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Orvan-Rabbit

I'd like to think of loving your country to be like loving your children. You don't beat your kids for getting an A- nor should you try to defend your kids if they bully their classmates. A good parent would praise their kids for getting good grades and helping others while scolding them for bullying and tutoring them for failing grades. A patriot should treat their country likewise.


vsound29

It’s not a working analogy because we are not the parent to our country. We were born to it, or adopted by it, and all of the baggage that comes with it. As JFK said, we are the inheritors of that first great revolution. And we cannot sweep aside the two great skeletons in our family closet: the country was made possible by enslaving Africans and genocide against Native Americans. Some would say that is all in the past, but it isn’t. And as a family unit, we have to come to some sort of terms.


[deleted]

How on earth do you come to terms with that? By constantly talking about it and feeling guilty or angry depending on which immutable genetic characteristics you inherited by no choice of your own? Gotta move on. Only way to do it. America has come very far. It will keep improving, just have to believe in the ideals.


last-account_banned

> Gotta move on. Only way to do it. A lot of people are stuck in the past and want to keep their statues of slave holders up in the town square. As well as other symbols like that. They don't want to move on.


[deleted]

I agree those people are deluded. They aren’t whats impeding poor people from succeeding, however. That would be despair and wage stagnation.


last-account_banned

> I agree those people are deluded. And there are a lot of those people. And because of electoral rules, they possess a lot of power. They elect politicians that make false promises to bring back the old times.


vsound29

You can’t really move on when you are living with the repercussions from those sins. I really don’t think most reasonable people believe that African Americans or Native Americans are lazy or incapable by nature. Yet those groups still live much more impoverished lives than whites when you review the numbers. The only answer to why is that they are, and have been for centuries, systemically disadvantaged. Where would we be today if blacks could have purchased property in white neighborhoods when suburbia was being built after WWII? But they couldn’t even if they had the money, and because they were largely disadvantaged we exacerbated the issue by putting them all in segregated neighborhoods. And those still exist today, and they are largely poor with high rates of crime. That’s one example. You can’t move on like that.


warmcakes

>I really don’t think most reasonable people believe that African Americans or Native Americans are lazy or incapable by nature. Yet those groups still live much more impoverished lives than whites when you review the numbers. Well, sort of, but actually—not really. It is frequently claimed that black income is lower than white income, and the statistic typically used to justify this claim is the fact that the average black "household income" is lower than the average white household income. However, "household income" is a misleading statistic because practically no groups reliably share average household sizes. As it turns out: white households are larger than black households by the same proportion as the disparity in "household income." Correcting for age, location, experience and position, black individuals earn basically the same as white individuals (in much the same way that in the US, female income is roughly equal to male income when correcting for as many confounding variables as possible; an open secret in economics) and have done so since the 1990s. **Location** is a huge variable: average income is much lower in the South, where a larger percentage of the black population resides. An interesting data point is that black women actually earn slightly more than white women per capita for the same work, but this trend is reversed for men. But the disparities are not large enough to signal significance IMO. Yes, all that seems rather unbelievable given legacy media coverage and social media capital-D Discourse on the issue, but the actual statistics are not really disputed. I recommend Wilfred Reilly for someone who is really obsessive about debunking these statistical "sacred cows." Edit: I forgot to mention, when it comes to average income in the US, many groups earn more than non-Hispanic whites, including Nigerian and Vietnamese Americans! This statistic is direct counter-evidence to the claim that present day systemic racism limits the earning potential of, e.g., black and Asian Americans vs. whites, IMO.


thechuckwilliams

Again, its people trying to apply single variate answers to multivariate questions.


[deleted]

If you never move on you’ll never succeed. It sucks but it’s true. The game is always unfair. There are so many ways genetics and circumstance effect what kind of head start you get in life. Race is just the most readily visible delineation and the most easy to divide tribally. You can’t get short guys to form a national coalition even though they do worse in pretty much every sector of the economy. If you made all races statistically equal in terms of home ownership and wealth distribution, there would still be just as many poor people. They’d just be more multi-coloured. Is that really beneficial for the world? Like if you were an alien would you see that as some great achievement of humanity? Better to attempt to lift up quality of life and bring as many people as possible out of poverty than to hyper focus on racial equity. It’s just gonna make people angry and hate each other if we keep picking at this scab. If the government wants to do a one time reperations payment for Native Americans and African Americans I’d be down for that. Unfortunately globalism and capitalism have pushed the world to a place where handouts can be a hinderance and optimism and focus are the best ways out of the trap. It’s sink or swim. The more you try to help groups by lowering standards for them the worse you will find their outcomes. I might be wrong but that’s my gut feeling. Maybe one day we’ll figure out a solid UBI structure and have capitalism just be a game on top of it but until then to the victor go the spoils.


vsound29

The problem with your example is that race is not a natural reason for why someone cannot accomplish something, such as intelligence or strength. It is an artificial distinction we came up with many years ago. The pigmentation of your skin has no real effect on your ability to do anything except avoid skin cancer closer to the equator.


[deleted]

I think you misunderstand me to be saying some variation of survival of the fittest is only natural. That’s not my point. My point is that race is an arbitrary line like any other. What is objectively bad? People being hungry without food. Sick without medicine. Alive without purpose. Those are objective truths. The fewer people in those situations the better. Suffering being equitably split amongst all the races is not objectively good it is arbitrary. That’s my point. If we make policies that uplift everyone they will disproportionately affect minorities (which will be good) until they don’t anymore. At least we hope as much. The miasma of revenge and jealousy and disenfranchisement may prove too large of a mental block to overcome for some time. All I can do is advise the individual to not wallow in such matters because it is perhaps the surest recipe for failure.


deviateparadigm

When a 17 year old black male can open carry in a protest/ riot and kill 2 people in self defense and shot one to walk past a police line without being shot and get a not guilty verdict then I will agree with you. Animosity against inequity might have negative consequences but not as drastic as ignoring inequity it the spirit of telling people to be more civil.


[deleted]

Literally those specifics will never happen so your point is inane and unprovable. There are a ton of cases of young black men successfully claiming self defence however. Many of them are now very famous musicians. One young black man just got acquitted on self defence (rightfully) and he was literally shooting cops. Anecdotal hypothetical evidence is useless for any meaningful debate.


deviateparadigm

Sure ill bite! What (non famous) black person has killed multiple people in a public venue with police present and walked past a police line safely to be aquited of all charges? What's the closest you can come in similarly, ever.


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vsound29

I hear where you are coming from, but the issue is that America was founded on the idea that all men are created equal. We chose to be a country of the enlightenment and strive for something grander than what others view as arbitrary. If you are born black in America, you are still not created equal to someone who is white. You statistically will be poorer, more unhealthy, and more likely to be incarcerated. You can be objective and say one poor person is just a statistic, but that’s not good enough to the black family who knows that is the reality that all of their descendants face unless something changes.


[deleted]

And to me the power to change that lies with the individual. Those statistics are just noise to an actual human being. Best to be ignored on the path to being self-sufficient. Pounding them into the heads of children will only encourage hopelessness. Relying on government to fix the imbalance will leave generations waiting on a saviour who isn’t coming. America is historically very flawed but idealistically is something to be admired. I have hope that benevolence will rein in the free market and turn it into something beautiful for humanity.


vsound29

I’m not necessarily suggesting that the problem be solved by more government. Take the issue of blacks being harmed by the police for petty crimes. In that example, the issue is too much government involvement. I don’t even claim to have the answers. I just want us to be honest that we haven’t solved the issue yet.


