Non-American here!
I've visited America a bunch of times and I really like it as a place, they have amazing scenery pretty much everywhere you look, and just about every individual American I've met has been really nice.
BUT...
I'd never want to live there. Their healthcare system is insane (sorry Americans but it is) and politically as a nation they're pretty bonkers. Guns, religion, general sort of global belligerence etc.
Also as an aside, San Francisco is genuinely one of the strangest places I've ever been to. I dunno if I was just there at a weird time, but it seemed like every single person there was either a millionaire or homeless. Absolutely nothing in between.
Their healthcare system is insane (sorry Americans but it is)
Don't apologize! If anything that's an understatement. And everything else you said is on point too.
Source: Am American.
Ask any San Franciscan and they'll tell you that's just San Francisco.
Work takes me to Houston from time to time, and I wholeheartedly agree. I would never want to live there.
It seems that whenever you find something likeable about the place, it turns out to be a product of a predatory system.
I seriously hope the workers at T.J. Birria Y Mas down in Missouri City are well paid and cared for (I doubt it), because they're doing an awesome job and it's hard not to love that place.
Oh nobody likes the healthcare system except the people profiting from it and the people who think billionaires will love them and share if they sing their praises enough.
That is not a simple question. My life is what it is because I live in America. I am not driven to move elsewhere.
But America is far from what I want it to be. Last night's debate was a good example. I am so baffled that those two are who we have decided should have power.
I agree, though I haven't watched the debate yet. Personally, I have mixed views on current America, particularly on mass surveillance. But I believe we can change that if we all try hard enough!
I appreciate Chase Oliver's views and see him as a better choice than RFK in my opinion. He's running as libertarian, supports immigration, opposes war, is pro-gun rights (his motto is 'Armed and gay'), against government surveillance, pro-abortion, 38 years old, and wants to end the war on drugs. I feel like I could vote for him, even as a right-leaning straight white male! I really don't like Trump or Biden, and I refuse to give them my vote.
Libertarian=hard pass.
Libertarian Police Department Copypasta
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
VIDEO FROM THE NEW YORKER Throwing Shade Through Crosswords
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him
Sadly, the effect of not voting for one of the 2 candidates is to intensify the power of the most extreme views. Say 100 people can vote. 25 on each side are going to vote for their party no matter what. 20 want something crazy in one direction and 20 in the other direction, and both sides are likely to protest and/or not vote if their guy doesn't pander to them. That leaves 10 persuadable people -- mostly people who are busy with other stuff and not paying attention to the minutia of various policies and the likely after effects they will cause.
What is a candidate to do? They pander to the crazies. They can hardly bother to assuage the persuadables because those folks aren't paying attention anyway. They have to go after the people who might bail if they aren't appeased. I hate the system, but there it is.
Pro gun rights is precisely why I don't like America, along the other statemente in this thread. Y'all got it tough to only be able to vote for two terrible options.
Yes. As a black man, America has produced a long very involved legacy of which I'm proud being my heritage.
Sure, it was absolutely founded on treating people like as sub-human, and there are people today that are trying to return me to that state, but fuck them as they've been fucked for the last century and a half. I'll be damned if I let them represent America.
I'm genuinely glad we live in a country that recognizes the horrors of its past. Even with all of the "whitewashing" that occurs in textbooks in parts of the country, like "states' rights" in the Civil War and praising Columbus, there's still an overwhelming consensus that minorities were wronged for our entire history.
I love America. I'm rather less fond of some of the people in it. The land is beautiful and varied. There is so much space here. And the constitution is really special, I think, though not perfect. The biggest flaw is people haven't been taking politics seriously and have elected unserious people.
I swore to defend it many years ago. At the time I was a kid just paying lip service to a required oath, swearing to a god I never believed in, but the truth is I do love it and I would fight for it, warts and all.
people haven’t been taking politics seriously and have elected unserious people.
This is the inherent flaw. We have a representative government that never intended "people" to take politics seriously. Politics was for the landowners.
