Americans' pride in US history and democracy drops, and fewer are proud to be American, polls find
Americans have grown less proud of their country’s history or the way its democracy works over the past decade, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
Americans’ pride in the U.S. on several key attributes has dropped since 2017 — including the nation’s military and its political influence around the globe — according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. This poll was conducted in April, as the United States and Iran fought over the Strait of Hormuz in a prolonged war that started with the U.S. and Israel launching strikes on Iran.
New Gallup polling also finds that only 53% of U.S. adults are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American, the lowest reading in the trend dating back to 2001.
98 replies
I still have pride in what The United States aspired to be between the two times the billionaires took over.
Truth, justice, compassionate for most (not Nazis, for example) and a vision for a future that lifts up all cultures and takes responsibility for our mistakes.
I am definitely not proud of who we are right now.
America has always been owned by the capitalist class, since Jamestown. White supremacy has always been prevalent, even during the short period of social Democracy under FDR.
The United States has never aspired for any of those things. It was founded on Slavery and Ethnic Cleansing, values still institutionalized today in for form of penal slavery and chauvinism. Even the modern nazi movement of MAGA echos back to the supremacist practices the Nazi's got from the US.
The values you like have never come from The United States, they've come from the history of resistance of American workers, from abolishionists to suffragettes to sewer socialists
You mean some of the 12 years when FDR was president? That may be the only time that somewhat matches your description, but still not full 12.
And that took a country in literal starvation.
And there was a literal apartheid in place while he was president.
Wow....never seen such an ignorance of modern American history. Are you forgetting all the "interventions" the US did since the end of WW2, especially in South America where despite the supposed "war on drugs" the CIA teamed up with drug cartels, arming them, funding them, even allowing them to smuggle drugs into the USA to fund rebel fighters to overthrow governments? How it massively increased it's prison population and then allowed them to be used as slave labour by corporations, actively got minorities hooked on drugs, used it's own National Guard to kill protesting university students at Kent State?
Look up CIA involvement in Indonesia.
CIA stands for Criminals International America
Right, i'm totally unaware of any of those things because otherwise I could not possibly have any aspirations or good feelings about the higher goals of many people in this nation have. Martin Luther King Jr. was just a fool if he even existed because this country is so horrible.
Truly, the fact that I still live in this country means that I am as bad as every one of those things that you described, because I haven't killed myself or left in disgust before now.
LMFAO
Would that be before or after they drove all the Native Americans out in order to try to establish this?
I did say aspired for a reason. The actions of the leadership does not necessarily mean the ideals are bullshit. Ask the abolishionists who were fighting against slavery in 1800.
what a joke
america has always been a terrorist right wing state since its inception, when did it represent those values? americans are most propagandized species
I am very much ashamed to be american right now.
"...but at least I know I'm not free"
See "Merican - Descendents"
we're a bunch of obnoxious assholes what's to be proud of
People are realizing they are free-range slaves and the institutions of both government and religion are false paths built from ideas that were once authentic. Both being used as conquering techniques to own control of humanity, not necessarily protect, serve, or secure an honest future for it.
Humanity isn't a godly experience anymore, it's a business, and the people got so manipulated they are proud enough to kill to be a form of owned cattle.
If there is an awakening socially maybe we will end up seeing the issue stems not from America alone, but western culture as a whole. America is just ...like the selfish arrogant rich kid that made it blatantly obvious.
In palantir and marketed psychological media that leads the path of our future we trust. Amen.
The first step in true change is understanding that we ourselves still hold blame daily. Once we can reconcile this understanding and work within ourselves to become genuinely better humans, that honest truthful change can grow outward. Change isn't coming from anyone but ourselves. Stop waiting for a saviour, otherwise things will continue to become worse. Live for needs, don't get distracted by wants. Wants enslave you to becoming their cattle. Understand what is truly need, detox from the old culture, and relearn the idea of creation, which historically is what it means to be built in God's image. Buying mass produced bullshit that contains no honest expression of the human experience is like drug use. That is how they make you their cattle. Become human again.
