Opinion E Pluribus Unum, or: How I Learned To Reject Partisanship and Love The USA

Hell yes, nice thread Deorum.

America is that fine piece of ass who’s a little bit crazy, but fuck it, you just don’t care. It’s totally worth it. Happy Independence Day, everyone. Enjoy having to go to work today, England.
 
US of A is by far and away the greatest nation on the blue dot. Great thread and agree with all your points.

 
Andy Capp said:
I'm not clicking on that. Care to summarise?
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Everything following this sentence is copy pasted from that link:

But failing to bridge our differences and resolve them peacefully is no virtue, either.

Here’s my “to do” list if you want to be part of the solution instead of the problem.

1. Choose someone you disagree with and start a dialogue. Make friends, even if neither of you changes your mind.
2. Find common ground, avoid epithets, and presume goodwill on the part of others unless and until their actions suggest otherwise.
3. Embrace America as an imperfect, unfinished product—and one whose future depends on a respect for those principles that made it largely free and exceptional in the first place. No country is without flaws, and few countries in world history have accomplished as much for life and liberty as America.
4. Think twice before using political connections and influence to get something you can’t secure voluntarily from others in the marketplace. Cronyism diminishes respect for both you and for the free enterprise system it corrupts.
5. Judge every individual by “the content of his character” and the merit of his actions, not by the group to which he was assigned by birth, origin, faith, color, or politics.
6. Elevate the importance of personal character in your life. No society can flourish if it denigrates virtues such as honesty, humility, patience, responsibility, tolerance, courage, gratitude, self-discipline, and respect for the lives, rights, property, and choices of others.
7. Choose liberty over power and persuasion over force. Find ways in which you can leave the world not only a better place, but a freer one as well, for life without liberty is both unthinkable and unlivable.
8. Live your life as though politics is but a corner of it, not consumed by it. Recognize the incalculable value of intact families, vibrant and voluntary associations, community engagement, loving relationships, and institutions created and sustained outside the divisive realm of politics.
9. Ask yourself every day, “Am I good enough for liberty?” Then dedicate yourself to self-improvement if you can’t honestly answer “yes.” Reforming the world starts with reforming oneself.
10. Defend the free speech of all people. If you catch yourself attempting to intimidate, shut down, or frighten others into submission, shake it off before the impulse turns you into an antisocial monster. “Cancel” nobody except those who insist on canceling others.
11. Revere truth and the honest search for it. Never let truth be obscured or destroyed by claims that it doesn’t matter or that it is nothing more than a subjective whim of the moment. There is no such thing as “his truth” or “her truth,” only “the truth.”
12. Seek diversity of opinion. Minds that try to stigmatize or close the minds of others or that pretend that color, sex, and religion are all that matter are enemies of the “diversity” that matters most.
13. Love peace more than you love force, conflict, compulsion, and intolerance. Work toward a society in which individuals choose to do right because they want to, not because they’re forced to.
14. Reject nihilism, cynicism, and pessimism. People of goodwill and character can shape the future for the better. It’s never too soon or too late to start.
15. Learn from history; don’t rewrite it. Lessons from the past can make us better people in the future. Don’t twist your underwear into a knot over an old statue. Never allow the poison of “presentism” to corrupt your perspective.
16. Celebrate the “uncommon.” It is the uncommon to whom we owe the greatest debt—those who speak truth to power, invent and innovate, turn failure into success, and add value to society. No one should encourage a child, for example, to aspire to nothing more than “commonness.” Respect and encourage the exceptional.
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Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) once said:

“I believe there’s no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended. They’re created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings. No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail.”
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I hope he’s right. But in any event, no peace of any kind can prevail so long as we nurture conflict within and between ourselves. No peace of any kind can long be imposed from the outside in. It must begin on the inside, as a matter of conscience, one conscientious individual at a time, and then grow outward into a course of action.

These 16 suggestions constitute a course of action for each reader to consider.
 
