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Well said. This country has done some bad things all countries have to some extent. However there are lots of things to appreciate about what living here offers. Its easy to take it for granted, and when people who are proud to live in the US hear people complain about this country its easy to think they are unappreciative of what they have, "foreigner" or not. (Whether thats the case or not is difficult to determine)Originally Posted by Rexanglorum
Can some name for me a country whose population is made up entirely of the very first people to live there and where they have never ever practiced slavery?
People like to point out the fact (and it is a fact despite what some revisionists historians say) that millions of Native Americans where killed or forcible moved and that slavery was practiced for almost the first century of this Country's existence and discrimination was the official law of the land for an additional century. I just wish that people looked at it in the context of human history. Bad behavior by others does not justify bad behavior but it should end the narrative that the United States is some uniquely evil country and that it posses two unique original sins of slavery and conquest of aboriginal people. Those two things are, tragically, the norm for a nation's founding.
What is unique is that a few Western Countries dared to criticize slavery, second class citizenship for women and absolute monarchy, things that were taken for granted everywhere else. The United States and few other Western societies considered free speech, privacy, legal protection from torture and consensual government (not perfect and direct democracy but a republican or parliamentarian system where power is, to varying degrees, diffused from beyond that of the King, High Priest and his close friends and family) to be virtuous and while we have sometimes miserably failed to live up to those ideals we try and sometimes succeed in promoting these items. Meanwhile, many in the rest of the World consider consensual government, free markets, individual rights, freedom of religion, freedom for women, civilian control of the military and other Western ideas to be either dangerous (The Russian and Islamic tradition) or unholy (The Islamic tradition) or as threats to their power and wealth (Chinese and to a lesser extent certain Japanese, European and Wall Street elites).
I, for one, will never leave this country. I want to stay and participate in it governance. Despite what some of my peers say, the situation is not hopeless, we are not under the unchecked power of corporations or big government or some international cabal (although all three sit, ready to pounce and acting as constant threats). Power is still diffused in this country and many people who can get a legal education and/or begin a career in politics, can indeed do their small part, as part of a larger effort, to preserve what remains of a constitutional, liberal, republican government and with concentration and diligence, expand and fortify and repair this enterprise that is America.