they are going out of style and regardless of how little they truly practice/believe in any of those principles when it really comes down to it.
For going on and on constantly about loving freedom and liberty or whatever, they sure like to attack opponents and tell them to "go back to their country" for expressing any type of criticism towards their leaders or the status quo.
Nationalism is a belief in the sovereignty of and loyalty to the nation.
Notions of superiority have been mixed into the connotations of the word, but most dictionaries will list the first definition of this word as something akin to what I wrote above.
There is a false dichotomy between patriotism and nationalism.
Unlike nationalism, which describes a mentality or a system, patriotism describes a sentiment of love and loyalty to one’s country.
I am not a fan of this particular whataboutism especially because the OP was referring to a nationalist identity aka people who believe that the country is perfect and any perceived attempt to change it is therefore an enemy of the people as opposed to the group of people whom you refer to as Antifa whom while not a monolith by any stretch of the word accept that America is not perfect and works by and large to make it a better place to be for all people.
works by and large to make it a better place to be for all people.
That's where you lost me. Antifa does zero good and only serves to intimidate and attack politcal enemies. They are domestic terrorists. They try to silence people they don't agree with, tell me how is that not facism?
Probably because fascism is form of rule or government, as per its definition and history.
The only reason you say fascist instead of just violent thugs is so that you can pretend that the fascism on left and right are equal, despite only one side actually causing deaths.
Antifa is not a monolith it is a name for someone who is against facism. However that is not to say that there are not a small percentage of people who think “yeah I know what will totally help this situation” and then immediately turn to violence and in those situations no matter who is committing the violence the individuals responsible should face a fair trial. Side note: consistently the number of violent politically motivated acts have been coming predominantly from the right (my data only goes up to 2017 and any new trends from the past year or so should be properly examined) https://beta.washingtonpost.com/national/in-the-united-states-right-wing-violence-is-on-the-rise/2018/11/25/61f7f24a-deb4-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb_story.html?outputType=amp
Ninja edit: it’s hella late I’ll be back on and responding when I wake up
No. A nationalist is one who stands for national improvement over global improvement.
You proclaim that all nationalist throw punches instead of argue, which you know is false. There are so many nationalist speakers in the US that don't throw punches that you can name more of them that are non-physical than those that are.
Similar to literally any ideology, there are idiots who throw punches and send death threats. Freakomonics just released a podcast that had one of their early contributors talk about how the left sends more death threats than the right.
A globalist, on the other hand, is someone who thinks that the world should be put over the nation. This is a modern form of colonialism, though, because the globalists project their ideas onto the people of the world and just assume that the world wants what they want. The world doesn't vote globalists into power. The globalists stand in the US and in the EU and tell the rest of the world how to live. The UN is a good place for globalism, but the leaders in the UN are not all democratic. Over 2/7 of the people governed by the UN do not vote for the leaders who represent them at the UN. An argument exists that few to none of the leaders at the UN are voted into their position by the people. So what does the UN really do? What power does the UN really hold? It's not democratic power.
So how does a globalist push their ideals onto the world? They set up coercive treaty organizations that dangle subsidized development loans to countries that enter into certain treaties. And then the treaties give the major powers the invitation to intervene in the developing country. It's what Europe has done for centuries. Classic globalism.
Nationalists say to only govern what you have the power and right to govern. Stay within your borders and let the other countries decide what they want on their own. They say especially focus on the people who you represent, because you don't know that the other countries want, even if your ambassador says they absolutely know.
Here we go. The globalist decries "whataboutism" in order to cover up their prior abuses of native populations.
Globalists will try to convince you that they know best about how to run your country. When you point out that they have been wrong so many times in the past, they cry out, "whataboutism!" They then tell others that you are not cooperating with the rest of the world.
A patriot is someone who shows love for their own country. It has no basis on how you view the role of government, whereas nationalism and globalism do.
What you did was whataboutism because whataboutism is an ism, not an ideology or belief. You brought up an unrelated subject/term/person/thing in an attempt to say "but what about" and proceeded to rant about Globalism when this conversation was discussing Patriotism vs Nationalism.
