What are your reasons for loving/hating America?
People feel strongly about the United States. Some people love it and some people hate it. Others are in between. What are your reasons for feeling the way you do about the United States?
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When asking a question like this, the first thing you have to specify is "what is America?" Is it the government? The people? Our culture and history? The founding principles as laid out by our forefathers? For the purposes of this debate I'm going to go with all of the above. I love the fact that our nation has certain core beliefs. Freedom of speech, religion and the press, the right of every citizen to vote, and the fact that we are innocent until proven guilty are all examples of how we have a government that respects individual rights above all else. Theoretically anyone can run for any political office (even president!) and people can say anything they want to about the government without fear of repercussion. I laughed my ass off when I saw a video of someone telling dick Cheney "fuck you." It was a great example of the extent of the freedom we have in this country. What I don't like is the hypocrisy: from historically denying citizens their rights (women and minorities) to denying other people their right to self government (Vietnam, Iran, the Philippines etc...). Our current spending is an example of how we attempt to force our will on others for selfish motives instead of sticking to our principles. We spend about half of our budget on the military. Sound like the land of the free? As for our people, there are positives and negatives. We're pretty good at running a democracy and compromising when we disagree. We've only failed at this once in our entire history. What I don't like is our feeling of superiority. We assume that we can't learn from other peoples, but that everyone can learn from us. This occasionally gets us into trouble when we try to impose our way of life on cultures we know very little about (coughIraqcough). Overall I do love America. I love what we stand for and how far we have progressed throughout our history. If I am sometimes disappointed in our actions, it's only because I have such high expectations for a nation founded on such noble principles. Side: love ideals dislike hypocrisy
I really enjoyed reading your post. I pretty much agree with you that the idea and ideals of America are very good. Unfortunately, USA is far far FAR away from those ideals. Freedom of speech, religion and the press, the right of every citizen to vote, and the fact that we are innocent until proven guilty Again, these are nice ideals but unfortunately there is less power behind them than many Americans think. I should say freedoms of speech and religion are more or less intact. The others, not so much. Voting rights are infringed upon all the time. Also, the 'innocent until proven guilty' idea seems to exist in name only ... I laughed my ass off when I saw a video of someone telling dick Cheney "fuck you" Can you provide a link for this? I would love to see it. I hate Dick Cheney. We assume that we can't learn from other peoples, but that everyone can learn from us. This occasionally gets us into trouble when we try to impose our way of life on cultures we know very little about (coughIraqcough) This is one thing way too many Americans do not / will not / cannot understand. Americans tend to think their way of life is better than anyone else's and that the rest of the world naturally wants to be like us. NOT TRUE. Americans hear the word 'democracy' and they automatically get all tingly-feeling. They don't stop to think about the complexities involved in such a concept, especially as it applies to other cultures. If I am sometimes disappointed in our actions, it's only because I have such high expectations for a nation founded on such noble principles. I think that should be the quote of the year. Side: love ideals dislike hypocrisy
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