I learned that the U.S. is the best country in the world from the back of a Wheaties box.
So pre-desegregation, pre-spousal rape laws, and pre-voting rights act? Has anyone who isn’t a white man ever given this answer?
Has anyone who isn’t a straight* white man ever wanted to go back to an earlier era?
*I added this because I would be miserable in the 1950s, despite my white maleness.
If we’re asking in which era is the perception of “America is best” rooted in, it’s the 1950’s, for reasons I already mentioned, much of which are downstream of being the last industrial power standing after WW2. That’s where the myth gets most of its force from, though it began well before that.
If we’re asking when was actually America’s best time, I’d probably put a pin in 2015 or so. You could make an argument that material improvements continued to happen under Trump, in spite of Trump, but that’s kind of tone-deaf given the psychic damage and cultural division he’s created, the fruits of which are still barely emerged, and will surface over decades to come.
At what time or place was America actually the best, if ever? Although there are areas where the US excels in ways that will never be matched, the concept of “best country” is really sort of nonsense. We benefit from dominating most of a continent and being protected from consequences by oceans to the left and right, and allies (for now) to the north and south. It’s not something we really earned, but it produces undeniable advantages, which we’ve used both for good and ill.
Hasn’t that worm turned itself into a pretzel recently.
Now the principal difference between Russia and the UA is that Russian hegemony is about acquiring land. US hegemony is about acquiring cash.
To be fair, although I agree with you that the Cato Institute are basically a bunch of right-wing shills if somewhat more literate on average than a lot of other right-wing shills, I think the report’s author in that sentence meant something different from how you’re interpreting it.
He wasn’t saying that the current climate-related deaths from anthropogenic climate change are dramatically declining, and indeed they are not: quite the contrary, as you rightly point out.
His (fairly feeble) “contrarian” claim IMHO is more along the lines of “hurr durr, back in the old wood-fired days climate events like floods and fires and blizzards useta kill lots and lots of people in their log cabins and covered wagons who never saw catastrophe coming, but now we’ve got energy abundance and all sorts of fancy communications and transport technology so we can save way more people from disasters with generators and evacuating them 'n stuff! Checkmate, you tree-huggers!”
Which is indeed a pretty stupid “rebuttal” to concerns about the upward trends in current climate-related deaths caused by all the anthropogenic greenhouse-gas-related warming, but is not an outright flagrant lie along the lines of “nuh-uh, trends in current climate-related deaths are actually decreasing!”
Anyway, back to the thread topic: I think one specific “exceptionalist” aspect that a lot of Americans learn is that the USA was the first modern country to consciously and persistently base its self-foundation on articulated principles of democracy and equality. Now, that statement is glossing over a lot of debatable issues in the meaning of terms like “democracy” and “equality”, no question.
But a lot of Americans are taught that it’s quite meaningful that the “Founding Fathers” explicitly rejected the default approach of governance by monarchs and/or aristocrats and/or heads of churches, and that they saw this as a radical and principled break from practically universal tradition. And, well, “if that was a good thing to do, and we’re the first ones who did it, then doesn’t that make us the best?”
Can you name the last 50 cities and towns that the US has reduced to rubble in exerting its own influence, just absolutely wiped off the face of the earth? I get that the US has done bad things, but I’m not going to sit here and listen to an obtuse bothsides argument about how it’s the same as Russia, because there’s simply no credible comparison to be had.
Wait, can you name 50 cities that Russia wiped out during the last 250 years? Also, do American Indian communities count for America’s tally?
Saying that they are different is literally the opposite of saying they are the same.
Saying the Russia’s focus is on land while the USA’s is on money is arguable, but all that means is that both are bad actors on ghe international stage, not that they’re the same.
Well, with the (recent) US hegemony being about acquiring cash, rather than territory, wouldn’t destroying those cities and infrastructure etc. represent a very poorly executed, indeed self-defeating strategy?
In a report that’s entirely about climate change, the statement that there’s been a “…dramatic decline in climate-related deaths due to energy abundance and adaptation” would be rightly interpreted as declining deaths in the era of anthropogenic climate change, namely from about the second half of the 20th century when its effects started to become clearly evident. This interpretation is further reinforced by the use of the word “adaptation” which is a common buzzword used in climate change discussions to refer to methods of addressing climate change through a range of adaptations instead of, or in conjunction with, emissions reductions.
At best, in the most generous possible interpretation, the statement is very, very misleading and could very easily lead one to believe that because of all our modern tech and climate-related adaptations, climate change isn’t much of a risk to life and health any more. At best. The other reasonable interpretation is that he’s just outright lying. Or that he’s making a weasel-worded statement hoping that many readers will interpret it the way I did, and will believe it. Why did he never mention the dramatically rising deaths due to climate change in recent decades?
Here are 20 cities Russia wiped just in the past 4 years - Populated cities destroyed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Chechen genocide saw the destruction of Grozny, Gudermes, Argun and others.
In South Ossetia/Georgia we’ve got Tskhinvali, Gori, Kvemo Achabeti, Avnevi
Given that Assad was backed and supplied by Russia and involved Russian military personnel, we can count Aleppo and Homs as well.
Of course that’s only about 30 utter annihilations but that’s just what I could search up in 5 minutes.
Okay, now the second part of my question: do Native American communities wiped out count towards America’s tally of 50?
ETA: also what about Palestinian communities wiped out with American support?
Thirty years ago, I had someone going on about how great the fifties were - I told him I’m sure they were for him. After all, he was a straight white Christian man - it wouldn’t have been so great if one of those attributes was different.
So your entire response to the Russian question is to excuse it with whataboutism, is that what we’re doing?
So, you don’t have an answer.
I never made the claim that we were as morally bankrupt as Russia, which is not the topic of this thread. We are examining how Americans are indoctrinated to believe their country is the best and it is very telling that this has triggered so many Americans.
A big part of that indoctrination is to dismiss horrific acts as “mistakes were made.” Those mistakes include being an active participant in the current Palestinian genocide; the genocide of the American Indians; overthrowing democracies; Jim Crow; school children regularly being gunned down in their classroom to satisfy gun enthusiasts need to feel safe; citizens going bankrupt because they had to go to the hospital; and masked secret police executing citizens in the street.
Because no one “indoctrinates” Americans. We just figure out America is an awesome place to live just from living here day to day.
…while never living anywhere else day to day to compare.
Q.E.D.
What other countries have you lived in?