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Which best describes your view of the United States?

Which best describes your view of the United States?

  • The US is the world's most exceptional nation, a beacon of freedom, the good guys and heroes.

    Votes: 14 23.0%

  • The US an accomplished nation with serious problems and has done a lot of good and a lot of bad.

    Votes: 46 75.4%

  • The US is an evil empire founded on racism, hegemony, and jingoism.

    Votes: 1 1.6%
  • Total voters
    61
Luna Tick

Luna Tick

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Which best describes your view of the United States?
 
I didn't vote because my view lies somewhere between the first and second choices.
 
We’ve done some good, we’ve done some bad. I think that at one point we really were a beacon for freedom and liberty. At one time, we really were the shinning city on the hill. I don’t think that to be the case anymore. The Republocrats have really had a good go at our liberty and our government has become increasingly hostile and aggressive in the use of its force against its People.
 
My answer lies between the first and third choices, which (funnily enough) is not the second option.

The United States is an evil empire, there's no doubt about that. I just believe that we're the most benevolent evil empire in human history.
 
Choice 2 for me.
 
The USA. "What's good for business is good for the Country." "War is good for business!" Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, San Salvador, Panama, Libya, Yemen, just to mention a few, and a $700 billion military budget in an impoverished Nation. The Nation's interest is war and energy and wars run on energy. Symbiosis. We allow Corporations to grow big enough that they can buy and sell our Legislators and they do, and our Media, the "Mighty Wurlitzer" paints a cozy picture that doesn't resemble reality. Time to wake up. The people of the USA are great but Corporations do not live and breathe and are running the show.
 
Given that I have to compare the U.S. with other countries, it's Option 1.
 
All three.
When we set our minds......
Of course, we have had our problems, and I see no point in Ostrich-behavior.
Option two is the closest to the truth,IMO.
 
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a liberal country having lost of liberals who support lots of leftist ideas but it also hates all leftist ideologies.maybe it is the reason why it has lots of lefty liberalists .
 
Before the 60s, the United States was a beacon of freedom. But it turned into an aristocracy establishing a destructive ruling class as both its decadent Left and Right Wings shared power. These heirheads were spoiled and pushy, sheltered and ignorant, self-obsessed and anti-majority. Previously, the rule of the majority had created the greatest country on earth.
 
There isn't really a choice I fully agree with. I'd say *The US an accomplished nation with serious problems and has done a lot of good and a lot of stupid*.
 
PrometheusBound said:
Before the 60s, the United States was a beacon of freedom. But it turned into an aristocracy establishing a destructive ruling class as both its decadent Left and Right Wings shared power. These heirheads were spoiled and pushy, sheltered and ignorant, self-obsessed and anti-majority. Previously, the rule of the majority had created the greatest country on earth.
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Prior to the 60's,my father(who was both a WW2 and Korean War vet) was a blackman living in the South under Jim Crow Laws and my mother was an Ononadonga Indian living in the Res (an extremely povert stricken place back then,Still is) in upstate NY.Seems they had a different view of that "beacon of freedom" since they both where beaten,arrested,spit upon,attacked by police dogs,and shot engaging in peaceful civil rights demonstrations just somI can enjoy the freedoms I enjoy today.
 
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Luna Tick said:
Which best describes your view of the United States?
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The one which best describes my view out of the three is #2, but my view is between #1 and #2. The United States, to me, is the best place to live for the type of freedom and quality of life that I desire. I also believe it has a great potential to become the ideal society as it would be in my mind. However, its government and citizens have currently and historically hurt a lot of people including one another. Both have also displayed frequently certain traits that I consider damaging and wholly negative such as hypocrisy, blinding pride and hatred.

Because of all this and a lot more, I don't think of the US solely as a "hero" or a "villain". In fact, I don't think of it those terms at all. It's a country that has had both positive and negative impacts on the world that I think has the potential to have the most positive impact on humanity than any other organized body of individuals ever has.
 
Considering the amount of power we could project, I would say we have shown incredible restraint in dealing with our enemies, we have kept our borders open to the detriment of our own society, and we continue to let people express themselves in all sorts of ways that degrade faith in and loyalty to our country.

I voted number 1 because we are such a free society, we are willing to throw it all away because the ideals it would take to protect it would degrade those freedoms. One of two things will have to happen IMO. We will either recognize the greatness of our republic and fight to protect it from outside influence , or we will devolve into a European like state where we wield no actual power, but because of our past power we will expect that the next superpower heed our advice.
 
WI Crippler said:
Considering the amount of power we could project, I would say we have shown incredible restraint in dealing with our enemies, we have kept our borders open to the detriment of our own society, and we continue to let people express themselves in all sorts of ways that degrade faith in and loyalty to our country.