I love this take. I was the same way when I raised my right hand.
No, I live here.
I hate
- religious zealotry
- massive dichotomy in polotical ideologies
- identity politics
- warmongering
- brainwashing (pledge of allegiance?!)
- poor treatment of poor and homeless
- prison complex
- poor education system
- incredibly expensive healthcare
- terrible zoning laws and car centricity
- hiroshima, native genocide, iraq, and so many more. The US has shed so much blood and terror inflicted on the world population
- world police, vigilante, the US is basically every bad movie villian in country form
- regressing views on women's rights
- the history of slavery
It depends on what you mean. America the government courting christofascism? Hell fucking no. I wish all the Republicans and neolibs in power would have a heart attack. I also wish to live long enough to read Trump's and Alito's obituaries. But I do love my local community too much to just abandon them. At best, I would call my relationship with America akin to Stockholm Syndrome.
Fun fact: The term "Stockholm Syndrome" was a term coined to silence a woman who criticized the bumbled police response that put her and other hostages in even more danger. She wasn't enamored of her captors, but instead critical of the police.
love your country, hate the government
Naw, it made some kinda sense for a while but the writers really jumped the shark in the past decade.
The United States has done far more harm than good for humanity at large. The individualistic values it champions have led to a society that is fragmented and leaves many citizens in misery. Its global hegemony has resulted in the destruction of numerous countries, with countless lives lost due to its military interventions, coups, and regime change operations around the world. Moreover, the US's extractive policies have prevented other nations from developing their own economies, perpetuating a cycle of underdevelopment and dependency. Additionally, as one of the largest consumers of energy per capita and major producers of fossil fuels, the United States is among the worst offenders when it comes to climate change, exacerbating global environmental crises with its unsustainable practices.
I couldn't say it better so I'll just second this.
Yes, I don't think many people realize how good we have it here. I say this having traveled to places and seen some shit (war in Iraq, gang violence in El Salvador, abject poverty in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan).
Can the U.S. be better? Of course it can. There are horrible things happening here and people are losing their rights at a scary rate. However, these horrible things are not on the same level of horror as that which is occurring/has been occurring in other countries, it's apples to oranges.
Anytime I've been overseas and I come back to America I realize how much I love it here. We have it so good here, really. But as someone else stated, there is huge inequality that needs to be addressed in order for EVERYONE here to have it so good.
Thats the catch 22 of America, its "good" except when its not, and like 60% of Americans are one missed paycheck away from it being "not" - And once you're there this country hates you and does everything it can to make sure you stay fucked.
See: SCOTUS ruling the other day that you can't illegalize homelessness but you CAN illegalize homeless behaviors like sleeping outside or in a tent.
(Because since pot is increasingly legal we have to bolster those legal slavery numbers somehow!)
I totally agree. There's a huge effort by the wealthy to keep the average person down, otherwise the rich don't make the money. It's super fucked up.
America sucks. The government and the "America" it upholds is an institution of evil, a factory for global war and oppression all while insultingly calling itself "land of the free", and anyone who latches onto its historical "achievements" probably sucks too.
America, americans, or american politicians? I've got different opinions. The common american may be misguided or misinformed, but they're not hateful. America itself, has done incredible damage to the world, all while claiming they're all for liberty and freedom after being dragged into the most clear-cut good vs. bad war almost a hundred years ago. Ever since, it's has been dragged kicking and screaming towards progress, and fighting very hard to go back to the stone age. American politicians are nearly all wastes of skin.
For reference, I'm latino.
I would feel better about america, as a non american, if the country on the whole would accept they aren’t the only country in the world, and didn’t continuously consider themselves the greatest. Actually acknowledge their history and the atrocities committed to get it to where it is today.
Have some god damn humility
I love it, and that's why I want to improve it. And you can't fix a problem without acknowledging it exists.
This is a nation founded on the ideals of genocide, slavery, and white nationalism. No I do not like the US. I'd not trust anyone who does. The USA should be dissolved.
