What America Stands For

Great Debates
1

With all the things happening in the world lately America is getting a lot of bad press. It seems that people are forgetting what America is about. They are looking at the U.S. as war-mongers and they are thinking we are out of control.

I can’t take this anymore. That is not what America is about. I have lived here all my life and I would never entertain the though of leaving. I have written a couple of paragraphs describing our country as I see it. This is what America means to me.

America is about freedom first. Freedom to pursue whatever your heart desires. The freedom to make your dreams come true. The freedom to do what you want and say what you want as long as it does not threaten the freedoms of others. If you do not like how things are going, your free to say so without fear of punishment. It is a right of being an American. If you choose to worship the religion of your choice, your free to do that. If you want to protest your leaders actions, in a peaceful way, you are free to do that as well. These are only some of the things that makes America what it is.

Americans are not people to take things laying down. We know what it means to ‘fight for your rights’. We have had to fight tooth and nail to get to were we are today. We have lost tens of thousands of souls to have the rights we enjoy day in and day out. We don’t take kindly to anyone threatening what we have fought and bled for. If push comes to shove, Americans will stand together and destroy those that try.

When a disaster happens, who do people call first? America. Does your country need help, give us a call, we will be glad to help. It is what we do. Most of the time, we will not even ask to be repaid. Don’t expect us to help countries that oppress their citizens. That would spit in the face of everyone that spilled blood for our land.

America is about Pride. I capitalized the word pride because that is how important it is. Pride in our country like no one outside of it can understand. Pride in the freedoms we enjoy daily. Look into the eyes of the children reciting the pledge of allegience. Look in the eyes of the blue collar worker making his product. Look into the eyes of the the soldier coming in from battle and seeing our flag flying high. Sure those eyes may sometimes be covered in blood, sweat and tears, but look deeper and you will see an undying pride for the land called America.

America is also about beauty. Beautiful lands, beautiful mountains, and beautiful people. People come from the world over to experience the awe that only America can provide. From the middle of the largest city to the most remote location you can find, there is something to inspire everyone. You may even stumble across another American who, with great pride, will lend a caring hand to make things even more enjoyable.

Other countries have problems understanding what America is about. They see us as war-happy, do as we say not as we do bullies. They are not seeing the big picture. They do not see that we are trying to make the world a better place for everyone. We are asking for nothing more than respect. Considering what America has done for so many of these countries that are bad mouthing us, respect is not much to ask.

America is not a flag or its leaders. Those are the first thing people the world over use to identify the U.S., but those are representations. They do not know America from the inside. Maybe they need to sit back and see what America has done to make the world what it is today.

2

While I can agree with much of what you have posted, you really should put yourself in the position of some of “those people.” If your family in Guatemala or El Salvador was pretty nearly exterminated by members of the Army some of whom got their training and all of whom got their financial support from the U.S., you just might look on the U.S. as a bully. If you are a citizen of Chile, the steadiest and longest-lasting democracy in Latin America, and your government was overthrown by a murderous dictator with direct support from the U.S., all because the U.S. did not like the socialist nature of your freely elected president, you might consider the U.S. a bully. If you have grown up with no nation because Israel has not figured out what status to “grant” you since 1967–and you see Israel being “propped up” by the U.S., you might consider the U.S. a bully. If you grew up in constant fear of the secret police established by the U.S. installed Shah, you might consider the U.S. a bully. If you are indian or black in the U.S. and see the way that the U.S. government stole lands and destroyed cultures and made your people second class citizens (or non-citizens: all the obligations and none of the rights), you might tend to look on the U.S. as “do as we say not as we do bullies.”

The U.S. is not the worst country in the world and some of its actions may have been perceived (at least in the U.S.) as “necessary” to “fight communism” (or to make more money for U.S. Fruit) or for some other reason, but all the claims of how wonderful the U.S. might be are going to fall on deaf ears if you have been the target of a “do as I say, not as I do” authoritarian regime imposed by the most powerful country on Earth.

3

At least currently there is a HUGE difference between the American Government and the American citizen. Our government deserves every critical word it has recieved lately.

I love my country, I am ashamed of our president.

4

All that is well and good, and you deserve to be proud of it.

But you missed the standard disclaimer:

“Principles only apply within our own borders. Void where non-expedient”.

5

“They see us as war-happy, do as we say not as we do bullies. They are not seeing the big picture. They do not see that we are trying to make the world a better place for everyone. We are asking for nothing more than respect.”

I love my country as much as you do, and I am often proud to be an American. But not today. The US should get respect as and when it deserves it. The pre-emptive doctrine does not make the world a better place for everyone. And while disarmament of Iraq, and a change of regime, are not without potential benefits to many, neither goal had to be pursued this way, and on this schedule. Just before we launched into this war alone, the several member nations of the Security Council asked for a disarmament timetable of three additional weeks. “Non-starter” said the US.

