(January 4, 2015 at 1:27 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is there to be particularly proud of in America?Well, I don't really know where you are so I don't know what my opinion of the latter would be - but so what if it were? Is pride only warranted when you have the gold ring in hand? Imagine a world with no U.S.A. Just remove that, nothing else - and tell me how you think history would have played out? Nothing there strikes you as being worthy of pride?
If you like the political system over there you are mad. Ours is better and there are probably even better systems elsewhere.
On the former, do you want an itemized list - and how helpful would it be? Our lists would differ, clearly.
Quote:I know you can't like the health system coz it's the worst in the developed world.My healthcare was taken care of before Obamacare rolled out (I'm a vet). It's probably not the best but even if it were the -worst- that wouldn't stop me from feeling pride for a job well done. You work with what you've got - try to nudge it for the better, and the metrics by which you judge how you're doing have to be sober and realistic or else what use are they? My bar for pride isn't "Number 1 in the world for free for everybody".
The social programmes suffer in comparison as well.
Quote:I've heard it said that America is the richest nation on earth but actually it's the most indebted.Sorry, Bush doesn't really have the power to strip the US of the luster it's built over centuries, for me. I haven't abandoned my standards - and despite whatever asshattery is going on up "at the top" the people I know in the middle and bottom still manage to wring some good out of our squalid american existences.
It's not the worst nation in the world but is it something to be proud of now, in a post Bush world where the glitter has been blown off and all standards abandoned at the first sign of trouble?

No clue whether or not we're the most indebted - but we do have alot of stuff, relative to others - and I've seen that first hand. It's difficult for me to describe that first experience (and I'm a wordy motherfucker) - but you go into it with alot of ideas that, at least in my case, didn't pan out precisely as we might imagine. For example, I'm familiar...painfully familiar, with what most of us would consider poverty. Being hungry, being broke, having the utilities shut off every other month. Digging food out of dirty places. But that idea of poverty, and the poverty that -others- experience...night and day.
So, even if we aren't the wealthiest, or even if we're the most in debt - I'm still pretty proud that the US doesn't find itself in -that- sort of poverty. It doesn't "just happen" - people work to make it happen.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!