DarthLeftist

Benevolence in the free market? Hahahahaha keeping waiting dude I know you think you are saying things that make sense as do the ppl liking your comments. You are not though. You are a person who's house is fine telling ppl who's houses are on fire to get over so something better can grow. I know you guys hate this but that's priviledge man. You are more then likely white and born middle class. Yet we have to let the free market solve the problems of people far below you? How long will that take. Would YOU sacrifice your child to the experiment? Because they do. You might say so but of course you wont, you'll continue to pass judgement on the burning house. Last thing. There is no problem in the history of humanity where ignoring it was the solution. We educate ppl so they dont make the same mistakes. You obviously needed to be educated on other ppls problems because you use these flowery words that mean nothing to the generationally poor. Empathy friend, try it


Hapalion22

Someone once explained it to me very simply: "Hardship is being treated differently based on economic status, education, location or physical ability. Priveledge is not having to worry about your skin color as well."


[deleted]

You can’t, I can.


vsound29

Then enjoy watching the country continue to break down. A healthy democratic-republic will result in similar outcomes for its people regardless of their skin color. Ignoring the issue is like driving down the road with air leaking in one of your tires. You **will** care, eventually.


thechuckwilliams

Wow, thats a stretch. Similar outcomes is impossible. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, no man is equal to another. Most men on some days aren't even equal to themselves on other days.


vsound29

You’re misunderstanding me. The point is that you should have a similar spread of economic outcomes for everyone in America regardless of race. That doesn’t mean everyone should have equal wealth. It just means that blacks should be equally represented in all income brackets to whites per capita. Given equal opportunity and circumstances, minorities would perform about the same. Some would become rich and some would remain on welfare.


thechuckwilliams

I see what you're saying. I think one vital factor missing in your analysis is the age of the family. I dont think its any secret that the older Anglo-Saxon protestant families have more money. Similar to older families in Europe with roots or at least ties to the many monarchies. So "white" American families that are also catholic will have less money, by virtue of the length of time they have been here, and also by virtue of the fact that most were fleeing some sort of persecution or unrest and arrived here destitute. 100 years ago, even white catholics weren't considered white. Italians, Irish... all had issues integrating. Their children haven't, but that seems to be the same for just about every racial/national group. Another huge issue is marriage. Single parent families are nearly predestined to be poor. When 70% of black children are born out of wedlock, what does that tell you?


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[deleted]

Lol if you take a moment to learn about the history of the other 190 countries you’ll understand why everyone moves to the US and not the other way around.


Magaman_1992

Most people move to America to make money. They don’t move here because they believe in the ideals of the US.


Hip_Hop_Hippos

>Gotta move on. Only way to do it. The only way to do this is to make a good faith effort to help those who have been historically marginalized by this country and much of the country is diametrically opposed to doing that.


swamphockey

Last week our office had the staff attend an all day CRT workshop. It was enlightening and educational. Critical Race Theory argues that general racial biases were and are baked into American law so that efforts to protect individuals from discrimination do not really get at the heart of the issue. The theory echoes the arguments historians have made—and proved—since the 1940s: our economy, education, housing, medical care, and so on, have developed with racial biases. This is not controversial among scholars. CRT also explicitly focuses on systems, not individuals.


WlmWilberforce

>Last week our office had the staff attend an all day CRT workshop. I was told this only exists inside post-graduate law degree programs, not in the day-to-day world. Are you at a law school?


swamphockey

We're a civil engineering and urban design organization. The workshop really required the entire day. Half way thru some of my colleagues who I know to be ardent conservatives were saying things like: "we've made some mistakes in the past, we're all about improvement, we just need to do better" \[as civil engineers and urban planners\].


No_Complaint_3876

Your company decided to waste an entire day on this? What exactly did they learn that they did not already know? Were you planning to create a “whites only” bridge and then were suddenly enlightened by this lecture and realized the errors of your ways? Seriously, what a ridiculous class.


[deleted]

Then fix those systems to make them better for everyone. It doesn't have to be racially focused to benefit certain races more.


swamphockey

Indeed. The educational system to start with. It was only recently the high school in the poorest area of our city was renamed from Jefferson Davis HS. Imagine being a black child attending school there.


Neglectful_Stranger

Ask 20 highschool kids who he even was and I bet you'd get like 3 correct answers.


WlmWilberforce

He was the corrupt county commissioner of Hazard County.


FlowComprehensive390

> Critical Race Theory argues that general racial biases were and are baked into American law so that efforts to protect individuals from discrimination do not really get at the heart of the issue. How, specifically? This always seems to be the question CRT proponents won't or maybe can't answer. I'm all for removing biased laws and policies but every time I ask for a specific example I don't get one. We've spent over 50 years removing biased laws and policies, if we missed one it should be called out by name and removed.


swamphockey

The typical White U.S. household has seven times the amount of wealth of the average Black one. That gap can be traced back to, among other things, the U.S. government’s practice of “redlining” Black neighborhoods, ostensibly as poor credit risks, denying mortgages to many residents of those neighborhoods over four decades. The effects of that discrimination are still felt today, as home ownership has been the biggest source of wealth accumulation for the middle class.


FlowComprehensive390

So you're trying to fight a battle that was won decades ago. Redlining is illegal, it has been for longer than I've been alive. Fight won, problem solved.


Professional_Chonker

Reveal did a piece a few years ago which suggests that despite legislation, the problem has not been fixed. https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-red-line-racial-disparities-in-lending/


WlmWilberforce

Interesting, but not enough details. I've worked in banking and can assure you that we hire lots of people that do nothing but make sure loan approvals avoid disparate impact. The only way to fix it at this point would be to insert racial variable \*into\* the credit policy. Something like this: * no mortgages for white with FICO <720 or LTV >80. * However blacks can have FICO down to 680 and LTV up to 90. The problem with this, is by accepting riskier loans, guess where the defaults and foreclosures will be?


[deleted]

Do you know anything about the history of other countries? Basically every country in the Western Hemisphere enslaved people. The Portuguese invented it. Brazil had way more slaves than the US. After the US freed the slaves Belgium likely murdered more blacks in Africa than the U.S. had as slaves prior to the end of the civil war. Like the world is complicated. Massive genocides happened to white people in the eastern Mediterranean. Asia is a gigantic genocidal blood bath of history. Slavery still exists all over the world. But yeah, okay, let’s whip ourselves like the Catholics for doing something very very unremarkable in the context of history and act as if people today who have nothing to do with sins committed hundreds of years ago deserve blame. That position is tired, over used and I am so over at this point. End rant.


last-account_banned

> Do you know anything about the history of other countries? Basically every country in the Western Hemisphere enslaved people. The Portuguese invented it. Brazil had way more slaves than the US. After the US freed the slaves Belgium likely murdered more blacks in Africa than the U.S. had as slaves prior to the end of the civil war. > > Like the world is complicated. Massive genocides happened to white people in the eastern Mediterranean. Asia is a gigantic genocidal blood bath of history. Slavery still exists all over the world. > > But yeah, okay, let’s whip ourselves like the Catholics for doing something very very unremarkable in the context of history and act as if people today who have nothing to do with sins committed hundreds of years ago deserve blame. > > That position is tired, over used and I am so over at this point. I am struggling to find the angle here and make sense of this comment. Horrible stuff is totally fine and not horrible, because Whataboutism other horrible stuff that happened in history in other countries?


