What makes statements like Sarahfeena’s irksome is that they make it sound like the Europeans were sitting around cowering in chains, being ruled by kingly decree, when all of a sudden the Americans thought of this idea called Freedom and introduced it to the world. When in fact, the American revolution and new constitution etc. were just part – a significant part, certainly – of a movement towards democracy and liberty that had already been underway for a century or more. Glorious Revolution, anyone? The (English) Bill of Rights?
But your ancestors were living in a country where an incompetent leader named George (interesting point that his not so incompetent father was also named George) could start unjust wars on seemingly a whim. You call that freedom?
Jim
Tou—fucking—ché! 
And what makes statements like yours (and the OP) so irksome is that you make it sound like we’re all running around here getting beaten by police for crossing streets.
Where did I say anything remotely like that?
Where did Sarahfeena say anything remotely like that?
(Note: ** I’m** the one who talked about you guys living in caves and hitting each other with swords.)
Early American history? You mean, like, the English, French, Dutch, and Spanish colonial periods?
That idea that we have more social and economic mobility here probably holds up better if you think in terms of upward from the middle rather than upward from the bottom. It’s probably easier in America for a person with decent education to become rich through entrepreneurship or invention than it would be elsewhere, and the resulting wealth is not as heavily taxed. I"ll probably get a lot of flak from the conservatives here when I say that for the vast majority of us, it’s a meaningless freedom, since we don’t have the next brilliant idea or entrepreneurial spirit to make it happen. As in any other sphere, that kind of talent and ability is rare.
I think I’m missing your point
There was a fascinating (to me, anyway) series in the NY Times a few months ago called “Class Matters” that spoke to the mobility issue at least to some degree. They looked at how long it took for a family starting off at the poverty level (about 25% of the national average income) to reach the average. Denmark, Canada, and Germany all beat the US, with the average family in poverty reaching the national average income in 4 generations. The UK trailed the US. There weren’t enormous differences - the average had reached over 80% of avg. national income by the 4th generation, but the US and UK were still somewhat behind.
It seems to me that much of the perception of the US being more free is that we are taught that from day one. I don’t think it’s entirely a myth or conditioning, but it does seem to be part of the national character that we are taught. In many ways, real freedom has been (and in some ways still is) very dependent upon who you are and where you are - minorities, women, religious groups have been legally discriminated against and much of that discrimination still exists.
If nothing else, we Americans love to cry about how our freedoms are being trampled by government, business, religions, the Trilateral Commission, etc.
You broke away from Britain. Whoop de doo. Get over it.
I do think that at least some people down south of us definitely take ‘patriotism’ way too far. And the whole daily Pledge of Allegiance thing squiks me out in ways I can’t even begin to describe. Who else does that? I’m thinking just about nobody.
Europeans - anybody there required to pledge allegiance to your nation every single school day? I see that it was declared unconstitutional last year to make kids do it but I’m betting the vast majority of them still do.
also in 1943
Montani semper liberi
As Lemur says, I didn’t say anything remotely like that. Of course, the founding fathers took ideas that had been forming in Europe, but the point is that they used those ideas to start an entirely new country which was based on those principles. Although many other countries have the same types of freedoms that we do, their cultures did not spring from that ideal, as ours did. My point isn’t that we are better because of it…my point is more that it’s basically all we’ve got, and that’s why we cling to it so tightly.
And as far as I’m concerned, we STILL have a long way to go. But the point is that we wrote them down as our ideal. Just because humans are flawed, and don’t always live up to those ideals doesn’t make the concept wrong. Personally, I believe that American patriotism is about believing in those ideals, and striving towards them, even though it is clear that they can never truly be reached. And, again, I believe the reason we put so much importance on it is because it is what our country is based on. Besides this, we don’t have much in the way of a shared culture in the US…it is a huge place, with very different cultures from region to region, ethnic group to ethnic group. This is one thing that we can look to that makes us a nation…ideas that were there from its birth. It’s what we have that binds us together.
I have to respectfully disagree. The constitution contained the 3/5ths compromise which clearly expressed the fact that slaves were not equal. Many of the authors of the constitution owned slaves and did not think that the rights contained in it did not apply to slaves. It took constitutional ammendments to extend rights to slaves and women, not just a re-interpretation of the constitution. The US is a great place, but not much different than other western democracies. In some ways we are better and some ways we are worse, but I don’t see a huge disparity between freedom in the US and freedom in France, Sweden, and the New Zealand.
Do you remember the scene in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure where the jock ran out of things to say and yelled out “San Dimas football rocks!”. To me that is the same level of discourse as saying “The US is the greatest country in the world”, “freedom fries”, etc.
But you are missing my point…I’m not trying to say that our freedom is better than other countries, or that we got it right from the get-go. The point is that the concept of it, while not our invention and however flawed it might have been, is our cultural starting point.
I thought the OP was asking why the concept of freedom resonates so much with the Amedrican people, from a cultural perspective. I am attempting to explain what I think is the reason. I am not trying to champion America as the bastion of all that is perfect in regards to the notion of freedom. If what I am really being asked to do is defend each incident where the US hasn’t lived up to the ideal of freedom, forget it…I wouldn’t dream of trying to do that in a million years.
Missed the edit window…I wanted to add this to my post:
If you read my posts, you will see that I never, ever said that our freedoms are different from those of Europe. My point is that our history is different…in the sense that we didn’t have any before the time that this revolution of thought happened that led to the freedoms many countries know today.
You do know that kids are not required to pledge allegiance to their nation every single school day in the United States, right?
Quiddity, it just makes me sad that for some reason you need to put down other countries in order to make yourself feel better about your country. Why do you think you do that, anyway? Defensiveness? If you don’t think it’s attractive when an American does it, why exactly would you think others appreciate it when a Canadian does it?
The USA is still a work in progress… Think of “The Land of the Free” as a mission statement.
I think I get your point now. Unlike other countries who have long histories and shared ethnic, racial, and religious ties, the US is bound together almost solely by the shared values enshrined in The Constitution. That is why we identify with the ideals of freedom and democracy, rather than our language, food, art or things that other countries may see as their defining characteristic. I think that is a good point.