They aren’t. I don’t agree with those that say they are. Americans are human, like everyone else. No better….AND NO WORSE.

“The whole post-9/11 world — every step of the way — the vast majority of “The American people” have gleefully been lockstepping forward into pre-emptive war.”

The vast majority? Last I checked, the war was highly unpopular with most of the public. And Bush was only re-elected by slightly more than half. If nearly 150 million Americans did NOT vote for him, I don’t call that the vast majority “gleefully lockstepping” with his policies.

“I’m asking WHY we become the arrogant, brutish, unthinking, genocidal, war-mongering psychopaths SO EASILY, ESPECIALLY with enough flag-pins and yellow ribbons?”

Who’s “we?”

The problem here is that you’ve boiled down 306 million people to two groups….the pros and the antis. You make the mistake that so many do: You see people as nothing more than flags, and you think that all citizens are responsible for the actions of their government.

“But at the same time, it is NOT ‘pointless’ to be enthusiastically, tear-jerkingly, unwaveringly ‘proud’ of the ‘land of your birth’ — to the point where people are actually STILL SURPRISED — or even scandalized — when yet another of ‘our’ scandals come to light.”

And when did I suggest that? “Pride” is reserved for personal accomplishments. To be proud of your nation is every bit as pointless as to be ashamed of it.

I may like it here, I may wish to stay here, but true patriotism is about criticizing your government and seeking to set it straight when it has gone astray. That’s patriotism, not chest-thumping jingoistic nationalism. I have no use for that.

“And maybe the reason it’s become ‘trendy’ to dislike America is that the rest of the world sees what we’ve been DOING for the last decade (or is it longer?)”

Who’s “we?” I ask again, are all 306 million of us to blame? Is it my fault, by virtue of being born on a specific latitude and longitude?

“The saw the ‘Jim Crow’ South.”

You refuse to blame the Germans for Nazism because it was too long ago, but you bring up Jim Crow?

So, if it’s “pointless” to be ashamed of your “nation of birth” (EVEN when said nation EXPLICITLY predicates it’s existence and national self-image on a high-minded set of principles which it ROUTINELY VIOLATES, both here and abroad.)

But at the same time, it is NOT “pointless” to be enthusiastically, tear-jerkingly, unwaveringly “proud” of the “land of your birth” — to the point where people are actually STILL SURPRISED — or even scandalized — when yet another of “our” scandals come to light.

Who gives a shit if we’re consistently out-ranked by MOST other nations in terms of education? We’re Americans, goddamnit!
Can’t POSSIBLY make the top-ten list of electronic police states. We’re “the source of freedom”, and anybody who actually DARES to take an honest look at the bloodstains on the walls must just HATE this “shining city on a hill” we call the good old U.S. of A.

Trust me, Radialskid, those who REALLY run things (and I’m not talking about figureheads like Bush or Obama) know full-well that anything and everything can be — and WILL be excused, condoned, denied, or even outright cheered for, PROVIDED they package it in our favorite colors.

“Operation Iraqi freedom” sounds a hell of a lot better than “Operation Lets-make-military-contractors-wealthy-and-kill-civilians”, doncha think?

And maybe the reason it’s become “trendy” to dislike America is that the rest of the world sees what we’ve been DOING for the last decade (or is it longer?) They see us being arrogant, closed-minded, boorish tourists. The saw the “Jim Crow” South. They SEE us propping up dictators for the sake of political expediency, and above all, they see the pictures of nice, wholesome, homegrown “Real Americans” like Lynndie England playing human-pyramid with prisoners, or making some guy wear a leash and jack off at gunpoint.

I agree it’s “pointless” to be ashamed of where you’re from, but then how in the hell do you actually expect people to be *proud*?

Read the Communist Manifesto. Then look at “Marxist” nations.
How are we that much different? In degree, defintely — but NOT in kind, or this shit wouldn’t keep happening.

When they trot out the flags, yellow ribbons, and “national pride”, it’s time to brace yourself for some really nasty shit.

I have even BIGGER criticisms, however, of the underlying culture which makes such actions *possible*.
I have a REALLY big problem with how easily most of us fell into a red, white and blue stupor and let Dubya get us into this Iraq quagmire, where ninety-eight percent of the casualties occured AFTER he so glibly asserted “mission accomplished”.
What is it about *US, as a culture*, which makes us get on board with that?