To be fair that was true before, we just didn't see the full picture before. People of color been living like this the entire time.
Being proud of something you had no part in creating always seemed weird to me.
Write a novel. Perform a song. Win a race. Makes sense to be proud.
Happen to be born someplace? Big fucking deal. Most of the people who go on about being proud of the US are going out of their way to make it worse
Sports team fans have always been a weird thing to me. Love the sport? Sure, but caring how a team does that you have no influence over is weird.
"WE WON!!"
You didn't win anything. You watched highly-trained and compensated professionals win. You got literally nothing out of it.
The emotional buy-in makes it more exhilarating. And it's really easy to do, the human mind loves to give things an identity and a story. And it satisfies the primal urge to belong to a community. Team sports basically hack your brain in some very satisfying ways.
It gets messy when people with poor emotional regulation rely on the sports feelings.
As I've grown older, I've given far less fucks about professional sports. The fact of the matter is those people playing on the field are the furthest from a representation of you as an individual as you can find. They are literally millionaires and multi-millionaires from random fucking places all across the country. They have no connection to your city, other than being drafted, traded, or maybe signing and choosing to play there. Additionally, a lot of people who make it in sports are big into faith, and don't shut the fuck up about it like those douches on the San Francisco Giants recently did on the team's pride night - offending a shitload of lifetime fans in the process. I guess when you play / coach sports, and everything goes your way in life and you make millions, it's easier to drink the religious kool aid.
Additionally the number of pro fascist pro athletes lately is too damn high, and it is annoying. Hell, my (former) favorite player on the Raiders - Maxx Crosby outed himself as a chud a couple of years ago after Butler, and it makes it hard to root for the guy. Having said that, I love sports and am competitive by nature, so I continue to watch, but my level of fandom has definitely fallen off a cliff.
I think the idea is if we had a functional democracy we would have a part in creating it.
The lack of patriotism is just more people waking up to the fact that neither Republican nor Democratic politicians give two shits about the American people.
Because being a citizen of that country/city means you are inherently responsible for and add to the culture of said country/city. There's no song, novel, or individual that is created without outside influence and in the vast majority of cases that influence comes from a village/city/country. You literally wouldn't exist as the person you know if you were born somewhere else.
There's nothing wrong with being proud of where you come from. It only becomes problematic when it becomes nationalism
This is true but seems irrelevant to the point. You wouldn't exist without the sun, but no one's out being proud of the sun.
A lot of the flag waving types I'm thinking of, the maga hats et al, are making the country worse. If only they were responsible (as in, accountable).
Either my point flew over your head like a 737 or you're just bad at arguing...
If you were born one town, city, or state away from where you were born you'd essentially be a completely different person. Its perfectly reasonable for someone to be proud of where they come from because the overall experience there shaped them as a person in what they consider a net positive.
It's not "perfectly reasonable" to be proud of that. It's common, but the whole dispute here is people saying that it is unreasonable.
Many people consider a personal accomplishment of some sort a prerequisite for feeling proud. Being born somewhere is not that. You can see other people in this thread rejecting being proud of a sports team they don't play for.
(There's also pride like LGBT pride, but that's more of an explicit rejection of being told to be ashamed. And surviving while queer is something of an accomplishment.)
Well if that's the case someone from a formerly poor or war torn nation can have pride being from there because their ppl survived. You're just moving the goal post
I could see that being compelling. Proud that you survived oppression or whatever. But it doesn't really apply to the us, which is what this topic is focused on.
Emma Goldman on Patriotism (July 9, 1917)
The Anarchist Emma Goldman was tried for conspiring to violate the Selective Service Act. The following is an excerpt from her speech to the court, in which she explains her views on patriotism.