I meant to say white supremacy, not white nationalism. But nationalism is a problem too.
I’m European and I have mixed feelings about the US.
There are some great sceneries, nice peoples and my accent does wonders there. I like its smaller towns and countryside.
But at the same I hate its cities. You can see the most widen gap between poverty and absurdly rich peoples in the same street. You can have a wonderful avenue and once in the back alley it looks like third world. I’ve never seen that many weird people than in the us. There’s too much violence and capitalism. And don’t get me on the fucking tipping culture.
Love our land, loath our society.
The natural beauty of America is amazing, but the people seem to be mostly absolute shit.
Permanently Deleted
As a non American who used to live there, I can say some things are amazing and some things are awful.
I love the nature. The national parks are so beautiful. I like many of the people. And there are good job options there in tech.
But the awful things were a deal-breaker for me, and why I'd never want to live there again. The wealth inequality, the guns, the crime, the homelessness, the healthcare system, the partisan politics, etc.
So ultimately I probably fall on the side of not liking it.
I fucking hate this dystopian hellscape of misery and torment and I hope it gets glassed. Land of the fee, home of the slave. If I get drafted in WW3 I'm a turncoat as soon as they hand me a gun.
At least we made UNIX. UNIX is cool.
Meh. I’m an American and I don’t hate it here. But I’m from (and moved back to) a culturally distinct place (New Orleans) so I don’t really identify with the dominant culture. I loathe the politics/corruption and how our government is structured. (The amendments are the best part of our constitution and maybe we should think about that for a bit.) I’m deeply ashamed that we’re the world’s biggest arms dealer and oil/gas producer.
That being said, we have beautiful landscapes and individual American people are usually kind, decent people, at least on an interpersonal level. The corruption of companies and elected officials doesn’t usually extend to the middle class. (Like, you don’t have to bribe someone to get a driver’s license or permits or whatever.) There’s obviously loads of advantages to being an American citizen, just as there are to being an EU citizen. I love our national parks. Just the western half of the United States contains enough varied forms of amazing landscapes to keep a person occupied for a lifetime.
So, I wouldn’t say I like America as a political entity. It’s definitely in my top 30 or so countries to live. I wouldn’t give up my citizenship for a random place but, having travelled extensively, there’s a lot of countries that have a better form of government and a healthier balance between oligarchs and labor.
Not even a little. We are being forced into sickness and poverty. We make just enough to put food on the table and even that's getting harder. An unexpected illness is setting people back on their bills. Every law that's passed goes against what the people want and the only way this will ever change is if we can afford to pay off a politician like all the major companies do. Voting doesn't feel like it makes a difference anymore and the only platform it feels like they use is "at least I'm not them". I've said it before and I'll say it again if someone paid for us to leave the US I'd be packed within a couple of hours.
I have distant extended family in New Brunswick. It's not good enough to get me Canadian citizenship, but it could be worth a try when Civil War 2: Here We Go Again starts.
I started to write a novel, but suffice it to say that I left nearly a decade ago and many things seem to be getting worse rather than better.
America big, America great. America have a lot of problems. A lot of good things and a lot of bad things.
We have so much wealth and resources, it just needs distributed much more fairly.
It depends on the state.
I've always thought of America as a teenager - we're sophomoric, rebellious, and self- centered. We don't have the history of most other countries. Our settlement and the beginnings of our government are really not long ago and most of us are just a few generations deep. I'm thankful for my life here and appreciate the struggles my family endured to make life better for the next generation.
Careful with the idea that you're a young country with limited history. Your indigenous peoples may view the matter (rightfully) quite differently.
In Australia we actually changed the lyrics to our national anthem a few years back. It did say "...we are young and free". Which is a bit of a 'fuck you' to the people who have lived on and cared for the land for upwards of 50,000 years. So it's now "we are one and free".
I'm not chastising you, just prompting you to think about things differently.