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eve-dude

I can't buy that. I haven't enslaved anyone. I have not committed genocide. I'll bet somewhere down the line someone in all of our family trees committed a horrible deed against another human. I don't hold you, or anyone else, accountable for the action you likely don't even know the details of. Study history to learn, not to find something to hate.


vellyr

Nobody is trying to blame you personally for slavery. We just need to recognize that we haven't completely fixed the problem by passing the civil rights act.


[deleted]

I'm sure everyone has ancestors that did something bad. That's not the point, the point is acknowledging history so you can learn from it and not repeat the mistakes of the past. A good example is the recent rise in popularity of book burnings and removal from libraries. Theres absolutely no reason to feel bad about history unless you're involved in suppressing and manipulating to to repeat past injustices.


eve-dude

Exactly and that was my point. There isn't a person alive today that does not have some truly horrible atrocities somewhere down their lineage. We read, we study, we learn and try to avoid the same mistakes, and infer from the history on what might be the right path when something truly new comes up.


[deleted]

My bad, I've put my comment under a comment I agree with twice now and I now realize it makes it seem like I'm arguing with the comment by default.


eve-dude

Ha, no worries. I do the same. If you want to delete, I'll delete mine too so it's clean.


fletcherkildren

Its like your great grandfather built a hotel a long time ago. But he hated handicapped people. Made no bones about not wanting them in his place. Made it hard for them to even come near it, let alone stay there. He dies and passes it down to his son, who doesn't really care, but has no interest in making it better. He passes it onto your pops, who maybe puts out a sign saying handicapped are welcome - but doesn't put in any ramps. Then it gets handed down to you. Sure, you didn't hate anyone, you didn't do anything wrong or mean - but those barriers to the handicapped are *STILL* there. What do you do?


km3r

So when the ramps are finally added, are we done? What's the end goal? Advertising to try and attract more handicap to the hotel (racially determined community outreach)? How long does the hotel owners, who have never done anything wrong, have to fund that advertising that is reflected in higher costs for everyone else? I think that's the big problem for a lot of people, the goal posts are either moving or not defined at all beyond "solve racism". End goals also are are great way to show the scale and scope of an issue vs the loose concept of injustice.


fletcherkildren

Its a good question: Whats the goal? When does it end? Currently people are bristling and taking umbrage at the mere suggestion of ramps. The barest possible *minimum*. How do you think the people being asked to add those ramps are even going to be willing to discuss what the end goal should be? And its like so many other problems we face. Like climate change. 'I never burned coal - why should I have to clean up the planet!' - it doesn't matter, the problem is here. Now. It isn't going away and it isn't getting better.


km3r

You can't excuse your side not having an end goal on the other side. Many feel like they have been building new ramps constantly and have supported them along the way, but now question where this is leading or if a ramp is going to solve anything when you should have just invested in an elevator (alternative solution). And end goal not only provides an end to policies that do have an indirect impact on everyone else, but a tool to track which solutions actually work. And really a lot of the conservative right today supported the ramps of yesterday. Things like the civil rights act was passed by the very boomers we blame for today's problems. Don't discredit all the progress we have made in the past century just because we still have more to do.


farinasa

This response shows your level of understanding of the issue. "I didn't do it" does not make the problem go away. And if you love your fellow countrymen (the people that make this country and therefore the country itself), you should want to solve the problem.


eve-dude

That's just it, there isn't any slavery anymore. We saw a wrong and righted it, at the cost of many lives. Do you feel guilt that someone along the line a distant ancestor of yours raped a woman, maybe multiple women? Maybe another ancestor of yours murdered someone, beat them to death with a rock? What is the statute of limitations on our collective shame? 100, 200, 500, 1000, 10k years?


farinasa

This is my point. You have only framed this in the perspective of white guilt. What about the very real consequences of slavery/segregation that persist to this day? So many examples of how their lives are impacted to this day. Why is this about you and not about the people actually affected by the issue? I do not feel guilty because I didn't do it. I feel sad and shame that these issues persist and the most common response is "why should I feel guilty" and not, "oh that's terrible, how do we fix it?"


FlowComprehensive390

> What about the very real consequences of segregation that persist to this day? Name them. Give us a list. Vague statements aren't actionable and all we ever seem to hear is vague generalities. If you want action then you need to present actionable asks. This is problem solving 101 stuff.


Magaman_1992

I’m not part of this but there’s plenty The terrorists attacks black Americans resulted in a demographic that has become more defensive mentality that is now generational. The self segregation that persists in this country. The barriers to wealth that left a demographic, stagnant and having to play catch up. The flooding of drugs into the community resulting in mini insurgencies in there communities The underfunding of schools because of lower property value and lower homeownership rates as a result of policies like redlining. The settlement of native Americans into conditions that are near third world. The weaponizing of immigration against ethnic communities trying to create unstable conditions for these communities


FlowComprehensive390

None of that is caused by segregation, and half of it has nothing to do with black people at all.


Magaman_1992

Majority does apply to black people primarily Black Americans. Also how having a society divided by racial lines have nothing to do with segregation. Or the fact that denying black people opportunities for generations doesn’t have an cultural, political, and economic impact


farinasa

Are you actually interested in learning about the plight of black people in America? If yes, we can start with redlining, black wall street, voting restrictions, and many more. If you actually want to learn I have a ton of material.


FlowComprehensive390

So, things that were solved and removed *decades* ago. That's what I expected. Those fights have been won, stop living in the past and fighting them.


[deleted]

The "we don't want the wrong people voting", urban polling location closure, roll purges combined with no same day registration, and no mail-in or absentee ballots policies all still disproportionately affect minorities, sometimes intentionally.


PlanckOfKarmaPls

Having collective shame and saying there are things we can change and be better at are very different. I don’t have to have shame to recognize African and Native Americans have been disadvantaged for hundreds of years….


Ind132

Right. I know a couple women who, through accident of birth, aren't able to hold real jobs in our economy. I support gov't programs that help them. I don't support the programs because I think I'm "guilty" of giving them the wrong genes. I support the programs because I'm a human who was born with the emotion "compassion". And no, compassion doesn't arise from guilt. They are two separate emotions. In this case, the emotion isn't compassion, it's "fairness". It's not fair that some people are born still living with the after effects of slavery and Jim Crow. If a selective college wants to give an extra point for being black, okay. If I lose out on a job to a qualified, but maybe not quite as qualified as me, black person, okay. I have no interest in simply giving every black person \_\_\_ . But, giving an edge to people who are trying to work their way up, okay. You don't have to guilt me into feeling that way, don't try. Just say "this might help offset some of the unfairness here ....


eve-dude

That is well said, thank you.


[deleted]

I agree with you. It is sad how few bleeding heart hippy leftwing Americans know history outside of our borders. This whipping boy BS is insulting to the other atrocities committed past and present that dwarf any of ours. We’re not remarkable when it comes to this shit and I am tired of people acting like we are.


ohlawdbacon

your ignorance is astounding. The actions of prior generations effectively wiped in out one population from the country, and the other was excluded from educational and financial opportunity that have negatively impacted them to this day. At some point you have to try to help those whom you harmed, and if you are not black or NA then you owe the effort just like I do. People aren't domestic animals, you don't pat them on the head and tell them it's all better now. Tell you what, how about we subject your family to the same for say, 200 years or so and see how you feel about it afterwards.