Loiosh said:
Everything following this sentence is copy pasted from that link:

But failing to bridge our differences and resolve them peacefully is no virtue, either.

Here’s my “to do” list if you want to be part of the solution instead of the problem.


Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) once said:


I hope he’s right. But in any event, no peace of any kind can prevail so long as we nurture conflict within and between ourselves. No peace of any kind can long be imposed from the outside in. It must begin on the inside, as a matter of conscience, one conscientious individual at a time, and then grow outward into a course of action.

These 16 suggestions constitute a course of action for each reader to consider.
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I would say don’t pay attention to politics and actually interact with human beings who aren’t immediate family or friends, but that’s just what works for me.
 
Islam Imamate said:
Its hard to encapsulate what makes America great in one post but Deorum did about as good a job as can be done here.

I'll say one thing I find fascinating about the USA is how deliberately it was created. As Ernest Gellner, a scholar of nationalism, once said: "America was born modern; it did not have to achieve modernity, nor did it have modernity thrust upon it."

That's not the case with most societies which had to enter modernity with lots of premodern baggage or had it thrust upon them via colonialism. Look at the English constitutional system, its current form was hammered out by many generations, sometimes via gradual reforms and sometimes via more revolutionary moments. But there was always a connection to the past. Or look at India which had modernity thrust upon it by the British and had to adapt to that reality.

With the USA we had a bunch of elites get together and basically from scratch they devised our system and the fact that its the oldest extant constitution to this day, despite how young the US is compared to other nations, is a testament to how durable and adaptable the American system is. Very unique in world history.
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I wasn't necessarily trying to encapsulate it so much as highlight a handful of areas with distinctive American character and flair, leaving a lot of room for others to add on. In that sense, entries for the advent of national parks and advancements of space exploration aren't weird so much as they are wildly apparent and obvious on their face when looking at the USA through the lens of history; what it has actually contributed to the world and humanity as a whole. The country is more than just liberalism and free markets.
 
Rob Battisti said:
I generally agree but it is concerning how much of the younger generations have no knowledge or respect of the history of America or what it means to be American. Pride in America is going down.
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Bigly.

The dissemination of anti-American propaganda has never been more easily widespread than in the social media age; extreme left-wing ideas and theories formerly confined to the humanities departments of universities have escaped into the mainstream; and the US education system at large has seemingly taken a far more critical view of the country's history. There have also been some really bad foreign policy blunders during the first quarter of the century that hurt American standing abroad and national pride at home. But really, at the end of the day, it's just the cost of living. It's the fuckin' housing costs, lol. That's why young people are down on it, and why I made a point to mention home ownership in the OP.
 
Deorum said:
I wasn't necessarily trying to encapsulate it so much as highlight a handful of areas with distinctive American character and flair, leaving a lot of room for others to add on. In that sense, entries for the advent of national parks and advancements of space exploration aren't weird so much as they are wildly apparent and obvious on their face when looking at the USA through the lens of history; what it has actually contributed to the world and humanity as a whole. The country is more than just liberalism and free markets.
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My rube opinion is that I don't care about space travel nearly as much as others but I do find the national park system to be an interesting jewel in America's crown. I live near the Everglades and its awesome.
Deorum said:
Bigly.

The dissemination of anti-American propaganda has never been more easily widespread than in the social media age; extreme left-wing ideas and theories formerly confined to the humanities departments of universities have escaped into the mainstream; and the US education system at large has seemingly taken a far more critical view of the country's history. There have also been some really bad foreign policy blunders during the first quarter of the century that hurt American standing abroad and national pride at home. But really, at the end of the day, it's just the cost of living. It's the fuckin' housing costs, lol. That's why young people are down on it, and why I made a point to mention home ownership in the OP.
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Idk if its cost of living though there's probably a correlation with high cost of living cities having less overt pride than low cost of living rural areas. I think the FP blunders and the global financial crisis were two huge hits to American credibility and many young folk grew up during those crises or in their shadow. I also believe we live in a cynical era and genuine displays of patriotism is not something cynics are prone to.
 
