Why Exactly Do You Love America?

[bobd]

Is it the collective wisdom and general goodness of people you love? Is it the ideals embodied in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence? Perhaps it's the direction we claim to have taken the planet over the last 200+ years.

I recently sat down and attempted to examine my own feelings about this country and discovered that for almost every good deed, noble heart, enlightened law, there are far more cruel acts, selfish hearts, and blatant disregard for our founding principles.

We live in horrifically dark times. The evil abroad in the land is utterly breathtaking to me. Even more disheartening is the complacency of the citizenry in the face of that darkness. For every Marshall Plan there's a stronger and more pervasive Jim Crow mindset. For every sublime act of selflessness that stirs the soul there's a hundred acts of cruelty and selfishness. The entire federal government is guilty of such cruelty and selfishness in its treatment of people here in this country and even more so abroad.

What exactly DO you love about America?

Is it the words in the founding documents that you love. Do they give you a chill, make you catch your breath? What's practiced as democracy is a pale imitation of the intent of those words. Has it ever been less than a pale imitation? What have the words ever done to prevent the current march toward facism?

Is it the collective wisdom of the people that inspires you? These are the same people that enabled McKinley, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, Bush the Elder and Bush the lesser. Each time a progressive government stumbles to the finish line the collective will of the people fuck it up. The collective will of the people enabled slavery, enabled the genocide of the Native Americans, enabled southern aparthid, enabled Vietnam, enabled the murder of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, enabled the Religious Right, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill Oreilly, and on and on and on. Is it really the collective will of the people you love so?

Perhaps it's all the good in the world we've engendered. We did stop facism in WWII. We also birthed the UN. Balance that against the abject evil and cruelty of Vietnam, the Spanish American War, the slave trade, the nuking of Japan, the pretense of ignorance of the Holocaust, and on and on and on.

In dark times like the present the collective acts, voice, and hearts of "We the People" reveal their true character. I submit that the collective shrug that enables the selfishness and cruelty of the Bush administration is far more of a distillation of the "American Spirit" than all of the sporatic acts of goodness put together. I've discovered that America is a myth and a flimsey one at that. The ideals of the founders have revealed themselves as a pipe dream, the dissipated heat from a fire that's long since burned out, the whisps of smoke that have disappeared on the winds of 2 centuries of selfishness and cruelty.

[dawgman]

1. How can one love an inanimate object?

[whoYaCallinAlib]

2. Provides more opportunity than any other country on the

face of the earth. If you make good choices and are willing to work hard, you can become anything you want.

[bobd]

3. So it's Money that Stirs Your Soul?

And that's worth fighting and dying for? Money's the thing that en-nobles the human spirit?

[GayboyBilly]

4. The land of opprotunity...

I mean if Bush can be President anyone can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[whoYaCallinAlib]

10. Who said anything about money???

I said you can become anything you want to be. That could be an unpaid social worker. For Christ's sake. You don't need to be so defensive about money.

[yella_dawg]

5. I heard a good Arnold S. quote the other day.

He said he always believed that America was a great place because anyone could raise themselves up as far as they wanted to go by their own bootstraps. Then he realize that some people in this country don't have boots.

yella

[Aaron]

13. I think that was disproven in a recent study

Although I can't remember it off of the top of my head. It was in a different thread a few weeks ago. Maybe a fellow DUer can help me out here with a link?

[RichM]

14. This is not really true -- you've omitted some basic requirements.

IMO, it's overly simple to say that all that's required is "good choices and hard work." Your list of "success factors" leaves out such things as kissing up to the boss, being skilled at manipulating people, & all the little games of aggression that are subtly involved in getting ahead.

As an illustration: in the 1980's, I read an honest interesting account of life at Apple Computer Corp, written by one of the members of the original Macintosh team. He said (this is from memory, but it's roughly accurate): "About stock options: the people who got the most stock options were not the people who worked the hardest on the Mac project, or those who contributed the most. Rather, they were simply the ones who were most interested in positioning themselves so that they'd be sure to wind up with a lot of stock options."