"Who is the real patriot, or rather what is the kind of patriotism that we represent? The kind of patriotism we represent is the kind of patriotism which loves America with open eyes. Our relation towards America is the same as the relation of a man who loves a woman, who is enchanted by her beauty and yet who cannot be blind to her defects. And so I wish to state here, in my own behalf and in behalf of hundreds of thousands whom you decry and state to be antipatriotic, that we love America, we love her beauty, we love her riches, we love her mountains and her forests, and above all we love the people who have produced her wealth and riches, who have created all her beauty, we love the dreamers and the philosophers and the thinkers who are giving America liberty. But that must not make us blind to the social faults of America. That cannot make us deaf to the discords of America. That cannot compel us to be inarticulate to the terrible wrongs committed in the name of patriotism and in the name of the country. We simply insist, regardless of all protests to the contrary, that this war is not a war for democracy. If it were a war for the purpose of making democracy safe for the world, we would say that democracy must first be safe for America before it can be safe for the world."
What articulate and insightful writing, someone should make a book club studying her work, I'm sure the state wouldn't do anything horrible to them /s (arc)
For her ideas to flourish, organized hierarchical government -- which she saw as an enemy of her concept of democracy -- must first be dissolved in favor of anarchy.
Give me something to be proud of, and I'll be fucking proud.
But currently...
We have hands down, the most corrupt federal government in our history.
We're blowing up non-military boats without any due process.
We're shooting missiles in elementary schools and threatening the death of an entire country.
We're financially and materially supporting/encouraging a genocide.
We've hung Ukraine out to dry.
We've absolutely skull fucked the global economy.
We're being lead by (probably) a core member of the largest child trafficking operation in the last century.
Our people can't afford healthcare, childcare, housing and food.
The right to vote is actively being undermined.
You know what would make me fucking proud?
Fining (or better yet liquidating) the corrupt companies, individuals and organizations that are party to trumps grifts, using that money to establish UBI, pay reparations to Iran (of all fucking things), establish fair and sensible taxation policies, reset the supreme court, and put every fucking member of the Trump admin through an actual justice system that is accountable to the people.
Franky, anyone who is proud of the US right now needs to be fucking locked up.
Oh, I forgot, we have literal concentration camps in the US right now... For the second time in 10 years!
Let's be clear. The primary reason people have lost pride in America and democracy is Donald Trump and his administration. You can say other administrations have had their faults, certainly, but what's happening now is far, far worse. And let's not forget the constant drumbeat of propaganda from Fox News and other right wing outlets telling us our country is a shit hole. And again, we have our problems, but this is how propaganda works. You mix in some truth about something while wildly exaggerating or making up other things about it.
Yeah. Know what? I think that's the narrative they're trying to bully us into. The "proud patriots" being their right-wing gooshtepperz and everyone else just whining and hating the country and saying it sucks all the time.
Nonsense! We should take pride in our country, because that spurs us to fight for it and make it better. You're much less inclined to kick miscreants and ruffians out of a space you don't consider yours.
They practically already hijacked the flag, the flag that's supposed to represent all of us. They've hijacked the narrative of the Christian faith as well, which actually used to be a HUGE leftist thorn in the side of capitalists, when it was actually centered about loving thy neighbor.
We've seen in our lifetimes how easy it is for symbols to change. We need to take back our country and its heritage. The "red state" faction is even trying to claim the narrative over the revolution, instead of the more accurate history their ideology represents: The Shameful South of the Civil War. (They'll hatefully decry all the "blue states" that actually won this land from the grip of the crown, of course.)
Like we should just let them have all of that, while they give us a little corner to complain in? While they march a private army through our cities and abduct and murder our neighbors?!
Hell no! This country can be a great country, when it's a country for everyone. We just need to take it back from those who think they can make it "great again."
Have a safe July 4th, take pride in being an American by pissing off fascists and enjoying what's good about your country and fighting loudly for what can be BETTER. They HATE that.
Idk Trump is without a doubt the worst (so far) and doesn't bother to even dress it up as anything else but when I read this:
My first thought was "Ruh Roh..."