Not sure I share that viewpoint for the US, the history of the indigenous is the story of the people, not the nation.
And the US has many more populations that have great history, from EU and Africa.
But the beginning of its history is founded on the gathering and interaction of all those different cultures.
So for me saying the country is young doesn't quite have the same connotations of erasure from colonialist, it mostly makes me think of how current the melting pot of all those different cultures are.
I still agree we shouldn't diminish the importance of indigenous people in it.
Arguably, many people groups indigenous to what is now the US (and often times into Canada and Mexico as well) were each their own countries and sometimes joined into confederacies (for example the Iroquois Confederacy and some others). I do think indigenous voices frequently get lost (and that does need fixing), but I don't know if there's value in representing them as a single unit as though they were a single nation before. Many groups came over at different times, migrated around, etc. They're not even all in the same macro language families (and may have come from separate peopling events, but that's a whole other can of worms).
It's important to remember that what was before is not now.
Saying it's all the same is disrespectful to what was taken
You're past your teenage years; Australia and New Zealand are younger. America is more like someone in their 20s fucking up their life with party drugs. You might make it, you might not. Either way it seems right now you need a hard reset.
Either way it seems right now you need a hard reset.
Yet, half the country seems to be choosing to go back to Trump. There's no cure for stupid.
The country was founded in large part as a nation for those escaping oppression and persecution for their beliefs. It was designed to provide everyone certain freedoms the founders claimed to be inalienable.
While this is still an immensely powerful idea, it can not function without guidelines and government involvement.
Two hundred fifty years ago, it made sense for sparsely populated states to operate mostly independent of the federal government. In time, land became more dense and borders dividing populations and cultures and commerce blurred. Now, the entire world is instantly connected.
Somehow, generation after generation, it was not self-evident that all people should be treated equally. The police force and prison system still largely resemble what they were initially intended to do - serve the wealthy and enslave people for profit.
The United States affords everyone the same freedoms and opportunities by way of doing nothing at all. Everyone has the opportunity to work hard and make a fair living for themselves. But some people win the genetic lottery and inherit extra opportunities and extra freedoms.
We all have the freedom to be complete idiots and that's considered a win.
Our constitution needs to be re-written. In my opinion, it needs to be explicit about what all the citizens of the United States should be afforded: education, health care, clean air and water, shelter, the right to not be lied to by the people who draft and pass legislation impacting our lives, the right to a source of information that's not subject to special interests.
No. I can't say I like it. I don't like how our government is intent on making our lives worse by their inaction. They take more and more of our money while we get less and less in benefits.
We have no leadership. We have influencers and celebrities. Some people complain about globalism because they know we can't compete on a global scale. People are prejudice of foreigners who take their jobs because they're complacent with doing as little as possible. Our most successful form of entertainment is ragebait. Who's helping us progress as a country? Who's helping to make us smarter and healthier and happier? Who exactly is promoting general welfare and domestic tranquility?
It's the land of the me and home of maybe. And our constitution supports your freedom to be this way. Some people love that and claim the freedom to do nothing is what makes America great.
A great America, to me, is one built for everyone to prosper, that promotes self-worth and civil respect, that strictly enforces the idea that my freedoms can not be infringed upon by you freedoms or beliefs. A great America is one that doesn't have elections where you have to vote for the person you dislike the least. Politics should be positively engaging. We should give a damn about our leaders and they should have to deal with consequences of their actions, like anyone else.
Though it's not perfect, the one thing I really love about America is our immigration policy. It's the best place on the planet for people to escape for a better life. Our country is built by and thrives because of immigrants. It's the one thing that has held true for hundreds of years. How we treat immigrants is a sin. How our government fails to properly fund our immigration system is appalling. I believe most people are in support of legal immigration yet they fail to support proper funding of our immigration department. It wreaks of racism and bigotry.
America is, by design, the land of the self-righteous. The only people in favor of that are the self-righteous.