I voted number 1 because we are such a free society, we are willing to throw it all away because the ideals it would take to protect it would degrade those freedoms. One of two things will have to happen IMO. We will either recognize the greatness of our republic and fight to protect it from outside influence , or we will devolve into a European like state where we wield no actual power, but because of our past power we will expect that the next superpower heed our advice.
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Power is made by power being taken, so I keep on runing to protect my situation:

 
WI Crippler said:
Considering the amount of power we could project, I would say we have shown incredible restraint in dealing with our enemies, we have kept our borders open to the detriment of our own society, and we continue to let people express themselves in all sorts of ways that degrade faith in and loyalty to our country.

I voted number 1 because we are such a free society, we are willing to throw it all away because the ideals it would take to protect it would degrade those freedoms. One of two things will have to happen IMO. We will either recognize the greatness of our republic and fight to protect it from outside influence , or we will devolve into a European like state where we wield no actual power, but because of our past power we will expect that the next superpower heed our advice.
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It's not as if we have shown restraint simply because we are "good" or "heroes" as #1 describes us. Instead, we have often shown restraint in order to protect ourselves. One of the main reasons we show restraint is because we neither want to overextend ourselves (as we've already done, to be honest) nor be the catalyst for an internationally dangerous situation. Consequently, to base our "goodness" on something that we are doing less out of being "good" and more out of protecting ourselves is wrongheaded.
 
PrometheusBound said:
Before the 60s, the United States was a beacon of freedom. But it turned into an aristocracy establishing a destructive ruling class as both its decadent Left and Right Wings shared power. These heirheads were spoiled and pushy, sheltered and ignorant, self-obsessed and anti-majority. Previously, the rule of the majority had created the greatest country on earth.
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I would say the turning point was December 23, 1913. At that point, financial control of the United States was transferred from the government, and thus from the people, to a small group of private business owners who have been using it for their own gain ever since.

But even in spite of our flaws, we still strive to be freer than other countries. Even when we fail to live up to that ideal, we still strive for it reaaaaalllly hard. Now, when we can eliminate the institutionalized racism, poverty, sexism, religious bigotry, oppression of gays, warmongering, and mass incarceration of non-violent drug users, then we'll be "the world's most exceptional nation, a beacon of freedom, the good guys and heroes." Though the strength of that position will be diminished if we don't stop lagging behind the rest of the world. We're the slowest in the industrialized world to adopt social equality, like gay marriage. And remember how we took our sweet time abolishing slavery? We really have a lot of work to do.
 
This country is doomed. Most of the people are a bunch of brainwashed hypocrites. We have squanderd our once great nation's moral values and soon we will get our butts kicked all over the place.

The money spent on the current wars could have been used for wise moral useful purposes.

Instead of a united nation we are a nation of dog eat dog, social darwnists.

Thank you very much.
 
LiberalAvenger said:
Instead of a united nation we are a nation of dog eat dog, social darwnists.
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This is the true shame of the American right. They spend billions of dollars protecting their faith and values while supporting the very "progressive" idea of social darwinism.
 
Paschendale said:
I would say the turning point was December 23, 1913. At that point, financial control of the United States was transferred from the government, and thus from the people, to a small group of private business owners who have been using it for their own gain ever since.

But even in spite of our flaws, we still strive to be freer than other countries. Even when we fail to live up to that ideal, we still strive for it reaaaaalllly hard. Now, when we can eliminate the institutionalized racism, poverty, sexism, religious bigotry, oppression of gays, warmongering, and mass incarceration of non-violent drug users, then we'll be "the world's most exceptional nation, a beacon of freedom, the good guys and heroes." Though the strength of that position will be diminished if we don't stop lagging behind the rest of the world. We're the slowest in the industrialized world to adopt social equality, like gay marriage. And remember how we took our sweet time abolishing slavery? We really have a lot of work to do.
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That's interesting the turning point you mention is the founding of the Federal Reserve during the Wilson administration. I see your political lean is socialist (which for me is NOT a dirty word). During the 1912 election, Wilson had a socialist opponent, as you probably know, in Eugene V. Debs. He's the only socialist to run for the presidency who has gotten a large number of votes. I wonder how you believe the country would be doing if Debs had won.

And, to those illiterate about socialism: It is not the philosophy that we should tax the crap out of all hard working people so that lazy bums can do well. That's a made-up right wing straw man of socialism. Here's what it really is:
Socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Hatuey said:
This is the true shame of the American right. They spend billions of dollars protecting their faith and values while supporting the very "progressive" idea of social darwinism.
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Its funny how the agnostic left trumpets darwin in the fact of the bible thumping faithful but these same lefties hate the concept when applied to our economic environment
 
Hatuey said:
For white anglo-saxon Protestant males. For everyone else, it was kind of ****ty.
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How many American blacks of today would want to live in say Liberia or Equatorial Guinea?
 
Hatuey said:
For white anglo-saxon Protestant males. For everyone else, it was kind of ****ty.
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Jews are doing OK and so are Catholics. There are no WASPS on the United States Supreme Court btw
 
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