Non-American here!
I’ve visited America a bunch of times and I really like it as a place, they have amazing scenery pretty much everywhere you look, and just about every individual American I’ve met has been really nice.
BUT…
I’d never want to live there. Their healthcare system is insane (sorry Americans but it is) and politically as a nation they’re pretty bonkers. Guns, religion, general sort of global belligerence etc.
Also as an aside, San Francisco is genuinely one of the strangest places I’ve ever been to. I dunno if I was just there at a weird time, but it seemed like every single person there was either a millionaire or homeless. Absolutely nothing in between.
Their healthcare system is insane (sorry Americans but it is)
Don’t apologize! If anything that’s an understatement. And everything else you said is on point too.
Source: Am American.
Ask any San Franciscan and they’ll tell you that’s just San Francisco.
Oh nobody likes the healthcare system except the people profiting from it and the people who think billionaires will love them and share if they sing their praises enough.
Work takes me to Houston from time to time, and I wholeheartedly agree. I would never want to live there.
It seems that whenever you find something likeable about the place, it turns out to be a product of a predatory system.
I seriously hope the workers at T.J. Birria Y Mas down in Missouri City are well paid and cared for (I doubt it), because they’re doing an awesome job and it’s hard not to love that place.
The United States has done far more harm than good for humanity at large. The individualistic values it champions have led to a society that is fragmented and leaves many citizens in misery. Its global hegemony has resulted in the destruction of numerous countries, with countless lives lost due to its military interventions, coups, and regime change operations around the world. Moreover, the US’s extractive policies have prevented other nations from developing their own economies, perpetuating a cycle of underdevelopment and dependency. Additionally, as one of the largest consumers of energy per capita and major producers of fossil fuels, the United States is among the worst offenders when it comes to climate change, exacerbating global environmental crises with its unsustainable practices.
I couldn’t say it better so I’ll just second this.
Love our land, loath our society.
The natural beauty of America is amazing, but the people seem to be mostly absolute shit.
Yes, I don’t think many people realize how good we have it here. I say this having traveled to places and seen some shit (war in Iraq, gang violence in El Salvador, abject poverty in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan).
Can the U.S. be better? Of course it can. There are horrible things happening here and people are losing their rights at a scary rate. However, these horrible things are not on the same level of horror as that which is occurring/has been occurring in other countries, it’s apples to oranges.
Anytime I’ve been overseas and I come back to America I realize how much I love it here. We have it so good here, really. But as someone else stated, there is huge inequality that needs to be addressed in order for EVERYONE here to have it so good.
Thats the catch 22 of America, its “good” except when its not, and like 60% of Americans are one missed paycheck away from it being “not” - And once you’re there this country hates you and does everything it can to make sure you stay fucked.
See: SCOTUS ruling the other day that you can’t illegalize homelessness but you CAN illegalize homeless behaviors like sleeping outside or in a tent.
(Because since pot is increasingly legal we have to bolster those legal slavery numbers somehow!)
I totally agree. There’s a huge effort by the wealthy to keep the average person down, otherwise the rich don’t make the money. It’s super fucked up.
As a non American who used to live there, I can say some things are amazing and some things are awful.
I love the nature. The national parks are so beautiful. I like many of the people. And there are good job options there in tech.
But the awful things were a deal-breaker for me, and why I’d never want to live there again. The wealth inequality, the guns, the crime, the homelessness, the healthcare system, the partisan politics, etc.
So ultimately I probably fall on the side of not liking it.
Yes. As a black man, America has produced a long very involved legacy of which I’m proud being my heritage.
Sure, it was absolutely founded on treating people like as sub-human, and there are people today that are trying to return me to that state, but fuck them as they’ve been fucked for the last century and a half. I’ll be damned if I let them represent America.
I’m genuinely glad we live in a country that recognizes the horrors of its past. Even with all of the “whitewashing” that occurs in textbooks in parts of the country, like “states’ rights” in the Civil War and praising Columbus, there’s still an overwhelming consensus that minorities were wronged for our entire history.
Non-American here.
I don’t dislike America. I was a teenager in the ‘90s, when the culture was peaking in influence here in the UK, so I have great nostalgia for American things (which really helps when playing the daily NYT games). I’ve visited a few times, and always enjoyed my time there.