Islam Imamate said:
My rube opinion is that I don't care about space travel nearly as much as others but I do find the national park system to be an interesting jewel in America's crown. I live near the Everglades and its awesome.
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I distinctly remember you not being particularly enthused by it, lol. It's just an area that was ripe for discovery - another frontier of sorts - that the USA seized on and left a massive historic imprint that has been to the benefit of human knowledge on the whole. I think you recognize that well enough.

The country came into existence far too late to make serious fundamental contributions to mathematics or pure science. America's thing has been the engineering and invention of new technologies to drive advancement and economic growth. It has been incredibly adept at the commercialization, mass production, and militarization of them.
 
Deorum said:
I distinctly remember you not being particularly enthused by it, lol. It's just an area that was ripe for discovery - another frontier of sorts - that the USA seized on and left a massive historic imprint that has been to the benefit of human knowledge on the whole. I think you recognize that well enough.

The country came into existence far too late to make serious fundamental contributions to mathematics or pure science. America's thing has been the engineering and invention of new technologies to drive advancement and economic growth. It has been incredibly adept at the commercialization, mass production, and militarization of them.
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Yeah I'm being silly about it but there's clear value. Even if you're a rube like me who doesn't care about space travel or exploration, the innovations that kind of research generates can have practical applications outside the field. There's also the opposite direction where some military tech like ballistic missiles ends up being relevant to space travel so there's a mutually beneficial feedback loop there. America is good at creating those through a balance of public investment and market forces. You can see that with the pharmaceutical industry as well.
 
Islam Imamate said:
Yeah I'm being silly about it but there's clear value. Even if you're a rube like me who doesn't care about space travel or exploration, the innovations that kind of research generates can have practical applications outside the field. There's also the opposite direction where some military tech like ballistic missiles ends up being relevant to space travel so there's a mutually beneficial feedback loop there. America is good at creating those through a balance of public investment and market forces. You can see that with the pharmaceutical industry as well.
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You get it. I've always seen manned spaceflight as something of a prohibitively expensive novelty with very obvious extreme limitations and a high degree of risk. The robotic spacecraft and space telescopes don't capture the public's attention in the same way, but they do provide more bang for the buck in terms of discovery and innovation. There's a lot that can and has been done in observational astronomy using ground-based equipment and tech alone.

Islam Imamate said:
I do find the national park system to be an interesting jewel in America's crown. I live near the Everglades and its awesome.
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You aren't kidding. I've practically got the Grand Canyon in my backyard and it is every fucking bit the most spectacular geological wonder on the planet. I might even go as far as to say that the majority of the happiest, greatest, and most profound moments and memories of my life have been at national parks, and I just added to that over the 4th of July weekend at the North Rim with my son. Many of these places -- the GC, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Yosemite, Sequoia, Redwood, Death Valley, Everglades -- are amongst the most unique destinations and landscapes on earth. The protection and preservation of them is one of the greatest things this country has ever done, zero doubt about it.
 
Islam Imamate said:
the fact that its the oldest extant constitution to this day, despite how young the US is compared to other nations, is a testament to how durable and adaptable the American system is. Very unique in world history.
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They say the charters of several other governments grant more freedoms to citizens than the US Constitution does for Americans. And maybe that's true to a degree given not only how much newer some of them are but also how often they're altered and modified by comparison. The US Constitution is a notoriously difficult document to amend -- and I tend to prefer it that way. There's another thing with the concept of American liberty: The Constitution doesn't grant freedoms, it protects them from infringements by placing restrictions on the government's power. The rights are/were considered inalienable (i.e., god-given), not a list of privileges granted by the state. The difference looks subtle on the surface but carries significant implications and ultimately gives rights a much stronger foundation and makes them more difficult to revoke and rescind.
 
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