Or: if you've ever played soccer, there is such a thing as a "goal hanger." This is a person who doesn't work so hard, doesn't run so much, doesn't play defense too energetically -- but dearly loves the glory of scoring goals. So he hangs around the goal a lot, always hungry for a chance to score.

In American society, THAT kind of behavior tends to be systematically rewarded, even though it makes you a vulgar greedy asshole.

[sweetheart]

6. the land

I love the desert, and the land yet undestroyed by the invading culture of stupid people.

Besides that, i love the spirit of some people who live in that culture... a small minority that have no political voice or representation (like those at DU)... the american enlightenment... imprisoned on a website.

I love that the evil nation state is limited to its borders and that it is collapsing so as to not infect the entire world with its malice.

I love the cultural conception that the past is gone and that we must make our own future... sort of a cultural declaration of independence.

But most of all, those deserts and forests out west.. that great eagle of the american indian dream into whose feathers my spirit is woven.

[Dob Bole]

7. Where do I begin?

Coming from a farming community, I'm very tied to the land itself. I sure wouldn't trade the soil here for Canadian land. But there's more than just that.

Our country invented liberal democracy. Before the US, it was only an untested theory. We were one of the first to be guaranteed 1st amendment rights. I can't be executed because of my religion or what I say (although recently I could be ostracized or boycotted.)

We were one of the first modern countries to prohibit slavery. Sooner or later, we tend to learn from our mistakes, at least until everybody forgets about the original mistake.

We have promoted democracy abroad, and it is now the supreme form of government in the world and isn't going to go away. It has triumphed over every "ism" in the last century.

I like America. Let's make it better by getting the Bushes out of it.

[liberalmuse]

8. Let's face it...

We're pretty damn lucky to be living in America. Unfortunately, a lot of our 'luck' comes at the expense of others in the world. It is the greatest luxury not to have to put all one's energy into survival/dodging the hunter, as most of the world does.

As bad as our government has become under the Bushie oil-rapists, it doesn't even come close to being as heinous as most of the governments out there. We don't have to worry about getting our limbs hacked off by cracked-out child warriors, or sold as property, or, god forbid, become the direct recipients of U.S. policy abroad. (Not yet, anyway, though I'm sure W is having wet dreams about it all.)

I love the American dream in the purest sense, not the distorted 'dream' of monetary wealth and power to whoop anyone's ass, but the entire experiment itself. Thousands of years of human history, the writings of mankind's greatest thinkers, and a lot of common sense went into the creation of our Republic. Of course W and his god-groupies are the anti-thesis of all of these things. How ironic!

[SharonAnn]

9. I used to love the "Rule of Law" from the Constitution and the

freedom it gave us all. Now, I guess my love is kind of a habit even though it's original reasons no longer exist.

[KFC]

11. Mabye you should ask the immigrants

Opportunity. Prosperity.

And, while you are in High School, please enroll in an English class ---

==================================================

In dark times like the present the collective acts, voice, and hearts of "We the People" reveal their true character. I submit that the collective shrug that enables the selfishness and cruelty of the Bush administration is far more of a distillation of the "American Spirit" than all of the sporatic acts of goodness put together. I've discovered that America is a myth and a flimsey one at that. The ideals of the founders have revealed themselves as a pipe dream, the dissipated heat from a fire that's long since burned out, the whisps of smoke that have disappeared on the winds of 2 centuries of selfishness and cruelty.

====================================================

Holy shit. Say no more.

[bobd]

24. Please elaborate

Give me an english lesson. I'm all ears.

[alaine]

12. It's the geography I happen to live on.

I like it no better or less than the rest of the planet. But since it is where I live I'd have to say that I love the land.

I sick of having bug-all about founding fathers shoved down my throats. Thomas Jefferson said in "Notes on the State of Virginia" that Africans should not be allowed to live in the U.S after emancipation, because he felt the white bloodline should not be mixed. He actually said a lot worse but I can't bear to put down here.

