BobLibDem did, as well as Tom the Dancing Bug I suppose. He was unfavorably comparing our whining generation to the compliant WWII generation.
Eta: do you think Japanese internment was illegal? It was upheld in the Supreme Court.
From where does your mother receive her information?
Well, that’s a complex philosophical question, but I will try to answer. When I was a kid growing up in Israel in the 90s, the mythologized America to which I was excited to move was a Land of Opportunity, where anyone with the proper work ethic and motivation could work their way up from nothing to reach great success.
Of course, even then, this was a myth. Plenty of Israelis went to America seeking a better life. Some, like my family, succeeded. Others, like many of our friends and family members, came to the US, worked here for some time, but found middling success at best until they either returned to Israel or stayed in the US but never found the great opportunity they came here for.
So, what I think would Make America Great:
- a high degree of social mobility - by this metric the US is bad and getting worse, and has been for decades
- racial equality - social mobility can’t apply to just one group; if white genteel southern plantation owners do better than their parents each generation but everyone else suffers, that’s a problem. By this metric the US is about as good as it has ever been, though there is still a long way to go.
- gender equality - in a great country, both men and women can prosper in any field they choose. By this metric, we still have a long way to go as well, but again, probably as good as we have ever been.
So overall, America is not that great; it never had been truly great; and we are generally heading in the direction of greatness but it’s a two steps forwards one step back process. 2016, for example, was a huge step back.
I think as an immigrant, you definitely are missing where the MAGA people are coming from. Yes, some are racist and want America to be racist again. But a large number are just remembering the good parts of their dad/grandpa’s story. Lifetime jobs right out of high school stuff.
How much opportunity did their mom/grandmother have, while their dad or grandpa was off on his straight-out-of-highschool job? Could they get a job too, or did they have to fall in line as domestic housemakers if they wanted to prosper?
What about their grandpa’s black neighbor, from the other side of the railroad tracks? Did he get a prosperous middle class job straight out of high school?
And gee, I wonder why corporations stopped caring about their employees’ long term welfare? If only there was some kind of organization of employees who could make demands of the corporation’s managers. Did we have these organizations back then? How do MAGA people feel about them?
Amazon?
/s
In their memory, Mom/Grandma was fine being stay at home. Many of them probably were.
Just to be clear: you talked about your mirage of America from another country. They have a mirage of America from their childhood memories.
And I’m sure that many Saudi women didn’t want to drive anyways, and always wanted to do what their husbands said anyhow.
I am always reminded of a high school exchange student I knew from Germany 40 years ago “I heard this was the freest country in the world, but you can’t even take off your top at the swimming pool.”
Can’t you see I’m not speaking absolute truths here. It’s remembered images.
I don’t see why that matters. People did terrible things based on false memories of the past ALL THE TIME. You just have to look at the incredibly destructive Lost Cause narrative of the Civil War, the Stabbed in the Back narrative of the German loss in WW1, and - as I fear we will soon learn the hard way - the Stolen Election narrative of the 2020 election.
If some morons want to take America back to the 40s because their grandpa talked fondly about the time when white men were men, women stayed in the kitchen, and black men knew their place, they should be educated, not tolerated or ignored.
I don’t disagree that Trumpers believe what you stated. I’m pointing out that those beliefs are bullshit and should be called out as such.
Well, I don’t see the need to “call out” those opinions in this specific context but ok.
If you call to make America Great, but your conception of a great America is one where white men prosper as first class citizens while everyone else stays in their proper place, you may be dangerously ignorant. If you respond to more information about why you are ignorant by digging in, then maybe you WANT to bring about a white ethnostate. Either way, you need to be called out, so that our society can move away from that and towards something great rather than the other way around.
My point was that no one here has called to Make America Great so you’re “calling out” people who aren’t participating in this discussion.
You said (emphasis mine)
In response to
To me that implies you are claiming to be a MAGA supporter, and so I outlined the problems I have with MAGA.
“Us” meant our currently living generation(s) as opposed to the mostly dead people from WWII.
I think there’s a significant difference here. With the possible exception of the state religion example, these are acts that a government takes to protect itself not to protect the well being of the people living in the country.
I don’t think anyone except for fringe conspiracy theorists can argue that the government telling people to follow quarantine procedures (or speed limits or building codes or blackouts) is something the government is doing to protect itself from political opposition.
But that has been recognised as a great injustice, a violation of civil rights, illegal and unconstitutional. The government didn’t have the authority or right to do it. You don’t want to cite this as a justification for covid measures.
Arrested? Yes.