Every authoritarian overreach, breach of civil rights and liberties in the name of safety, invasion of privacy, and abuse of executive power, was made possible by the Patriot Act and the Bush administration's response to 9/11.
The creation of ICE and homeland security (once again for our own safety).
Information control and the idea of a post truth society vs a reality based community that seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the year.
Propaganda and fear meant to box people into black and white thinking is an echo of McCarthyism but was most famously stated as "If you're not with us, you're against us."
That frame of mind/tribalistic thinking was normalized in the 50s, signed into law in the early aughts, and the same day Charlie Kirk was assassinated and Trump signed NSPM-7, allowed the already overly vague and easily abused definition of terrorist/terrorism to be expanded to include political opposition and basically anybody for anything, because the king says so.
Not long after NSPM-7, the king and his administration began targeting fishing boats in Venezuela with drone strikes and breaking into homes in the United States without search warrants due to similar vague claims about threats of terrorism and safety. And even though they've mainly focused on immigrants so far, they've quietly continued to test the waters and see how far they can expand that definition by linking groups of protestors to gangs and possession and distribution of drugs to foreign drug cartels (while also literally making closed door deals with wealthy drug cartels and their families, bc they do whatever TF they want. Organized crime is still organized crime, but it's legal for certain people).
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/trumps-orders-targeting-antifascism-aim-criminalize-opposition
https://www.newsweek.com/what-is-nspm-7-over-3000-nonprofits-sound-alarm-on-new-trump-directive-10807321
https://www.commondreams.org/news/minnesota-indictments
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/06/donald-trump-gao-report-shell-companies-money-laundering-drug-cartels/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/left-wing-extremist-groups
They really ramped things up with Renee Good and seemed to back down a bit after Alex Pretti, but they're definitely not done. People should not be letting their guard down, because without a doubt they're going to get more brazen just before and especially after the midterms, and as the king keeps reminding us, he wants to normalize the idea that there are no limits to his executive power. (And SCOTUS has continued to quietly ensure that's true).
Tldr: I question if it's really a coincidence Trump makes W.'s legacy look so much better by comparison, because W. and his administration enabled all of this. (And tbf to "both sides," I do honestly feel that the Dems that came after W. in Congress and the White House deserve a middle finger for not making any real effort to undo any of it when they had the chance.)
Edit: Also, if you're interested in understanding the legal path of exactly where we're headed and why you should be very angry every time Trump or JD Vance slips in some bullshit normalizing the idea of unchecked executive authority (aside from the obvious), I recommend more people familiarize themselves with the legal theory of Common Good Constitutionalism.
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/25141335
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/10/4/common-good-constitutionalism/
Yep.
America is still behind the times.
https://discuss.online/post/41923167
Not lost on me the ONLY time a president has been elected to serve more than twice was the most democratically socialist president the country has ever had. He was so good that Wall Street capitalist swine conspired to stage a coup led by General Butler, who did the right thing and exposed the fuck out of those assholes.
Oh if only principled and brave generals and admirals like Butler still existed today...
America is not my country. It is my prison.
Im not sure if I have ever been proud to be an american. Like brief instances where we did things right but not given our general behavior over all time. Hopefull certainly. Not just in america but in democracy around the world. I can't say I have much hope now. Honestly though civil society is feeling like the environment now. Going to do what I can and fight to the last but I don't expect a turnaround. Just going to do my best to be as little of the problem as much as possible and as much of the solution as I can be.
oh heck I don't even have hope for that. I just want to leave it as less worse as I can. I want to be as least responsible for this trump show as possible.
Felt pretty good when Obama was elected (I wasn't yet voting age so I don't even get credit for helping) and then that was swiftly a disappointment.
Republicans are out of touch on virtually everything. What a surprise.
Eh? I never understood patriotism tbh
Weird!
The rise of the surveillance state that none of us wanted. Roaming death squads putting kids into concentration camps. Threatening to annex Canada, Greenland, Venezuela. A system of checks and balances that turned out to be a complete fiction. We spend billions on bombs and missiles so that we can get involved with Israeli genocide/rape/torture and other war crimes. AN INSANE NARCISSIST FLEECING US ALL AND NOONE SEEMS ABLE TO STOP HIM.