But I am real fucking tired of the American influence on the internet, on politics, and on attitudes around the world.
I’m tired of the American view being the default on social media, because the majority of social media sites are American, populated by Americans.
I’m tired of saying something that would completely uncontroversial outside the US that attracts a rash of people bitching at you because it’s not normal over there. Like letting our cats outside. I once said something on Reddit about my cat getting killed by a car, and got a bunch of replies from people telling me how irresponsible I am for letting her go outside.
I don’t use TikTok, but my wife does, and part of her kinda wants the US ban to go ahead, so that her feed is a bit more balanced towards Europe. And I get that.
:edit: I accept that this isn’t the fault of individual Americans, and hold no ill-will towards them. It’s down to the vast majority of global tech wealth being held in the US, giving the illusion that the whole internet is an American thing.
I also accept that this is rank hypocrisy coming from a Brit. If we’d had the internet 250 years ago, the whole world would be speaking English now, as opposed to most of it.
No, I live here.
I hate
- religious zealotry
- massive dichotomy in polotical ideologies
- identity politics
- warmongering
- brainwashing (pledge of allegiance?!)
- poor treatment of poor and homeless
- prison complex
- poor education system
- incredibly expensive healthcare
- terrible zoning laws and car centricity
- hiroshima, native genocide, iraq, and so many more. The US has shed so much blood and terror inflicted on the world population
- world police, vigilante, the US is basically every bad movie villian in country form
- regressing views on women’s rights
- the history of slavery
It depends on what you mean. America the government courting christofascism? Hell fucking no. I wish all the Republicans and neolibs in power would have a heart attack. I also wish to live long enough to read Trump’s and Alito’s obituaries. But I do love my local community too much to just abandon them. At best, I would call my relationship with America akin to Stockholm Syndrome.
Fun fact: The term “Stockholm Syndrome” was a term coined to silence a woman who criticized the bumbled police response that put her and other hostages in even more danger. She wasn’t enamored of her captors, but instead critical of the police.
love your country, hate the government
America big, America great. America have a lot of problems. A lot of good things and a lot of bad things.
We have so much wealth and resources, it just needs distributed much more fairly.
Not even a little. We are being forced into sickness and poverty. We make just enough to put food on the table and even that’s getting harder. An unexpected illness is setting people back on their bills. Every law that’s passed goes against what the people want and the only way this will ever change is if we can afford to pay off a politician like all the major companies do. Voting doesn’t feel like it makes a difference anymore and the only platform it feels like they use is “at least I’m not them”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again if someone paid for us to leave the US I’d be packed within a couple of hours.
I have distant extended family in New Brunswick. It’s not good enough to get me Canadian citizenship, but it could be worth a try when Civil War 2: Here We Go Again starts.
It depends on the state.
I started to write a novel, but suffice it to say that I left nearly a decade ago and many things seem to be getting worse rather than better.
I fucking hate this dystopian hellscape of misery and torment and I hope it gets glassed. Land of the fee, home of the slave. If I get drafted in WW3 I’m a turncoat as soon as they hand me a gun.
At least we made UNIX. UNIX is cool.
Meh. I’m an American and I don’t hate it here. But I’m from (and moved back to) a culturally distinct place (New Orleans) so I don’t really identify with the dominant culture. I loathe the politics/corruption and how our government is structured. (The amendments are the best part of our constitution and maybe we should think about that for a bit.) I’m deeply ashamed that we’re the world’s biggest arms dealer and oil/gas producer.
That being said, we have beautiful landscapes and individual American people are usually kind, decent people, at least on an interpersonal level. The corruption of companies and elected officials doesn’t usually extend to the middle class. (Like, you don’t have to bribe someone to get a driver’s license or permits or whatever.) There’s obviously loads of advantages to being an American citizen, just as there are to being an EU citizen. I love our national parks. Just the western half of the United States contains enough varied forms of amazing landscapes to keep a person occupied for a lifetime.
So, I wouldn’t say I like America as a political entity. It’s definitely in my top 30 or so countries to live. I wouldn’t give up my citizenship for a random place but, having travelled extensively, there’s a lot of countries that have a better form of government and a healthier balance between oligarchs and labor.