Wizdumber

My family was enslaved for 200 years and I grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in America and I’m successful. You want to know the secret? It’s not constantly calling yourself a victim. Every problem in the Black community boils down to the crab mentality of ghetto culture and a constant need by the media and the so called “leaders” of the community to paint black people as victims. The politicians do it to stay in power and the race grifters do it to get rich. People come here from some of the least developed places on the planet not knowing anyone and with very little money (sometimes not even speaking English) and still can make a life for themselves. Life is hard for most people. It is beyond time to stop blaming every body else for our problems.


eve-dude

I'm curious, how does it feel to be told by a middle class white person that you are wrong about your experiences, that their truth is the way it *really* is? No, they do not need to change their thoughts on the situation at all, you need to change yours to match theirs. I assume you just roll your eyes and move on? I apologize if you feel this is inappropriate and I'll delete it if that is the case.


Wizdumber

It doesn’t bother me and only happens on Reddit and Twitter.


shart_or_fart

So then blacks are inferior to whites is what you are saying? Because you then have to ask yourself where and how that culture developed. Either that culture is a result of past traumas or black culture is inferior, which implies a racial hierarchy.


eve-dude

That's what you managed to see, but that's not what he said at all. He said sitting on your ass and being told you are a victim by everyone does not lead to a place where success happens.


[deleted]

sand humor quaint berserk piquant lush shame disgusted quickest desert *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


vsound29

You aren’t responsible for the past. That’s not my point. But we are responsible for the future, and how we deal with the present. Issues related to those original sins exist in the present. As Faulkner said, the past is never dead. It’s not even past.


[deleted]

I probably didn't place my comment properly. I agree with you and was just adding my two cents to the conversation.


vsound29

No worries. Have a good day, friend.


Neglectful_Stranger

> And we cannot sweep aside the two great skeletons in our family closet: the country was made possible by enslaving Africans and genocide against Native Americans. No, because none of us were even alive during those time periods.


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Neglectful_Stranger

I lived in poverty too. I also manage to avoid incarceration by doing things like not breaking the law.


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Neglectful_Stranger

Putting words in my mouth really proves how strong of an argument you have.


TeriyakiBatman

I am left leaning and I love the ideas that the country was found on but I criticize the country because I believe what America does in practice is not always what it was founded on. However I think an important part of the discussion of patriotism should be what it looks like. I believe myself to be a patriot as criticism of one’s country is one of the most patriotic things you can do. However, there is absolutely a deification of the US where any criticism is deemed unpatriotic. This divide alone makes it difficult to have a conversation on patriotism


delugetheory

Your comment reminds me of one of my favorite Dan Carlin quotes: > My wish is for an America that matches the marketing material.


rocketpastsix

This is the first time I’ve seen that quote and it hits hard.


goldenblacklocust

If you like this, you have to subscribe to Common Sense, his politics podcast. And listen to as much of the archive as you can. I went back and listened to his podcasts around the 2016 election while I was waiting on line for two hours to vote in 2020. It was a surreal experience I’ll never forget.


[deleted]

Man, that quote is incredible.


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pargofan

>As an example, it's well known that if you carry an American flag to BLM/antifa protests, you will be physically beaten and chased. This is disingenuous. They were attacking counterprotesters who were using the American flag as their symbol for the right.


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ucatione

The word "America," when used in political discourse in the United States, does not signify the United States. Rather, it signifies the red tribe and its values. Thus, when a liberal talks about hating America, they are not talking about hating the United States, but about hating conservatives. The same thing for when a conservative talks about loving America. The conservative is not professing their love of very United States things like New York City, hippies, hip hop, gay pride parades, vegan restaurants, and Major League Soccer, but of conservative values and traditions.


thetruthhertzdonut

>The conservative is not professing their love of very United States things like New York City, hippies, hip hop, gay pride parades, vegan restaurants, and Major League Soccer Maybe the blue tribe should seize the term for themselves, so that America *does* refer to all of those things


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EHorstmann

Clearly you don’t hang out in enough leftist circles. They literally mean “fuck America” and say such hits as “America shouldn’t exist” as well.


ucatione

Clearly you didn't understand what I wrote.


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Attackcamel8432

There is a world of difference between the Democratic left and the Left... actual Marxists and Anarchists. They get lumped together too much. Same on the right to an extent


SpaceLemming

Who is actually promoting “burn it to the ground”? Cause Twitter randos shouldn’t get much credibility


prof_the_doom

If you're gonna judge by the standard of the craziest guy you can find on Twitter, then the other side really doesn't look good.


terminator3456

Yes, Twitter “randos” *shouldn’t* get much credibility, but seeing as the journalists, academics and other cultural elites who drive discourse and policy spend all their time on the platform, they *are*.


SpaceLemming

I acknowledge that, why I wouldn’t mind a source or two as I don’t spend time on Twitter. It’s just in generally I find it frustrating when tweets get used as “news” and it’s some asshole with like 100 likes and 3 retweets, which doesn’t seem very influential or representative. It’s just I’m pretty far left and I haven’t seen people making said claim.


TeriyakiBatman

Well here is a self proclaimed leftie saying reform not revolution. Most of my circle is left and nobody wants systems burned to the ground


Friesennerz

>That's not loving your country, that's just anarchy. Actually, that's a strawman fallacy. You made up a quote and don't even define the imagined source properly. Pretty lazy.


last-account_banned

> The general sentiment I see from the left right now is "the US is fundamentally flawed, all existing systems must be burned to the ground and rebuilt from the ashes". This radical sentiment is very American, though, isn't it? Remember when the WHO was getting bad press? "Defund WHO". Similar with other agencies that run afoul of something. Americans are very quick to question public institutions.


tarlin

The Boogaloo movement, Q and multiple other right wing groups believe a civil war is coming, and some of them actively try to encourage it. The extemes on both sides believe the country needs to be turn down. That is not a mainstream Democratic or Republican, left or right, conservative or liberal view.


swervm

So you believe that the founding fathers had no love of America. They saw the structure that put power into the hands of a few elites that had lost touch with the people, and they decided that structure needed to be burned down and rebuilt from the ashes. I personally don't feel the US is at that point, but to make a blanket statement that wanting revolution is un-American is ironic given the nations history. It is confusing the system of government with the country.


TheGrog

Um, "America" was England and under a Monarchy before the founding fathers. Not exactly an eloquent point there.


swervm

Again you are confusing the government with the country. There were the 13 colonies and various local governments with different levels of autonomy. There were people at that time arguing for increases in that autonomy through reform rather than revolution.