What's not to love?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
The fucked up thing is that you could post this comment every day, with the reasons replaced with different (equally fucked up) reasons, and it would take months to run out of examples.
The scale of the rot is truly breathtaking.
Imagine Billy Joel remakes "We didn't start the fire" but replaced it all with stuff happening over the last couple years.. The song would last 45 minutes
I'm a trans latina immigrant who fled the US after ~25 years there. I absolutely refuse to be labeled an American, but I proudly call myself a New Yorker.
I spent my entire life in the states fighting against an institution that doesn't want me alive for basic rights that are awarded to other people by default. I still have to pay the US taxes but I'm not allowed to renew my passport because of who I am. Why the fuck would I claim it as my heritage? If anything, I'm grateful I wasn't born there. Fuck the US.
On the other hand, I'm proud of my home city. I'm proud that I got to vote for Zohran, proud of my friends, proud of the artist communities, and overall proud of how NYC is inspiring other places to resist. As much as I love my new home, I also miss my old home. I am glad I can remain proud of my state after the term American has been dragged through algae green mud.
--
On that note, I've always understood exactly why so much of the world hates the US. Me too buddy, me too. The loudest Americans I encounter nowadays are easily the conservatives who get off to ragebaiting the locals. It's always a couple livestreaming and secretly looking for a third. Why are there so many of them!?
I wish I had a way out or a place that would accept me.
Even if the United States was the greatest place on the planet, why would I ever be proud of a happenstance of my birth?
Bit embarrassed to live on earth these days let alone the US.
Same. Looking forward to the aliens putting us all on time out.
I really hope like the galactic equivalent of the USS enterprise shows up and is just like "what in the fuck are you morons doing?"
We wouldn't be anywhere close to qualifying for admission into the federation. They require a stable world government.
Oh no I was thinking more like a lost ship or something stumbles on earth. Given the choice they'd probably take one look and move on.
In the show they landed in plenty of authoritarian versions of Earth.
Even Picard's god-awful season 2 went into the absurdities of the US's medical industry and the treatment of immigrants.
Voyager also had a 2-parter with a 90s US techbro as the villain.
Nationalism generally should be shunned.
I've never been "proud" of the country I happened to have been born in and have lived in because I've never had the means to move anywhere else.
I'm much less satisfied with how things are going in this country over the past 10 years, but it's never been great. Healthcare is a constant struggle, and terrible, for instance.
I don't take pride in anything billionaires accomplish for themselves, which is 95% of what is usually pushed forward to take pride in. It's all bullshit.
Recently, we've bombed children in other countries, should we be proud of that? I'm ashamed of my country at the moment.
Everything is shit because our leaders don't feel any common identity with the people. They don't feel any need to represent us. We need more nationalism, not less. I don't see how we could have any less nationalism than we already have. The soul of the USA has been torn out and stomped under corporate boots.
"soul of USA" as if USA isnt doing exactly what it was meant for, what it has always stood for
I think US history is fucking brutal, sad and shameful. Any white american, especially those who were here from the start, should not be proud of their heritage, I certainly am not. That said, I do embrace my country. It has the potential to not be shitty. We have kind people. We have generous people. We have so much that we could be proud of.
I think we need to reject the make america great again idea and charge it to make america decent for once. It could be great. But it never has been.
That's because we've watched the veil of democracy fall and the Epstein class can do as they will with no recourse.
I have no pride in this shit hole country, only shame.
When you want to be pumped to celebrate America's 250th birthday but remember all the history you weren't taught in school.
I've never been proud to be a US citizen. Pride is something that should only be towards something that you achieved. I think the USA has missed a lot of opportunities to become more powerful because of individualistic greed and lowering taxes on corporations.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"
And
"If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, it is not merely because evil deeds may be performed in the name of patriotism, but because patriotic fervor can obliterate moral distinctions altogether."