Unilateralism is destructive. Alienating allies unncessarily is destructive. Baulking world opininon instead of winning it is destructive. If you can’t see that, you’re not seeing the big picture.

6

iidkymys, thanks for your heartfelt post. The range of perceptions about the US is as wide as big is the world, and no doubt some of them are based in distortions and misconceptions. You seem concerned about people outside the US not appreciating the essentials of “the American way” of society, and the ways and motivations for US relations with other countries in the world. I would like to focus on this second point.

This is a point where we most definitely don’t agree. The US has been sympathetic to many dictatorial regimes all over the world, from Asia to Europe, from Africa to Latin America, helping them economically, militarily and providing them with international cover.

Worse than that, the US has played an active role in overthrowing democratic governments and replacing them with dictators. You don’t need to take my word for it (and you shouldn’t): among the many admirable things in the US, there is one called the Freedom of Information Act. Thanks to it, organizations like the National Security Archives can obtain declassified documents of the US administration, in particular with respect to actions in foreign countries. These documents paint a picture that is often hard to reconcile with the principles you state. Those actions are also your taxpayer dollars at work, and as a responsible citizen, it is up to you to be well informed of what your government has done abroad, especially if you want to understand why so many people don’t agree with the claim that the US lives by the rules you are proud of. tomndebb mentioned a number of examples:

Iran. In 1953, The UK and US intelligence services helped to overthrow the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, after he announced plans for nationalizing the oil industry in his country, mostly under British control at the time. The New York Times has a very readabledossier on this topic.

Guatemala. In 1954, the CIA helped to overthrow the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz.

Chile In 1970, Salvador Allende won the elections for presidency in Chile. Even before he was sworn in, the US administration started plotting against him. Nixon vowed to “make their economy scream”, the CIA carried out an active campaign to destabilize the country, and eventually, in 1973, on another sad September 11, Augusto Pinochet led a military coup that installed a regime of tortures and “dissapearances”.

There are many other examples we could discuss. You could argue that in all these instances the US was choosing between the least of two evils. I frankly believe that, in many cases, that position is untenable, and we can further debate it. But as a starting point, you might want to consider how would you feel about other countries doing to the US, what the US did in the examples mentioned above.

7

There’s nothing wrong with America, it’s the people.

8

The U.S. does send some help, but most of the times the help is neither adequate nor sufficient to solve the problems. One could say that it lasts as long as the news coverage. There are, everywhere, long going, silent tragedies where the help is never significant.

I couldn’t disagree more: The US always expects to be repaid. “There is no free lunch”, as they say, and, as everybody knows, the U.S. have no friends, just interests.

9

I know we are not perfect. Yes we have done our share of ‘dirty work’. Why? I don’t care. I’m sure it was ‘in our best intrest’ although I see that is not always the right thing to do. OUr forefathers would be turning green wth anger if they were here to witness this.

What I am talking about in my post is the core of America. What America stands for, not what it is being perceived as. What the people who live here know and enjoy day in and day out. I’m sure others in there countries feel the same for their land. I guess the impending war brought out some patriotic feelings inside.

I do not agree with Bush. I think the man is a idiot that shold not be in the head position of the most powerful democracy on Earth. He is leading this country into the toilet and giving our country the bad image. People shouldn’t judge us on the actions of this mis-adminstration. They care about no one but themselves and their friends pocketbooks.

I can’t wait until Nov '04. We will finally get rid of our black eye. After all, that is the American way.

10

Now I’m confused. You are talking about the “core of America”? That would be the overwhelming majority of citizens who voted for the administrations that perpetrated “our ‘dirty work’”–and often re-elected them to continue the problems?

Yet you want to dismiss President Bush as an “idiot,” and are eager to get rid of him despite the fact that almost half of the people who bothered to vote in the last election chose him?

I suspect that a more profitable thread topic, for you, might be
“Love of country, right or wrong: how should we express it?”
or
“What is the appropriate response when one’s own country fails to live up to one’s expectations?”

11

Almost half of the people. So you agree he did lose the popular vote? hehe

Enough about that. I should have stayed on topic in the first place.
By core of America I am talking about what makes America great. It is the feeling inside us all that we know we are free.

The freedom to choose our living, the freedom to worship who or what we want, the freedom to speak out against our leaders. We have great medical facilities, we have the means to get food easily, the ability to drink water without geting sick.

Yes the people of this country are a extremely important part of what makes us who we are. But it is the freedoms we enjoy, and take for granted sometimes, that makes this a great country.

12

Actually, you should have presented a topic, in the first place. Calls for people to feel all warm and fuzzy about the U.S. are better served in MPSIMS or IMHO. Claiming (in Great Debates) that people are “forgetting what America is all about” seem to indicate that you have forgotten (or not realized) that “America” is all about killing people to take the land from those who lived in North America and enslaving people (de jure from Africa and pretty much de facto from Asia) to build the country, while using continued immigration of poor people to keep down the wages and working conditions of the current labor force, all the while proclaiming itself a “land of the free” while denying freedom (in various ways) to both its own citizens, based on sex, race, creed, color, religion, or place of national origin, and on the citizens of other nations, based on the economic desires of the richest of the people in the U.S.