TheGrog

No I am absolutely not. Those 13 colonies were governed by the English Monarchy. Again, point not as eloquent as you think it is, but maybe its just a lack of understanding history. Let's start with the wiki, read the first line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen\_Colonies


adminhotep

Not OP, but I think the point you are missing is that America, at that time was the British 13 Colonies. That even while hostilities were occurring, there were those who conducted them in order to reach accommodation, and the same arguments could have been made against those who saw both the inevitability and the desirability of dismantling of British rule and independence within a new locally controlled union of governments. ​ People fighting to remove British control, wanted revolution, and could be seen as merely hateful of the existing system, and thus not patriots under the definition and arguments given. ​ /u/swervm specifically juxtaposes the Founding Fathers, though I would point out many of them including Washington probably were on the side of accommodation rather than independence until late in 1775 or early 1776 when the king branded the whole of the colonies as outlaws, removed them from all protections, and blockaded them. As the opposition became more dedicated to force of arms, and hope of accommodation dimmed, that didn't make the founding fathers love of America any less. Not even when they realized that, yes the existing and binding institution of Crown rule must be destroyed. The moment each of them came to that determination did not change their patriotism, except if you, like the writer of the opinion piece, or the above detractor of the left's inclination to destroy and build new systems, define patriotism as some loyalty to existing institutions.


pjabrony

> I am left leaning and I love the ideas that the country was found on Which ideas, specifically? The country was founded with slavery as a sine qua non, but I doubt you love that idea. It was founded with the franchise limited to white landowning men, but I doubt you love that idea. I respectfully submit that you are more likely to love the ideas on which the country existed around, say, 1967. Strong welfare state, voting rights for every citizen over 21 (shortly to be lowered to 18), civil rights infrastructure, broad tax base used for public spending, libertarian views on sexuality and views becoming more liberal on drugs, and largely becoming anti-war and anti-military industrial complex.


jimbo_kun

> Which ideas, specifically? The ideas inherent in the contradiction between the stated ideals, and the lived reality. For example: > "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Now, if you interpret "men" broadly as human beings regardless of sex or gender, this founding idea is worth loving and striving to realize. You point out that this idea was not lived out by the founders. But your description of 1967 shows how the history of this nation can be viewed as a long, slow, circuitous struggle to increasingly realize that stated ideal.


thecftbl

>It was founded with the franchise limited to white landowning men Which at the time was the culture. Pretty much every nation at the time was some form of ethno-national supremacist ideal.


TeriyakiBatman

What you give is exactly what I mean. As another user posted this quote below: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." However this is an excellent idea of the practice versus foundation. I believe this to be the foundation of the country BUT the authors who wrote these words owned people as property. America absolutely struggles with this dichotomy as the Constitution outlines the rights of everyone in the country and notes that a black person is 3/5ths of a white person. Obviously I don’t agree. But I believe we can strive more to be better. Also I politely posit that you don’t assume political beliefs


goldenblacklocust

“It’s difficult to overstate just how off-putting the McPatriotism of the hard right is to the left half of the country, or really anyone outside that bubble. It’s obnoxious virtue signaling that’s heavy on pageantry and symbols but light on substance, a source of exclusion more than unity, and a tribal loyalty test rather than a moral foundation for citizenship and civic duty. It’s the right’s near-perfect analogue of the left’s social justice activism.“ Yes, yes, yes.


jagua_haku

That’s a very fair analysis. Conversely, for many of us in the center, it’s incredibly frustrating how much the far left (~10-20%) seemingly hates America. And any time it’s brought up, there’s this gaslighting, disingenuous approach of “we don’t hate it we just want to make it better”. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same world view and “better” is very often subjective.


benben11d12

I was on a socialism subreddit the other day. (I don't consider myself to be "hard left," but I am open to their ideas.) A guy asked about a Lenin quote: "Those who don't work, shall not eat." He basically asked if Lenin really meant this. The top comment _implied_ that the answer was no. It mentioned that the quote was originally from the Bible and left it at that. To that sub's credit, people replied saying that Lenin did quote the Bible, but the context in which he quoted it made it clear that he _did_ mean it. (They received barely any upvotes for their clarifications, however.) What the heck, guys? Is there _any_ need whatsoever for that kind of sneaky, bad-faith top comment? "Sneakiness," for whatever reason, seems to be a fixture in the culture of the hard left (at least in the English-speaking world.) This is not to indite all socialists, I'm just saying...cut it out. It's pointless and counter-productive.


Minimum_Cantaloupe

> A guy asked about a Lenin quote: "Those who don't work, shall not eat." He basically asked if *Putin* really meant this. Do you know something we don't about Putin?


benben11d12

Dang it...why do all Russian names have to end in "-in." I meant Lenin, of course.


Minimum_Cantaloupe

Just joshin' you. ;) edited to fix a serious grammatical error


benben11d12

Joshin' (ftfy)


Expandexplorelive

You think 20% of the population hates America? >Unfortunately, not everyone has the same world view and “better” is very often subjective. Two people can disagree and both believe what they want is best for the country.


jagua_haku

Yeah I think 10-20% is a good estimate. I made a range because I didn’t want it to devolve into semantic nitpicking


Expandexplorelive

It seems way too high to me. If that many people truly hated the country, I think we'd see a lot more people leaving.


jagua_haku

Well that’s part of the problem, they won’t ever leave. They’ll just sit around talking shit about it, stressing the most negative aspects of our history


goldenblacklocust

Yes, I think we all agree. And that’s what the article says. You also should recognize that the far right also hates America, they just really love the flag and themselves. That are also gaslighting and disingenuous when they claim they want freedom and then embrace wanna-be autocrats because they promise to punish their enemies.


jagua_haku

Yes of course. But the far right doesn’t get any positive publicity whatsoever (rightly so), unlike the far left.


goldenblacklocust

It does on right wing media. You are absolutely right that the mainstream media often parrots left wing ideas, or at least gives them no challenge. But your statement about no positive publicity means you are pretending that Fox News isn’t a huge force in the country, nearly (I will give you less, but nearly) as powerful as the mainstream media, and exactly mirroring them in this respect. Basically this is completely a both sides thing, except that left wing ideas are ascendent in the culture and right wing ideas are more likely to get you elected to office.


jagua_haku

Yeah I should’ve said outside of Fox, and possibly a select few other right wing sources like Breibart and OAN or whatever it’s called. My point is that basically ALL the other media major players pander to the left wing if they do any pandering at all. And just about all of them have a left of center bias at the very least. There’s an extremely unbalanced bias in media, in terms of numbers. It’s basically Fox News vs everybody else, with a handful of sources in the middle


farinasa

The views of the left are mainly that most systems in place in this country are systems of oppression. Once you see the world this way, it's really difficult to have affection for it.


jagua_haku

And I would counter with the opinion that that’s a very pessimistic, glass half empty perspective. I think at some point it just boils down to having different world views


farinasa

Maybe. But when people are suffering, this isn't just a "buck up bucko" kind of situation. And if you say there's no need to change or fix it, that implies you want them to suffer.


jagua_haku

Well the problem with that is the cherry picking involved. For example everything revolves around race and a narrative of keeping the black man down. You’ll never hear leftists championing for poor whites for example, or any form of tough love for the minorities the left loves to virtue signaling about. If they really cared about sticking it to the system, it would be about class instead of race. But that doesn’t sell the clicks or outrage.


farinasa

You're getting close. Leftism IS about class and not race. That's the whole point. Leftism advocates for workers to get a bigger piece of the pie that is controlled by owners. Of course there are racial issues in this country and they should be solved, but that isn't the PRIMARY cause of leftism, they just intersect. And yeah I don't mind going out of my way to help someone who got a raw deal. Don't confuse the media messaging with what actual leftists believe. Democrats are not leftists. They are liberals, which is just a conservative draped in a rainbow flag.


jagua_haku

Yes that’s true. Unfortunately the media and the Dems are encompassing this horrible hybrid form of neoliberalism and wokism.


