I’ll go. I’m still proud of every American who has held in there through these 8 years and not given up on turning things around. We know what it is to live free and despite all the obstacles ahead there is still places that you can experience it.
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I’m an American that lives abroad (UK). I’ve gotten a little more proud of being American the longer I’ve been out of the place, and my below response will reflect my experiences living in Europe.
The best thing in my mind is our friendliness and openness to new people. Brits are by far the friendliest Europeans but it’s honestly like a beauty pageant at a truck stop for that one. Europeans think our friendliness is strange but I think their aloofness is strange and years after making the move, I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t be friendly to people you encounter in everyday life.
Another thing is our work ethic. Sure the uber-progressives can chant anti work all they want and say it’s rooted in late stage capitalism, but I can tell you the Americans at my office in London are pretty much all the best employees in their departments without exception. We are resourceful, hard working and understand how to cut through bureaucracy to get things done.
Our skepticism of blindly following rules and process I think is great. The UK is the most like the US in Europe in many respects but they’re still very “computer says no” about things without questioning why. I like that, in my experience americans aren’t afraid to shake things up a bit and question authority a bit more than our European counterparts.
I love living in London but a big part of my personality was shaped by the US and I’ve learned to embrace it as something that makes me unique here.
I will say, of the Europeans I met, they may not be outwardly friendly but once you get under their skin they are teddy bears.
Honestly, I’d say the national park system. But that’s a “for however long we still have it.”
It’ll be full of oil rigs before you know it.
You mean the future oil fields of America?
Can you be proud of something that is just there and didn’t do anything for?
Happy yes, proud is more ment for achievements IMO.
Like you can be proud if you created a business an earned millions , not if you won it in a lottery.
Our country is beautiful, and we have an incredibly diverse array of climates. Tropical beaches, vast deserts, snow capped peaks, dense forest, sprawling grasslands. And so much of our land is protected in National Parks, BLM, National Forests… It’s truly a treasure.
I hear you have really realy big flags
Red ones?
Good one.
But to be serious, Americans don’t see them as much as the rest of the world apparently.
Red flags are subjective things. For instance, some can be seen as an awkward gesture or autism.
The same people furiously screaming that peace talks for ukraine are appeasement don’t see the blatant hypocrisy of their jawdroppingly milquetoast attitude to keep their positions or not harm their selfish interests.The problem with the gesture, i see, especially the one from bannon is we get these false equivalences on the other side who then further down play everything. Like this is the top of r/conservative this morning
We know these aren’t equal but from an outsider perspective, they don’t fucking know. If they watch Bannon they will see that wasn’t as pronounced as the others and helps the subterfuge. All except everyone else knows, Bannons salute was probably the most credible one because it’s bannon and I don’t even think its the first time from him. It definitely aligns with all the views he espouses.
Anyway, that was just my take on that controversy. That really, at this point, isn’t helping move the discussion foward.
Yes we know these 4 horrible imperialist warmongers you show here didn’t do a nazi salute.
The point is they are already on their way to being collaborators.
Their non-reactions and excuses are a clear sign.
As I said, appeasement out of self-interest and cowardice.
But I imagine in time they will go much further as happened with the Germs in the 40’s.I’m not a fan of them either, so please, don’t come at me like that.
I agree, the majority of Americans are decent, not racist or various forms of genophobic, and resisting as best they can. The government and media has merged into a monster. ii looks huge and scary; that’s by design. If you give up hope, they have won.
I disagree, the majority of Americans voted, and slightly less than half voted for the slightly less awful party.
They too support war, imperialism, oligarchs and big business, authoritarian police, put kids in cages, etc…
These people pretending to have a moral high ground do it out of purely selfish reasons now it affects them.
I’m legitimately struggling to answer this right now. I have little pride for nations in general, and none whatever for ours at the moment. I have plenty of pride for individuals and groups that are trying to do the right thing, but there’s nothing unique to America in that regard.
Patriotism is an artificially created and cultivated sentiment for the purpose of war and nothing else.
Especially so in the US where it reaches laughably absurd proportions.^ this. I’ve lived in other countries. Lots of Americans would benefit from traveling or living abroad. Nationalism is silly, and gets weaponized by the ruling class.
I’m proud that a man can overcome extravagant wealth and luxury, a low IQ, a criminal record, extreme narcissism to climb all the way to the top to become the worst leader in history.
It’s sad that you could be talking about one of two people
Forrest Trump.
Truly inspiring!
Even though there is a tsunami of hate, more than half the country is outraged and truly wants to defend those being targeted. I’m still proud of that, it’s the propaganda that affects the 30+% of the population that really sucks…
Remember: the entire population doesn’t vote. Roughly half of the voting population chooses this hatred.
I guess apathy is slightly better than hate, but it’s kind of hard to be proud that so many people see all this hate and chose to not vote.
The apathy is definitely aggravating as well is the “both sides are terrible so I’m not participating at all.” My mom is one of the latter for sure :/
Despite this anti-immigrant push from the far right, we are very accepting of immigrants in general. If you’ve lived in the US for a while and speak English, we assume you are American and we consider you to be American. You don’t even need to have citizenship to necessarily be considered American by the average person. You just have to have been here for a while. This is much more open and accepting and than the vast majority of countries are.
My hobby is genealogy. Almost every generation seems to have someone in the family that endured significant hardship but made it through. The most recent one I found was a young child burned to death in a barn fire. Others are kids orphaned by flu or other illness. I always find that one person that could have quit - but didn’t. Americans seem to have a recessive resilient gene. It comes out only at dire need. This can give us great hope these days.
I’m sorry but this is humanity, survivorship bias and American exceptionalism all rolled up into one. You are living on planet ‘only americans are special’ and it’s properly crazy. Please educate yourself about the resiliance of people in every other nation on Earth. You’ll find there is precisely nothing american about it.
The cities and states fighting back and keeping some sanity in these time. Best I got. I mean given our history we really need to be the best we can to make the best of ourselves that we can to justify our existence and we have been failing hard for ugh. Most of my life now.
Some things I’m proud of:
- The citizens that volunteer their time to defend the potential of others in their communities. E.g. youth development, homeless assistance.
- The common principles the nation is built on (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) and bind us together. Today, it seems the many ways those principles are interpreted has splintered society. However, in my experience, most Americans feel strongly about those principles, and they can be used as a basis for relationships across many unlikely social groups.
I think it’s easiest to be proud of your country and fellow citizens when you start interacting meaningful with your neighbors with an open mindset, regardless of their world view.
It’s kind of interesting that America does this thing where we punish ourselves.
And by punishing ourselves I mean the rich people bond together to torment the poor people by flaunting their wealth and exacerbating their poverty until the poors scream and struggle.
Typically this happens while natural disasters are also happening like the dust bowl or when earthquakes, fires and plagues beleaguer the nation.
We do this in order to make ourselves feel better in the long run by overcoming that and returning to a point where the rich people are not bonding together so tightly and the poor people are not so oppressed that they would rather die than continue living.
We are pretty good at that, and it has sustained this economy for at least the last 120 years.
But aside for that, I’m proud of the fact that the poors persevere, and that eventually the rich will unmake themselves, and we will inherit the earth.
We know what it is to live free
If you’re white-cis-het-male, and obey all gender norms, obviously. Oh also rich.
Being rich doesn’t allow you to live free. It allows you to live in excess.
Living free is about being able to be who you are. Some people get the short end of the stick in our culture but they get basic freedoms many around the globe never get to experience. Yes, it is declining but there are plenty all around you that have experienced it.