Now, I think that despite those human failings, the nation of the United States of America has made great strides in overcoming many of its natural inclinations toward plutocracy and hypocrisy. The U.S. was founded using documents that sincerely proposed equality of person (as opposed to some of the cynical constitutions that were created since WWII that give lip service to the notion, while embedding restraint clauses in their text). I also think that, based on those initial documents, the citizens of the U.S. have, in fits and starts, worked to actually embrace the noble ideals that were promulgated in those founding documents, slowly recognizing the rights of many who were not free or enfranchised when those documents were written. I am proud of what the U.S. has accomplished, while not turning a blind eye to where we have failed.

Great Debates, however, is the wrong Forum for cheerleading: it is a place to critically examine claims. Your claims suffered substantial flaws in their presentation.

(And my reference to the 2000 election was not accidental.)

13

What does America stand for?

A is for the Adipose deposits.
M is for the Munchies that we fry.
E is for Easy money offers.
R is Rock-and Roll to kiss the sky.
I is “I”, the symbol of an ego.
C and A are both Cars and Autos.

If we’re so darn evil can you te-ell me,
Why our immigration is so high?

14

See “E” above.

Put me down as another person proud of the ideals America stands for, and pissed off when America (its government or its people) fails to live up to them. Watching the suppression of dissenting views by the general public upsets me greatly.

15

iidkyimys, it is the heartfelt desire to think of my country as you described it in the OP that leads me to be so harshly critical of what we are doing right now.

We are squandering all of that. We are in the process of causing America to stand for something entirely different, and not very nice.

16

Why no mention of capitalism? Or is that subsumed into your “freedom.”

IMO, materialism and self advancement is all too often the motivating factor for Americans as individuals/groups, or as a country. In worldwide terms, we are an extremely wealthy nation full of extremely wealthy individuals, and our primary goal is to keep things that way. This is not to say that the US and its citizens do NOTHING out of altruism. But, IMO, when altruism butts up against the profit motive, it is pretty safe bet which will win out.

In my opinion, all too often we demand far more than simply “respect.” Or else we expect respect as our birthright, not as a necessary reaction to our actions. I feel “respect” is most effective when it is mutual. And I don’t see us acting respectively towards other nations. Nor do I see, within the US, individuals and classes treating others with the respect they demand that they be accorded themselves.

Note, I am not aware of any other nation I would prefer to be a citizen/resident of.

17

Ahem. “We the People” and “all other Persons”? You had me until there, Tom. America at its best is a great nation but America at its worse is deplorable. I find it hard to see how something could be more cynical or hypocritical than slavers professing freedom or artistocrats, equality.

18

So “all men are created equal” is not a proposal? “We the people” does not propose equality? And working “in fits and starts” (following my earlier description of the way in which the country developed) does not imply that we certainly did not begin with the equality that we claimed to profess?

When I proclaim that the U.S. has always been the ideal society or when I claim that there was no hypocrisy exhibited among the founders and that no criticism can legitimately be leveled at any aspect of its society or governance, feel free to correct me. However, your current contribution looks a bit like nitpicking on this screen.

19

Aristocratic
Mercantilists
Exterminating
Righteous
Indigenous
Cultures
Autocratically

20

Ok this country is better than most, i gotta give you that one, but i get a sense in this nation that we are somehow satisfied at being a decent country and we dont strive to make it better. I think one of the best things we can to is to criticize the country in order to make it better. Im sick and tired of this attitude: “How dare you speak negative of this great country?”

Well ill tell ya why: 1) How are we going to make progress if we dont point out the flaws? Its not like we can rely on political leaders to really bring out the issues, most of them do a half-ass job IMO… and thats all it is to them- a job!

  1. Freedom to speak against the government is one of the good things about living here and i encourage everyone to do so whenever they feel necessary, of course you are gonna have to do a little research- obviously the powers that be arent going to tell you what they are doing wrong…

  2. Dont let anyone else influence YOUR thoughts! YOU need to think CRITICALLY for yourself- nobody will do it for you, and anyone who tries to think for you is out to get something out of it. Patriotism and nationalism in any country is nothing more than a form of propaganda to gain stability and support of power. How else do you think people like Hitler and Saddam gain such power to do terrible things? Its because people dont question the authorities enough, then before they know its too late or they are brainwashed into what they believe is right. Im not saying this country is going to become some kind of nazi state or something, but if we stop questioning and criticizing it could turn for the worse. People exist in this world who are hungry for power, and people with this hunger tend not to do what is right. Our country is not immune to these types of people, and these people arent going to make known thier true motives. They are going to use tactics to get YOU to support them…

Ok i just read over what i just wrote and i realize it sounds paranoid : ) But in this age of information i think it becomes more and more beneficial to decieve and in some ways easier. Propaganda is everywhere…