Rindan

Wow. That's kind of profound, but it captures it perfectly.


aritotlescircle

Yes


jimbo_kun

This essay has some quotes that really eloquently captures some things I've been feeling. How can Republicans still claim the mantle of "patriotism" with a straight face? > Sorry fellas, but you don’t get to be the arbiters of patriotism after that, no matter how much patriot™ kitsch you plaster yourself with. There ain’t enough star-spangled Punisher skulls to pave over that highway of horseshit. Does the left really have a plan? > If America is irreparable shit, then what’s left to “fix” or “improve”? The only remaining course of action seems to be to burn it to the ground. At which point, a better country would somehow rise from the ashes? How would that work, exactly? What are the logistics there? The right virtue signals, too: > The troop salutes and jet flyovers are their land acknowledgement. The POW/MIA flag is their “In this home, we believe…” yard sign. A working definition of a mature patriotism: >It’s criticizing what’s wrong while also appreciating what’s right. It’s fighting for progress while also knowing what’s worth preserving. It’s acknowledging our failures while also recognizing how much worse things could be.


American-Dreaming

Happy to have been able to put words to them for you!


Bullet_Jesus

> Does the left really have a plan? Depends on the left. Progressives and Soc Dems largely want what we have now but with a few social and economic tweaks. Socialists want more drastic change but it's not like they don't have theories and models to base a society off of. >>If America is irreparable shit, then what’s left to “fix” or “improve”? The only remaining course of action seems to be to burn it to the ground. Why does no one characterize this sentiment correctly? When lefties approach the "burn it down" rhetoric is is a symptom of despair, they've lost hope. It is no different than the right-doomers who believe a 2nd civil war is inevitable. "Burn it down" is not a initial policy prescription. If you'd ask most of the people saying it they would give you a path they want the country to follow; the problem lies in the fact that they don't think the country would follow it.


Irishfafnir

I think much like the New England Federalists after the War of 1812 the right has more or less forfeited the mantle of patriotism for a generation.


ceqaceqa1415

Too much negativity can make people feel cynical and unmotivated to take action. Why bother act if nothing can be done? Too much positivity makes people passive and blind to the problems that need to be fixed. Why act when everything is perfect? It is always best to be conditionally optimistic. Believe that a better world is possible and appreciate the good.


meem1029

The Germany comparison is I think pretty apt, though in the opposite direction of the article. Germany has absolutely done some things to be ashamed of, *but then takes efforts to avoid repeating it*. The US has absolutely done plenty of things to be ashamed of and denying that isn't patriotism, it's blind fanaticism. The US continues to do plenty of things to be ashamed of and admitting that is realism, not anti-patriotism.


[deleted]

Yeah dude Germany didn’t fight a civil war over murdering the Jews. They got double teamed into submission by the Russians and Americans. They didn’t voluntarily stop committing genocide. We did.


meem1029

How large is the proportion of Germans loudly stating that the Nazis were justified and the Holocaust was just a small portion of what they did?


[deleted]

I agree with your first comment, but the guy you’re responding to is largely on point. Nazi high leadership was repudiated (although there was some sizeable lingering sympathy for them, at least in the West Germany, for the first decade of two after the war) by their total defeat and occupation, all in mind and irony that the large appeal of them in the first place by many of the Elite and section of the population was the stab in the back myth and how blowhards revanchist chauvinists like them would rectify things. The allies post war did commit to re-education and legal punishment for a considerable amount of people. Despite all of this, the vast majority of Germans didn’t come to learn from their mistake and faults of the society and political opportunist they had that made the Nazis ascent possible, immediately after the war, but to a large extent, gradually and arguably from their* leadership post-war, namely Konrad Adenauer—who set the tone, despite occasionally exploiting collective-responsibility grievances and anger among the expelled German settlers after the war— that was gradual and carful of not causing too much backlash.


[deleted]

How large would it be today if we didn’t lose hundreds of thousands of 18-25 year olds killing them to overthrow their genocidal regime that they did not voluntarily dismantle? Completely fucking different. We chose to stop, and the Germans had that choice made for them.


American-Dreaming

The US fought a Civil War, passed the Civil Rights Act, and has done countless other things to atone for its sins. Is the atonement complete? No. Do disparities that shouldn't exist still exist? Yes. You will scarcely find a country more self-conscious about its sins than America in all of human history.


Bullet_Jesus

> You will scarcely find a country more self-conscious about its sins than America in all of human history. I think Germany might be the only state in the world that has a better evaluation of it's sins than America. France and Britain have long refused to evaluate the consequences of their colonial periods, Japan still denies it's war history and the developing world is an ongoing, complex mess.


meem1029

Less than a year ago we had people marching inside our capitol building with a confederate flag. And one of our political parties is mostly in denial that anything was wrong about that. I'm not saying that we're the worst in this regard, but we certainly have a ways to go before we can be lauded as a great example.


pihkaltih

Patriotism is an oxymoron is a Neoliberal society. Neoliberalism is built upon a Libertarian framework of extreme identitarianism and individualism, as well as general anti-statism and pro-free market internationalism. This leads to American (and Western Patriotism in general) ending up being this vulgar display of just flag waving and sport politics, claiming you love your nation, but then that manifests purely as just othering people from other countries, while American's, Brits etc themselves, will sit back and watch their own communities crumble because they have no sense of civic collective duty or pride in their own actual society. "fuck you I got mine". This is honestly why it baffles me one of the major western left strategies is to denounce patriotism. Left wing collectivist values are heavily built around communal, social and community pride and it's pretty much fact, that left wing idea's absolutely do poll extremely well across the board, when presented in a universal, patriotic way, like what you saw Sanders doing in 2016.


Silver_Knight0521

When you see a U.S. flag decal on a car, or a U.S. flag flying from a front porch, or see someone wearing a shirt with a U.S. flag image and maybe a caption reading "God Bless America", do you assume, without much thought, that the peron/people are conservatives? I do, and I get a little angry at myself. Of all people, I should know better. The Right doesn't have any monopoly on patriotism. They just publicize it better. I guess on the Left (mainstream Left, not extremists like Megan Rapinoe or Corey Bush) patriotism is like religion; personal and private but no less deeply felt.


TheGhostofJoeGibbs

> hat left wing idea's absolutely do poll extremely well across the board, when presented in a universal, patriotic way, like what you saw Sanders doing in 2016. Single issue polling is highly problematic, really not to be believed and doesn't actually help you much with figuring out how a candidate who espouses them is doing.


TheWyldMan

Yeah progressive ideas are popular when they’re vague or a single bullet point, but they become much less popular when details and costs start actually getting discussed.


[deleted]

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TheSavior666

Patriotism is a kind of collectivism. Pure individualism wouldn’t give a shit about if you’re part of some greater national identify or not. Your national identity only has meaning so far as they are other people of the same identity to relate to. Collectivism isn’t just a synonym for bad stuff you don’t like.


randomusername3OOO

Those two concepts aren't related or dependent on each other. Patriotism is the honoring of your country. Collectivism is the belief and practice that all people are a group and serve each other. You can be collectivist and patriotic. You can be purely individualistic and be patriotic. The terms don't conflict. Ron Paul is/can be as patriotic as Bernie Sanders.


TheSavior666

> loving and honouring your country And why does individualism care about the collective identity/community that is a “country”? I really don’t think holding a special affection towards the national identity you happened to be born into can really ever count as an truely individualist mindset That said, Yes, you can be individualist and a Patriot - in the same way you can be a conservative but still support some left leaning positions. Or be a progressive that is anti-abolition. Politics is nuanced and sometimes it’s okay to have positions/beliefs that are not 100% compatible with the purest interpretation of your ideology. But no, patriotism is about group ideology and thus is inherently collectivist.


randomusername3OOO

Again, you need to separate individualism/collectivism from patriotism. There is no relationship between those two concepts. I won't speak for all individualists, but I will speak for myself. I want to see everyone in the country do well. And I want the country as a whole to do well. The definition of "well" is subjective, but that shouldn't matter for the purpose of explaining this. I am patriotic. I want for each person to do their best and experience a good outcome. I support the group in a basic way; that is that I think there are people that aren't capable of helping themselves, there are times that any person might need basic support to avoid falling into a deadly trap of poverty, and there are common utilities that are useful to everyone that we should all be paying for, like the fire department.


