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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

It is very tiring. I get why Europeans might enjoy taking shots at us (though at one point I'd have said it was more of a good natured ribbing, given that Europe's history is also many Americans' history), and I fully understand the armies of bots spreading invective ... but the constant dogging on America by our own citizens is sad. I'm sure a lot of this outcome is intentional, but nobody fights back.

America is many things, has done many things. Some great, some not so much. Americans themselves should at least be honest about seeing the good parts even if nobody else will admit it. And if we're going to keep progressing forward we need people to be on board in good faith.

/soapbox rant over

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I feel like this partly a counter reaction. To some US people endlessly glazing the US and endless saying 'best country'. In general the attitude in the US seems to think that anything not rooted in US experience is bad. You can literally feel audience stop listening when somebody giving a speech says 'In X country they do Y because its better based on Z analysis'. And then you have an army of Americans show up telling every possible reason (no matter how irrelevant) why X country is not like the US at all.

I feel like in Europe its much more normal to say, Switzerland is doing X very well, Sweden is going Y very well and so on. Or even the US is doing Z better.

Not American but I feel the sentiment. I'm planning to change nationality soon as 'my' own country is also on the same right-wing conservative track. I'm not interested in making things better anymore. I just want to break with them forever. They deserve no more admiration or loyalty.

I don't believe in national pride or even of sports teams. My loyalty is always conditional, as long as my ethics align.

I can imagine some Americans feel that way too.

Yes, some people have that viewpoint. Very transactional. I think there was a time when I might have agreed. But as I have gotten older I've gained more of an appreciation for shared mythology and how it promotes social cohesion.

Historically in many places religion has been a primary source of shared mythology. In America, despite prominent Christian religions, a strong historical shared mythology has been of our own founding. It does not matter that it is myth, it matters that it is shared.

What I want is when an American citizen goes into that theater at the US House of Representatives before the tour and watches the short film about the founding of the country, they should come out of it damn near shedding tears of pride in how great we are. Bullshit or not, the American Creed is a source of unity. That is failing, and I am sad to see it.

When everyone becomes strictly transactional, society has failed.

To me it's really because they have broken that promise. Governments take advantage of that cohesion. It's not really because of the transactionality to my benefit but just because what they stand for is a net negative for society and the world.

Consider the military. Few wars are actually worth giving one's life for. Since 1945 basically none. If the Communists had won in Vietnam nothing would have happened to America. Iraq was based on false pretenses, Afghanistan accomplished absolutely nothing. My own country was part of some of these misguided adventures and has some of its own wars where it definitely was the evil aggressor.

Or think of the Nazis who exploited the very concept of this nationalism to destroy half the world.

So no. I do think it helps social cohesion but when a state is using that cohesion for evil it does not deserve to be followed.

I think we should outgrow this petty follow the leader attitude and think for ourselves.

> If the Communists had won in Vietnam nothing would have happened to America

They did.

True they did in the end but my point is, nothing bad happened.

Like, why did America even get involved in that shit anyway? It was a French problem (and really, it was fair they wanted to kick the French colonisers out).

I share your disillusionment, but my preferred response would be Americans coming together and deciding that actually, we do care, and we do want a better society for everyone, a better government, less corruption, etc. I am not suggesting that everyone needs to subscribe to my idea of better, either, I am just saying that we could improve things just be getting a majority of people acting in good faith and having real discussions about the issues we face. A healthy debate where winning means everybody wins, and losing just means you rework and improve your ideas and arguments and keep on participating.

Man I'm an idealist today. Okay that's just about every day, thankfully. But nihilism sometimes tries to consume me too.

Oh yeah I'm not an idealist. Or a team player (that much was clear I think). I'm more a 'fuck society' type like in Mr. Robot :)

I like to work with others to make things better but they have to be aligned in values. I don't do unconditional loyalty stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion btw

I had not read that, thank you for sharing!

I think labeling all things right-wing as bad is part of the problem. The left goes too far, and pushes people to the right. That's why Trump got back into power.

What is something the right wing supports that you would say is good, by contrast?

Sometimes I hear that it is because the right wing is perceived as strong on the economy, despite the facts showing that the left wing consistently performs better. Or that the right wing has better foreign policy chops, despite consistently starting wars. Or that the right wing is about smaller, limited government, despite consistently using government power to push their social agenda.

Maybe it was the pronouns thing.

It is because it is all bad at least to me.The right has crossed so many red lines for me that it's just no longer possible to work with them.

> I'm sure a lot of this outcome is intentional, but nobody fights back.

Well.. some people do in fact fight back. You'll hear it on the Waking Up podcast for example. The issue is that Trump is also, on the surface, fighting back. Except he's destroying America instead of making it great.

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