I have a REALLY big problem when people defend the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used at Gitmo because “THEIR” torture methods would be ‘worse’. Sorry to tell everybody, but that doesn’t bode well for *we, the people.*.

I also love how you’ve, yet again, confirmed everything I’ve been saying. You assume that because I can no longer lie to myself about how “it can’t happen here’”, then I “hate” this nation and it’s people.

I don’t.
I just don’t — and CAN’T — derive the vast majority of my *personal* identity and self-worth from where I happen to have been born.
I simply refuse to lie to myself that “Americans” are some intrinsically noble, higher breed of humanity as such.

We’re not, y’know.

But we ALWAYS seem to believe that we are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_religion

The whole post-9/11 world — every step of the way — the vast majority of “The American people” have gleefully been lockstepping forward into pre-emptive war (how “patriotic” was dissent over the Iraq thing back in 2003?), secret military tribunals abroad, serious — if not fundamental — damage to our own civil liberties here at home, vigilantism on the Mexican border, and the worst level of sociopolitical division since the 1960s. (Red-State “Real” Americans like Lynndie England vs. Blue-State “elitists” who didn’t just “shut up and sing.”)

What part of this don’t you get, exactly?
This is FAR BIGGER than a mere quibble about governmental policy.
I’m asking WHY we become the arrogant, brutish, unthinking, genocidal, war-mongering psychopaths SO EASILY, ESPECIALLY with enough flag-pins and yellow ribbons?

IT CAN HAPPEN HERE.

But hey, do what you want: I advocate soul-searching and just a SLIGHT reduction in our (severely overdone) national hubris, and you mistake that for a “hatred of this land and it’s people.”

Goody gumdrops, we’ve reached the level of “Blood and Soil.”

What part of the last eight years DOESN’T make you at least a tad bit ashamed?

I’m not excusable, because I don’t make excuses for my opinion, to you or anyone else.

“because he’s obviously not as mindlessly jingoistic as ‘Bob’ — he’s able to at least question things like Selective service/the drug war/etc. — but somehow he doesn’t get just why people would be less than enthusiastic about their ‘Americanism’.”

Because it’s pointless to be ashamed of your nation of birth. You didn’t ask to be born here. You didn’t make the decisions that you’re critical of, nor could you have done anything to stop them. What then, do YOU have anything to be ashamed of?

There’s a major difference between criticizing this nation and completely buying to every form of anti-American prejudice and outright HATING the nation and its people. I do the former, but you outright do the latter.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/15-7

Yay, team.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14998.htm

I’ve attacked spammers and trolls, but that’s all. And Henry doesn’t qualify as either.

Cheers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford

“Cradle of Liberty” my ass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huac
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_tears
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exclusion_acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know-Nothings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

I challenge any sane, principled, or honest person to read the above-linked articles and STILL claim that “The USA is the most free country there is or ever has been”.

The relationship between the United States and the rest of the world/majority of it’s own citizens is actually pretty close to those stories you hear about battered women, where the guy is always like “Oh, Honey, I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again” — until somehow, mysteriously, it does.
“We, as Americans” can — and do — bloviate endlessly about our “sacred founding principles”, but like they say, the proof is in the pudding, and our particular national pudding is pretty goddamn sour.

Sorry if anybody thinks that daring to look honestly at our own history is too “politically correct.”

And yes, this one did piss me off.

What I have criticized is hysteria, fear-mongering, and stupidity.

And guess what? “Bob” (whoever that is) has amply demonstrated everything that makes me genuinely ashamed that I happen to have been born in this country.

And “RadialSkid”, for some reason, is even less excusable, because he’s obviously not as mindlessly jingoistic as “Bob” — he’s able to at least question things like Selective service/the drug war/etc. — but somehow he doesn’t get just why people would be less than enthusiastic about their “Americanism”.

Well Golly Gee willickers, it’s not like eight years of the “forward strategy of freedom” could have anything to do with it, hmm?

Personally, I’ll stop being ashamed of “my country” when it stops doing evil things.

Don’t like it? Bite me.