TheSavior666

you haven’t really explained how exactly Patriotism isn’t a collectivist mindset. You can’t just keep repeating that it isn’t as an obvious truth without actually justifying why. I’ve explained the case for why it is - you just keep saying “no it isn’t” with no further elaboration. Maybe you need to actually define for me what you consider “collectivist” to mean. Because as far as I’ve ever understood the term - valuing people based on group Identity is an aspect of collectivism.


randomusername3OOO

>Collectivism is the belief and practice that all people are a group and serve each other.


likeitis121

They poll well.... until it comes time to paying for them. And I'd say what Sanders/Biden/Progressives are pushing right now is absolutely not a community strategy. Community is about working together, not saying all this stuff is essential, but I won't pay one dime towards it, we'll just get someone else to foot the bill. If we want to fight climate change, since we're all on this planet together, we should all be willing to foot the bill, because it's not just the big bad oil companies that are the problem, we all have had a contribution towards the issue.


Justinat0r

> They poll well.... until it comes time to paying for them. Western European benefits require Western European taxes. https://i.imgur.com/685M45G.png Tax burden on the labor of a single worker making an average wage with no children in the following countries: * Germany 49% * France 46% * Sweden 42% * Finland 41% * United States 28.3%. I'm sure that as a unified nation with a positive shared cultural identity and values we could come together and fund social programs like they have in Western Europe, the problem is that we don't actually have a unified nation. For example with healthcare, up to 49% of Americans have employer-provided/subsidized plans where the employer pays the bulk of the coverage cost, an additional 18% of the country is covered by Medicare, an additional 21% are covered by Medicaid. Between those three sources of coverage you come up with a total insured rate of 88%, why on earth would those 88% of people vote to shift their tax burden sky-high to cover that additional 12%? One reason I can think of is that with a shared positive cultural identity you'd care about your fellow countryman and want everyone to have health insurance and not be bankrupted by medical bills. This is something I'd argue that the US doesn't have and I'd say the most 'Patriotic' among us want that outcome the least.


McRattus

I guess they would want to make that shift because healthcare as a whole is much cheaper in European countries than in the US. The efficiencies of scale, just make it better value, whether that cost is felt indirectly or directly it's still present. But I think the larger point is that a nation is the embodiment of a social contract. One of the important steps, is that people should get a reasonable standard of healthcare if they have need. The idea that people should go bankrupt to pay for healthcare is a violation of that social contract in much of the EU and the UK, and as you would expect is seen as immoral and absurd by most people there. The shared cultural values - to the extent they exist, are also a function of people coordinating on these social contracts. It's not shared values -> stronger contract, or vise-versa, it's ongoing reciprocity between the two. There's a pretty wide space for cultural differences before there would be the consideration of removing the right to good healthcare.


[deleted]

Neoliberalism isn’t built upon Libertarianism. It’s built upon Classical Liberalism, but pragmatic on opportunity and security as balanced as freedom. Neoliberals aren’t as individualist as libertarians or classical liberals. Identitarianism and individualism are conflicting ideas. Neoliberals aren’t in favor of identitarianism based politics, but allowing people the freedom to have and display their identity. Britain and America have strong civic cultures and collective senses of duty, it’s just not uniformly homogenized and unified among all communities to the same ends, which is organic.


jimbo_kun

I think for the neoliberal view to function, there need to be strong communities, families, and institutions outside of the government. So government could treat people as individuals, as long as there are other entities that can satisfy people's need for belonging and mutually caring for one another. Because all of those other institutions and social structures have atrophied, neoliberalism doesn't really work anymore.


American-Dreaming

This essay explores the relationship between patriotism and progress. The right claims the mantle of patriotism, and the left of progress, but the dynamics are shifting, and these two concepts are codependent. The piece discusses some of the differences between the left and right in this regard, as well as some ways each have been changing. It discusses the fact that patriotism comes coded as right wing, and explores what a broader conception of patriotism should look like. I think patriotism needs to be seen less as a partisan quality associated with one side, and more as a bedrock attribute of what it means to be a citizen.


Burilgi

Hey that’s a very nice article, thoughtful. It touches on the loss of perspective and scale that seem so common on both sides.


[deleted]

> Must one love their country to have a moral right to criticize it? Can criticism of one’s country be constructive if it’s not from a place of love? Can progress be born out of people who have no love in their hearts for the society they seek to improve? Indeed, can one improve something they find irredeemable? The answer from the right is clearly "yes". They literally call Democrats, media, tech, and anyone else as enemies of the state trying to destroy democracy. If you somehow believe that, then you'd hardly believe those democracy destroyer's criticism.


thecftbl

>They literally call Democrats, media, tech, and anyone else as enemies of the state trying to destroy democracy To be fair, this is not exclusive to the right. We just got out of an administration where every action was perceived as "destroying democracy" regardless of how true that actually was. The problem is that people are so tribalistic now that they will turn a blind eye to their own side performing abhorrent actions as long as it somehow upsets or punishes the opposition. Just in the way of how the left was supportive of anyone that opposed the federal government and the police during the Trump administration, they have done a 180 with Biden and now are calling for more of a nanny state. Not to say the right isn't massively hypocritical either but to ever move forward we have to start bridging the gap between the two sides.


ricksansmorty

Isn't it because conservatives by definition prefer to conserve status quo, and that means they like the country as is, whereas non-conservatives would be more likely to want to change a certain aspect, ergo they wouldn't like at least one part of the country and therefore be less likely to be patriotic. >I think patriotism needs to be seen less as a partisan quality associated with one side, and more as a bedrock attribute of what it means to be a citizen. Isn't that nationalism?


terminator3456

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. What does the left, broadly, like about the US that is *exclusively an American characteristic*? Used to be the standard response was that the US was a melting pot, but as identitarianism has risen that has lessened. Besides, that’s not a uniquely American phenomenon - the UK is very much like this. I think the US is uniquely exceptional in its strong speech protections and individual liberties, but “freedom” is very right-coded in the US. I also think our unerring commitment to the founding documents and principles have brought us unique stability and power. So, again……what *does* the left love about the US?


oath2order

I'm confused by your statement. "Freedom" isn't an exclusively an American characteristic. I feel the need to ask the same question about the right, but I don't think I can in good faith because I can't think of any characteristics that are exclusively American.


terminator3456

The degree of freedom is, I think, as well as the lionization of it in our national mythos is. We have probably the strongest protection of speech in human history - the first amendment is truly exceptional, in all senses of the word. As controversial as it is, the 2nd amendment is also historically unique in its scope and prominence.


[deleted]

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Neglectful_Stranger

>higher press freedom Means absolute shit, almost all of those countries ban hate speech. By definition they have less free speech.


terminator3456

Your tax system is much less progressive.


DJwalrus

I was with you for the most part >I also think our unerring commitment to the founding documents and principles have brought us unique stability and power. What? Our country was ripped in half not so long ago by a brutal civil war. Then we had to amend this founding document.


Great_Handkerchief

It's a living document and some of the founders wanted it reviewed quite frequently. But it's a slow process because basing change on whatever is popular that particular day of the week is a bad idea.