Most USA citizens are unaware of the degree of propaganda we're fed starting during childhood. I remember saying the pledge of allegiance (a very weird thing to teach to children) in school every day. It's like the hitler-youth. And singing the star spangled banner, in first grade, every morning. Very weird thing to make us do.
When I was 18 years old, we rented the animated Transformers movie from the 80s and played it on silent with trippy music while we were on acid. The animation was so cool that we later rewatched it with sound on after we came down and it held up. We thought the GI Joe movie might also remain good and rented that next. It was child-propaganda. My then-gf turned to me and said, "this was Regan's amerika." She was right. It was trash.
We were taught how awesome we were since I was a child while the truth is that we brutalize, overthrow, and extract. I read an 800 page history of WWII and came away with the primary thought that the USSR won that war, not the USA. I can't believe how much we lie to ourselves. But it makes it easier to justify all the horrors. Look at repubs trying to sanitize the teaching of history even further. I wonder why…
Just woke up, not proofing, may have typos, oh well.
Fewer still, at least, know they’re free
Can't say that I ever felt pride as an American. What IS an American anyway? I don't feel kinship with much of the land and its peoples.
I don't understand how you don't feel a kinship with the land. If you mean that it's fucked up how America came to "own" it then yeah, that's fucked up, but the land didn't do that, fucked up people did. I love the beautiful land of America so much and that's honestly the biggest/only thing I'm proud to be American for right now, and I spend as much time enjoying it as I can.
I haven't ever had enough money to travel beyond my city, nor to afford third places. My PC is the world to me, because it is the closest I can get to wandering off to somewhere else.
For people who lack wealth, it is difficult to develop a connection with many places, let alone a deep one. The Lincoln Memorial, Yellow Stone Park, Florida, Hawaii, all are just places in a picture. No different from Cuba, Switzerland, or Japan. All these places are even more fictional than those in my videogames, because I can't even visit.
I would probably feel more pride and connection if it weren't for the fact that it's only mine to enjoy because of theft and genocide.
It would also help if so much of it weren't covered in parking lots, strip malls, and car dealerships.
nothing to be proud of a neo nazi state
as it should be
Bit slow, but correct response
America: Asians discovered it, Africans built it, White people destroyed it.
53 is far higher than my circles. Must be mostly outside of the suburbs
Never understood the national pride thing. People born here didn’t choose here.
Nobody gets to choose anything about their birth. You can choose to make things better or you can choose to bitch about the state of it while doing nothing. Those are what you get to take pride in.
People can be proud of what they are. It is how it is, I guess.
Of course they can.
I said I don't understand it but if people want to do it that's them.
There are no countries, only people. Patriotism divides.
Sounds like something someone from a shit country would say. My country rules! Go patriotism!
To all the bots and the ideological batshit insane people I'm seeing in this comment zone: he who's nation has no guilt, cast the first stone.
I am left wondering is any of these comments are from actual humans.
So we can't criticize our own nation's faults because other nations might also have faults? Do you not see why that's ridiculous?
Where did you get that? Almost everything in here is talking about how America is evil has always been evil and will forever more be evil. No way for anyone or anything to change. Nobody here has ever aspired for anything better nobody's fought for the benefit of others.
You think that's a reasonable approach?
Take note, it all started because I was criticizing my own country, and trolls and Bots piled on telling me I'm so naive.
I’m proud to be an American because of the noble principles upon which this country was founded, its triumphs through struggle, and what it aspires to be. It is, at its best, a great nation.
I’m pretty ashamed of America at the moment because of what it’s doing, what it’s been doing, and the state of it. Trump and his entire administration are corrupt monsters ruining not only this country, but having a terrible effect on the rest of the world.