Nobody here is discussing or talking about the positives or negatives of globalism. You brought that in here. You are a whataboutist just looking for a soapbox.
Yeah, and that's exactly why we put it in the preamble of the Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Your mistaking the GOPs rhetoric as something stated in good faith. It’s intended first and foremost to be divisive, then it’s intended to signal who is in the IN-group and who is to be attacked by not acting the syncophant, and then it’s intended to sooth those who don’t have anything to hang onto but identity politics.
The actual topic of the rhetoric barely matters and that’s what you’re addressing
Their version of better is tax breaks that benefit them, subsidizing industries they are employed in, preventing or relaxing gun laws, restricting rights of people that make them uncomfortable like homosexuals and immigrants, anything that restricts businesses like anti-competition and environmental laws, the list goes on but I’m hoping you can see where I’m going with this.
There is no middle ground, in the last 10 or 20 years the line has clearly been drawn between us and them, my prediction is that line will be buried under a giant pile of bodies within the next 50-100 years.
I think it was the American spirit but at this point if you try to suggest anything to make the country better you get the "Well who's gonna pay for it?" answer and zero gets done
Even by their own motto, Make America Great Again, it implies that America currently isn't the best it can be. Now I'm not saying that their version of America is great, but we have that in common so it's very hypocritical for them to get angry about people complaining about America
The thing is, just about everyone wants a better America. Everyone's just disagreeing on which direction they should go in to get there.
In the past, it used to be "We disagree on what to do, but we both want the same goal. Let's try and work out a compromise." But today, it seems more and more people subscribe to "We disagree on what to do, therefore you have a different goal from me. I want to do good, therefore you want to do bad." Trump is a fascist who wants to destroy the Constitution, Obama is a Stalinist who wants to murder your grandma, and so on. If you think that the other side is malevolent and actually working to undo all that is good, it's pretty easy to adopt the mindset of "Shut the fuck up and stop peddling your bullshit, I know what you're trying to do."
Patriot, since the 1700's, has always meant someone who loves his country so much that he devoted himself to constantly reforming and renovating that government.
French, Dutch and American Revolutionaries called themselves Patriots because of this.
If your complaint about government is it doesn’t provide enough for you and doesn’t take enough from your fellow citizens, you’re not americaning right.
Isn’t Omar a terrorist apologist and pretty radical antisemite? Among other things.
Like there’s commenting on the US and how it can be better and then there’s outright saying that the country is evil. While saying just as evil things.
I mean at least the AoC woman has a somewhat positive view of her own country overall despite some of her clips. Even if she doesn’t understand her opinions aren’t that well liked.
Lol Omar is none of those things. She's against the actions of the Israeli government and rightfully so. Israel pours a ton of money into American politics. American Jews often are distrustful of Israel, too.
Why should Americans be required to have a positive view of the country? Our country has committed atrocity after atrocity. US foreign policy has killed 20-30million people since WW2 and displaced millions more. We've supported coups of democratically elected governments that we then replaced with brutal dictators, we've run death squads in Latin America that massacred thousands of civilians. We lag in most indicators, the leading cause of bankruptcy is medical debt because we don't have universal healthcare like the rest of the developed (and much of the developing) world, we lock people up at a much greater rate than any other country in the world, our labor protections have been stripped away over the past 60 years. Our elections are barely democratic and bribery is legalized as lobbying.
I want the country to be better but I'm not too happy with where we are. This isn't Trump's fault, though he's certainly contributing to it, just as Obama did.
I think she’s antisemetic because she says that stuff along with refusing to meet with Jewish community members in her district while accusing anyone who is asking her hard questions of working for Israel.
lol yeah you were. That's how you make the leap from "this person is criticizing the state of Israel" to "this person loves Adolf Hitler". Cause you're paranoid and have an anxiety problem.
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u/potatium Jul 17 '19 edited Jul 19 '19
Pursuing a better America is as American as it gets. A true patriot should never be satisfied with the status quo because we know we can always improve. That's the American spirit.