The facts are it's an oligopoly which is rapidly moving towards pairing this with totalitarianism. Propaganda is so pronounced today that finding actual news is a chore, and if shared it's labeled as "fake news". A study was recently published demonstrating political moves are made without any care for how it impacts the masses. It's tough to see the decline happen in real time while most deny it's occurrence. Most are too focused on owning others in the working class with alternative ideals.
But in the U.S., the natural beauty is phenomenal. Yet it's being traded to allow conglomerates to squeeze more profit out of dwindling resources. If something doesn't change the course soon, this answer potentially could land me in prison in the near future. Which is counter to what the country was supposedly established to prevent. It's rough in many aspects, yet not entirely hopeless, at least as of this moment.
Parts of it are great, the parts that aren't are a nightmare and will never get better.
Non-American here.
I don’t dislike America. I was a teenager in the ‘90s, when the culture was peaking in influence here in the UK, so I have great nostalgia for American things (which really helps when playing the daily NYT games). I’ve visited a few times, and always enjoyed my time there.
But I am real fucking tired of the American influence on the internet, on politics, and on attitudes around the world.
I’m tired of the American view being the default on social media, because the majority of social media sites are American, populated by Americans.
I’m tired of saying something that would completely uncontroversial outside the US that attracts a rash of people bitching at you because it’s not normal over there. Like letting our cats outside. I once said something on Reddit about my cat getting killed by a car, and got a bunch of replies from people telling me how irresponsible I am for letting her go outside.
I don’t use TikTok, but my wife does, and part of her kinda wants the US ban to go ahead, so that her feed is a bit more balanced towards Europe. And I get that.
:edit: I accept that this isn’t the fault of individual Americans, and hold no ill-will towards them. It’s down to the vast majority of global tech wealth being held in the US, giving the illusion that the whole internet is an American thing.
I also accept that this is rank hypocrisy coming from a Brit. If we’d had the internet 250 years ago, the whole world would be speaking English now, as opposed to most of it.
Does no one understand the difference between a country and the continent where it is?
But what is America without US? /s
A better place
God bless the United States of America
I like your America, you Americas are so unlike your America.
Best part of Gondwana
I wouldn't willingly live anyplace else.
Non-American here. You all keep making up the vilest "jokes" about French people. The sheer level of ignorance and disrespect deserves nothing but contempt and derision. And that's what you'll get from me and most of Europe.
Better learn to cope 😒.
Wow dude chill, Americans making fun of French people for being French is like Africans making fun of darker Africans for being darker. Like yeah it’s asshole behavior but it’s all in good fun asshole behavior.
You know, like you do with the Dutch.
I consider myself an Oregonian first and American second. Most of the country I can absolutely do without.
Oregon though...
I could do without most of Oregon too
I hate it despite realizing what a good life I have because I was born here with a lucky set of circumstances (cis white male). But I love parts of it, like the Bay Area and Oakland and all the surrounding hiking spots. If we didn’t share it with lunatics I’d feel a lot better about it from a policy perspective.
No, but I like it more than China and Russia.
America is addicted to money however, and has a warped idea that working hard is somehow what life is about. But it's still not close to fascism and there is some accountability still.
Idk the Republicans seem to really want fascism.
America is the center of the world, hate all you want. This is the cutting edge today. Hollywood is the dominant music/media power. Silicon valley is the dominant technology power. NY is the dominant financial hub. The hippie cultural revolution was largely here, and the civil rights revolutions that inform modern morals. America spends more on military than the rest of the world combined, and therefore has massive influence
So that's my context for being here. I was born pretty far away in Europe, which is great in its own ways. But if you really want to play the game at the highest level, America is the place to do it. Everyone else is just trying to catch up. Or they are enjoying a happy low stress life of wine and women with a high standard of living and low inequality — which are definitely unamerican ideals XD
But if you really want to play the game at the highest level, America is the place to do it.
I mean if "the game" is having the largest prison population per capita then sure, but otherwise America is mid in almost every category.