There are a lot of Americans I’m unspeakably ashamed of: the surprisingly small minority who are responsible for electing the current administration, but I’m especially disappointed in the vast majority of Americans who have completely checked out of participating the system at all, allowing that small minority their chance to usurp the power of the masses for their own cruel means. I’m incredibly afraid for the tens upon tens of millions of Americans who are so very vulnerable to attack right now and, more than ever, need protecting. But I’m especially proud of those Americans who stand up and do their best to fight back against tyranny and oppression, and there are plenty of those, too. And I’m more than proud to count myself amongst those people.
The US was founded on genocide of indigenous people and slavery was embedded in that society at the time (“all men’s are created equal” my ass). While some aspects of it were good and “modern”, most of it was something most of other world societies experimented with already centuries prior. I agree the US was one of the first big nation implementing democracy in a world dominated by monarchies.
i’m not denying any of this. I fully acknowledge that these are terrible sins of our past. but the same founding fathers, the same ones who even practiced these horrible atrocities themselves, foresaw (or at least aspired to) a future free of these terrible inequities. And they also hoped that future generations would strive for a society free of them. And so we have succeeded… to some degree, and continue to work towards that goal. But just because we have not accomplished each and every goal to 100% does not mean that we have failed.
I’m proud to be part of a society that has accomplished these things at least to the point that we have so far. I’m proud of a society that continues to fight for these things, to achieve them further, even when a shameful segment of our society wishes to return to such a shameful past. And that’s my point.
It’s not so - pardon the pun - black and white. A great deal of progress has been made. Surly, there have been setbacks, but we are a lot better off than we used to be, and were constantly working towards that goal. And take pride in our accomplishments. I acknowledge our setbacks.
Like half of these noble founding fathers were rapists and slave owners. I don't think their aspirations were that people like themselves would disappear
Why should I have a conversation with someone who starts their conversations in bad faith, arguments by willingly admitting that they don’t think?
That may have reasonable … but it’s not anymore. Shall we start from the beginning?
Are you angry that not everyone in this comment section glazes the genocidal imperialistic entity that calls itself the united states of america? You certainly seem to like insulting others for criticizing slavers.
Since there’s nothing I’ve said that could pass as what could be attributed to any emotion, let alone, anger, I’ll just chalk that up to you projecting some unresolved emotions of your own.
Best of luck with that bullshit. 😊 I’m gonna have a nice relaxing bath. Hope you work that out!
(And since I don’t wanna deal with your unresolved, crap, I’m blocking you. Best of luck!)
Noble principles… Like kicking Native Americans off of their land?
Or slavery? Or women and other minorities as second class citizens? Or every other form of inequality, tyranny, or whatever else was present at the end of the 18th century in North America?
No, actually. I wouldn’t call those a noble principals at all. But those are not the principles upon which those country was founded. They simply existed when this country was founded. There’s a difference, and I openly admit that, when this country was founded, those principles definitely seemed very mixed and muddled. And even very difficult to believe from those very men who espoused them. But it wasn’t up to them to live up to those noble beliefs, it was to their descendants— Us. And while we’ve done a pretty shitty job of it, no doubt, we’re better than they were. and that’s not nothing. Progress isn’t made in loops and bounds. It’s made in steps. The important part is that the steps are made forward, not backward.
What I’m referring, however, to is the noble principles spoken of in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution. The principles that the founding fathers aspired to, not necessarily those which they practiced themselves at the time. Even those men knew that we should all try to be better than we are. That our future generations will, hopefully, be better people than us. that our future society will be better than the one we currently live in, and that it is our duty to make that future possible.
I’m able to appreciate the good things about this country while recognizing the incredibly shitty things about our past and present. that should be pretty obvious after I spoke about being proud of those Americans who fight back against tyranny and oppression.
But I’m also able to recognize that progress is made in steps, not leaps. And the most important thing is that those steps be made forward, not backwards.
Actually, one of the key motivators for the War of Independence was the fact that Britain had decided to stop expanding the colonies westward. The colonists wanted to do more genocide but the British wouldn't let them, therefore war.
*citation needed
America was founded on the principle that it's worthwhile to start a war and kill thousands of people if it benefits your tea-smuggling margins.