I'm so exasperated with this enlightenment propaganda. The U.S. did not birth shit in terms of democracy. Human culture, which has been present on this planet for at least 100,000 years, has seen all kinds of governmental systems, and some a hell of a lot better than the one we have now in this country. The last 4 or 5000 years have been pretty bloody for humanity, but even today there are indigenous tribes that have a more egaltarian system and seem a hell of alot happier out there in the woods naked with no t.v. than most Americans I've ever met.(Though I'm sure in time capitalism will fuck that up too.) There is ample evidence that many civilizations flourished without warfare or severe hierachies that characterize european civilizations. Crete and Catal Hyuk are two that come to mind, plus there are a few in Africa even today, and there is evidence that some Native American tribes were peaceful and democratic. The hell of it is that America is typical of what happens when there is a shortage of land or any other condition that pushes a people to invade another land. Land gets invaded, the indigenous people get slaughtered, other folks get enslaved and/ or exploited, and then the invaders invent some noble, holy-god sanctioned, manifest destiny hoopla about how they came to be where they are and how it was meant to be that way. The slaughter of the Canaanites in the bible is a perfect example of this, if thinking about America this way makes one flinch.

If there is anything I love about this country it's that the founding fathers made the mistake of putting into writing something that came back and bit them in the ass, so they had to extend rights to people that they never intended to have them in the first place.
Other than that, we're just not special.

[liberalmuse]

18. F*cking Christ!

I thought I was pretty negative, angry and disillusioned, but you have me beat by a long shot.

And I love how people feel free to be as rude as they want. I mean, even your grammar is highlighted and ridiculed here. Where are all the 'nice', 'fun' liberals?

[alaine]

20. Forgive me for taking the long view.

I have never made fun of anyone's grammar on here and I hope I never will. I am not negative, angry, and disillusioned but the "America can do no wrong" tripe is exactly what Bush used to brainwash the populace into supporting the bombing and murder of innocent Iraqis.

I am sick to death of people referencing history from about 400 years ago forward, especially when there is such a wealth of other and better information to learn from and draw from. I loved Arundhati Roy's asertion that she is not a nationalist or patriot of any stripe, and neither am I. I'm sad that you interpreted my post so negatively, but I don't find any rudeness in it. There is a saying that there are two reasons for everything, a good reason, and the real reason. I've spent my adult life looking for the latter when it comes to human history.

[Woodstock]

15. As bad as it is I hear from foreigners every day who say

it's not bad at all compared to where they came from

I like the thought of being from the same country as Washington and Lincoln and all of those unsung women who held the country together all this time

[pa28]

16. Don't give up

Try spending time in a foreign country.

I know it seems like the bad guys are winning and when they say "freedom" it means having lots of brand choices at the mall. I know that we don't have a democracy anymore but a "republic" as the 'pukes were so fond of pointing out in 1998. Still, I can envision scenarios in which we are able to take it back. That's more than I can say for the people of most countries around the world.

[Aleesha]

17. I DON"T

I am moving to Canada to smoke pot and cheer on the Gay folks!
I am unpatriotic, shop in W-Mart for Iraqi flags, and hate Bush with a passion!!
I do not support war, loathe violence, and will never understand why the US can't keep it's nose right here on the ground instead of up eveyone elses ass!
This country is falling to pieces, and the American people are responsible!
No other people in the world would ever allow a scumbag like Bush to steal the highest office in the country and get away with it.

[oasis]

19. Walt Whitman, Lincoln, my neighbors, Chevrolets, NFL, Las Vegas

fresh water (presently), the National Parks System, the Daily Racing Form, Robert C. Byrd and Hillary Clinton.

Not necessarily in that order.

[RummyTheDummy]

21. The NFL

NT

[enki23]

22. that's like asking me if i love my feet

it really doesn't matter if i love them or not, i just sort of grew into them.

that's why the "love it or leave it" crowd never made any sense to me. if my feet ache, i try to fix 'em. that is, rather than flying a flag in their honor.

i swear i've posted this reply somewhere before...

[Capt_Nemo]

23. Because of people like

Martin Scorsese, or Leonard Bernstein, or Thomas Pynchon.

They represent what's good about America.