THIS from somebody too gutless to even create a “handle?”
Go back to your godawful tea-bag parties. It’s people like “Bob”, and their sugar-coated view of the U.S., that allows us to believe that we can do no wrong, no matter WHAT we do.

Face it: Howard Zinn was right.

Note that some aspects of it are coming up for expiration (unless they’re renewed — again), but certain portions were “made permanent”.

To the extent that it’s “permanent”, I figure it’s relevant.

(Why am I the only person here who seems to bother to research things off-site?)

We need more shame, and FAR less mindless flag-waving — otherwise, we’ll continue to be the way we’ve been for the last decade, and we’ll continue to be surprised when stuff like this “electronic police-state” thing comes out.

Except, of course, for the portions that were made permanent.

“Actually, if you know anything about the concept of CONTEXT, it only applies to the laws passed by Congress, i.e., FEDERAL LAW, which supersedes STATE LAW.”

Which is why (for example) the Civil Rights act of 1964 was NOT an instance of “federal tyranny” — no matter what segregationists wanted to think.

Personally, I’d have more faith in the “founding principles of my nation” if “my nation” had ever intended to live by them, which history has demonstrated it doesn’t.

“To each his own. I agree strongly with the founding principles of my nation, and wish that the modern government adhered more strongly to them. I’m not like so many spineless modern Americans, who buy into trendy, modern foreign anti-Americanism and act like it’s not politically correct to even be from the United States any longer unless you’re completely ashamed of it.”

Hmm. For me, I figure “we as Americans” could USE a little remorse, given our propensity to unthinkingly bomb the fuck out of places “our boys” armed and trained just a few years before. (Hint: “Bin Laden” basically worked for us, look it up.)

The “shining city on a hill” thing is bullshit, and we’ve routinely failed to live up to what we CLAIM to believe.
Or are you going to tell me that “separate but equal” lived up to the second condition?

Nation-states are a mere means to an end, and the sooner we get over our fetishization of “Der Fatherland”, the sooner we can start actually FIXING what’s wrong with this country. Or is that line of thinking too “politically correct” for you?

Actually, if you know anything about the concept of CONTEXT, it only applies to the laws passed by Congress, i.e., FEDERAL LAW, which supersedes STATE LAW.

“Yes, I’ll be quite open about it: I am NOT “proud to be an American.” Rather, I’m ashamed.”

To each his own. I agree strongly with the founding principles of my nation, and wish that the modern government adhered more strongly to them. I’m not like so many spineless modern Americans, who buy into trendy, modern foreign anti-Americanism and act like it’s not politically correct to even be from the United States any longer unless you’re completely ashamed of it.

And for the record, I also disagree with Selective Service, and the “War on Drugs.” I did disagree with the Patriot Act, but last I checked, that isn’t relevant anymore.

The reason “people don’t care enough” is basically because the U.S. is, at heart, a very conformist and authoritarian culture (despite all our blather to the contrary.) We really don’t LIKE dissent, hence all the attempts to ban books from schooi libraries because they use “bad” words or suchlike. I can’t bring myself to blame the tools or infrastructure being built, because the uses to which we put tools are implicit in the surrounding culture.

We really don’t like dissent, or nonconformity. We’re also not particularly “open” to “foreign” influences. (There’s a reason for the phrase “Ugly American”.)

Basically, the Bush administration and “war on terror” weren’t some kind of “betrayal of American values”. Looked at from a historical perspective, they represent a RETURN to American values: the McCarthy era, HUAC, screaming, flag-waving, war-mongering “Right-wingers”, etc.

Y’know what most people DO “care” about? The “communications decency act”, and “parental advisory stickers”.
I have had ZERO respect for the vast majority of my own countrymen since the PMRC and that evil bitch Tipper Gore.
Thankfully, Frank Zappa put them in their place, but the bullshit still got to be law.

Really, we deserved Bush.
And realistically, it’s not like we’ve EVER really had “the vote” in any meaningful sense of the term.
Thanks to the “Electoral College”, “the popular will” has no substantive meaning whatsoever. The “Deciding” vote is THE REAL vote.
When we go into those voting machines and pull those levers, the symbolism is apt, because it’s nothing but mass-turbation (”the masses” titillating ourselves with the illusion of real participation.)

So anybody whose surprised by the U.S. ranking, should REALLY be surprised we’re that LOW.