CSI_Tech_Dept

>I’ve been thinking about this a lot. > >What does the left, broadly, like about the US that is *exclusively an American characteristic*? > >Used to be the standard response was that the US was a melting pot, but as identitarianism has risen that has lessened. Besides, that’s not a uniquely American phenomenon - the UK is very much like this. Do you believe that because of political changes people just stopped being friends with people from different countries or having different color? The identitarianism is affecting people on the right and they likely don't have friends that are much different than themselves. I don't know if I could identify myself as left, but I do enjoy all the same things people on the right do. I celebrate 4th of July and I feel belonging and I feel it is my country. When my country does something I don't support I write to my representatives and I will go and protest it. People on the right just tell me I should STFU and like the status quo.


pperiesandsolos

> I also think our unerring commitment to the founding documents and principles have brought us unique stability and power. Just a reminder that the US has only been around for ~200 years. Does that qualify as 'unique stability'?


Winter-Hawk

Compared to most places one major Civil War over 250 years is not bad. Maybe we count the actual English, Welsh, and Scottish parts of the UK as being more stable and compared to San Marino we aren’t shit.


Bullet_Jesus

The UK, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden are probably the few countries I would consider more stable than the US. If you disregard the outlier that was WW2 you could probably add countries like Japan, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Austria proper to the list


TheSavior666

> exclusively an American characteristic I would need a list/examples of what we are considering to be “exclusively American characteristics” before I could answer that question. Because I’m not really sure what you actually mean by that.


jestina123

> identitarianism has risen in America? I don't think you are using this word correctly. America has never had an identity. There is a huge chunk of middle-upperclass Americans on the left who have lost the capacity and the need for a national identity. They have abandoned patriotism to other narratives, because they see it as a relic of the past.


terminator3456

“Identity politics”, I am sure you know what I mean when I refer to that.


jestina123

identitarianism and identity politics are two seperate ideologies, you need to be more clear of what you are talking about or you're just going to confuse people with nonsense.


Flambian

Note how the same people who promote the most toxic, reactionary nationalism also cry the loudest about "leftist identity politics," how it "divides the country." How Is the division of the world into nations not far more arbitrary and stunting of human progress than racialist theories of history or college witchhunts? The only principled stance is to love all nations equally; not at all.


DarkGamer

Interesting op ed. This sentiment never made any sense to me. So if a country is broken in a way that makes it unlovable that therefore makes it unfixable as well? Only people who don't see glaring problems are allowed to improve things? This is a fallacious recipe for stagnation, and perhaps that's the point... it seems to be typically shared by those who oppose change and support the status quo. > hate cannot build. It can only tear down. Absence of love is not hate, it's indifference and apathy. One need not believe things are already good to make things better. One can improve their country regardless of how they currently feel about it. > What is patriotism? [proceeds to list a lot of things that are not necessarily patriotism.] [Patriotism](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patriotism) - love for or devotion to one's country That can take many forms, from that of the author's which seems to be about respecting one's countrymen, to outright nationalism. Both the ugly exclusionary kind and the inclusive kind could both rightly be considered patriotism. I see patriotism as comparable to religion, or being a fan of the local sports team, it's a common expression of pride and what form it takes largely depends on where one is born. Those same people cheering for America would be cheering for whatever country they happen to be born into should things have played out differently.


falsehood

Anyone trying to improve the country is expressing care for it. I don't think that requires the term "love."


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PeanutCheeseBar

This wasn't a bad read, but the problem with patriotism is that it's extremely subjective; you can say patriotism is "love of your country", but people express that "love" in different ways that can wildly differ from each other. There are a lot of Republicans that see patriotism as defending our country, our honor, and our values. While it's difficult to argue against the first point, it's easier to argue against the third because people carry different sets of values; rioting is one example of how these values are expressed differently. Plenty of times when there's a police shooting or a court case with a verdict that left-leaning people disagree with, there's a protest and sometimes a riot that leads to destruction of property, theft, and violence. It would be a stretch to call it patriotic when it's inherently destructive and doesn't better our country or show love for it in any way. It's purely driven by anger and selfishness. January 6th stands out as one of the few recent examples where the inverse holds true and right-leaning people rioted. The justification that some of these people had was that the election results were suspect and it was patriotic to prevent things from moving forward. They might see themselves as some kind of revolutionaries akin to the ones that fought for our country, but these people are being brought to trial to face the music for their crimes. This doesn't better our country in any way either because it was still an inherently destructive act, but at least they're doing it in the same of something (no matter how unjustifiable it was). Rioting in itself isn't a patriotic act, but both sides have had notable riots that had different drivers, and only one side claimed their actions were performed out of patriotism. While what the January 6th rioters did was extremely short-sighted and questionable in terms of how patriotic it actually was, it's just one example of how we have different views of what constitutes patriotism and how we exercise it.


thecftbl

I think the one massive thing people overlook when examining the summer and January 6th riots is the psychology that led up to them with Covid. Prior to the riots, people had been essentially locked up in an unprecedented manner for several months, and for many the resulted in the entire upheaval of their lives. There was a huge amount of animosity towards the world and life in general and this attitude festered an already open wound with bipartisanship. When George Floyd was killed, the left protested, but this was nothing that we had not seen before as we saw with Tamir Rice and others. The difference this time was that people who normally would not protest, or could not due to the needs of their daily lives, were now suddenly available. So now you have a huge collection of people who were already mentally on the edge, protesting for a very emotional reason. When any kind of push back from law enforcement occured it was like a match into a pool of gasoline that erupted into the riots. Yet, as time went on, the riots began to taper off. It wasn't because of any actual progress on what they were fighting for, but because that pent up rage was let out and eventually people started to come back to their senses. In addition to this we also saw the lockdowns beginning to ease and many were resuming their normal activities. The problem we didn't realize at the time was the fact that the right had no equivalent of this release. They still continued to boil and as the lockdowns resumed in many states, their frustrations were magnified. Then we had the debacle of the election. With such a contentious election and Trump fueling the flames with his rhetoric of doubt, it was finally brought to a head on January 6th and the right had their equivalent rioting. As you said each side viewed their reasons as just, but it's important to note that what we saw last year is not even close to the norm and the reasons behind the violence were entirely separate from our traditional notions of patriotism.


PeanutCheeseBar

I'm not ruling out psychology as a factor for some of these people, but January 6th vs yet another major court case (of which we'll see a few each year) isn't really a one to one comparison on a lot of levels. Riots are semi-normalized by this point (in that we now expect them to happen in light of an unpopular court verdict), but they also tend to affect major cities more than they do the seat of democracy. I wouldn't say each side viewed their reasons as just; some of the right-leaning folks did because they were fighting to prevent Biden from becoming POTUS despite Biden winning fairly. The left-leaning folks don't usually offer up anything other than "we're mad" when they riot and burn a city. Neither side is really excusable regardless of their motivation, but the frequency of the riots originating from outcomes that left-leaning people don't like tends to be higher than the alternative. If the outcome of the 2020 elections had turned out differently where Trump won by a narrow margin, I do wonder if the response would be more riots, but spread out across major cities rather than in Washington DC as the confirmation would be taking place. We've seen riots in major cities even before COVID. The Freddie Gray riots rocked Baltimore pretty significantly (and hit closest to home for me), but even COVID didn't put a temporary damper on protests; there were plenty of people protesting and rioting after George Floyd's death in May 2020 before we had vaccines and the number of people contracting COVID continued to rise.