The Big Picture: America, The Shining City on the Hill

[The ScorpioN]

The US is comparable to SA. Have you even been to Africa?

It was back when the people who built it were in power.
Now it's just like any other place in Africa.

 

[Supereem]

Not a yank. I'm from the 2nd world, lived in the 3rd world for an extensive period of time, now I'm in America. The difference is immense.

My advice is to lay off the racist rants, doesn’t paint a pleasant picture of your adoptive country.

 

[Supereem]

It was back when the people who built it were in power.
Now it's just like any other place in Africa.

Jesus man...

 

[lfd0311]

I've watched that video before so I didn't re-watch it now, but I recall it a lot more to make a case for the profound burden the Soviet Union bore in winning WW2.
I certainly don't remember it doing anything to make the case for America as "the shining city on the hill".

I mean, the US won WWII.

 

[The ScorpioN]

My advice is to lay off the racist rants, doesn’t paint a pleasant picture of your adoptive country.

Where did you see any racism?

 

[Sketch]

Where did you see any racism?

In his imagination.

 

[Islam Imamate]

If American Exceptionalism exists, its least exceptional facet is its never-ending fucking droning on about how exceptional it is.

The most representative American moment of all time is Tim Sylvia wearing his heavyweight belt in WalMart.

Personally I do believe in American exceptionalism but at the same time its kinda cringe to make a thread about it on a karate forum because you got triggered by a Eurofag like @tonni. Think of the difference between Marcelo Garcia and Gordan Ryan. Both among the GOAT in BJJ but one is well known for being humble and the other a notorious braggart, its clear to see which is more easily appreciated. Would rather Americans be more like Garcia and less like Ryan.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

My advice is to lay off the racist rants, doesn’t paint a pleasant picture of your adoptive country.

Scorpion is one of the most proudly racist members here.

 

[MVelsor]

Personally I do believe in American exceptionalism but at the same time its kinda cringe to make a thread about it on a karate forum because you got triggered by a Eurofag like @tonni.

I've contemplated making a thread about it, depends on my mood though.

It would look a lot different.

 

[The ScorpioN]

Scorpion is one of the most proudly racist members here.

Quote one racist post.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Quote one racist post.

It’s years of you here. Just own it and man up

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Most people here are confusing the achievements of the US domestically to its behavior internationally.

Domestically, yes, it's the richest country in the history of the world and has been for about a century. For a long time, it also had the highest standards of living. Many great technological achievements were developed here.

It also has the highest standards of personal freedom anywhere. Freedom of speech is most developed and respected here than anywhere else and this is a very good thing.

Internationally... well it's been an empire from the very beginning. The Founding Fathers argued whether to expand just within North America or throughout the entire Western Hemisphere. Of course, this meant invading other countries and ethnically cleansing Native Americans.

In the 20th century, they're really stepped up their predatory game. These two really summarize it:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States

It's perfectly possible for these two things to exist together. To be the biggest menace to peace internationally... while still providing economic opportunity to people within its borders.

But a lot of these religious fanatics simply can't accept this. The state religion of nationalism doesn't tolerate criticism of the state. So you either unquestionably praise the state, or you hate it and should be expelled from the country.

 

[The ScorpioN]

It’s years of you here. Just own it and man up

If it's "years of me here" being racist, shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[Harmonica]

The Founding Fathers argued whether to expand just within North America or throughout the entire Western Hemisphere.

Source?

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

If it's "years of me here" being racist, shouldn't be hard to find.

I’m not the first to say it and I won’t be the last.

 

[Fawlty]

Personally I do believe in American exceptionalism but at the same time its kinda cringe to make a thread about it on a karate forum because you got triggered by a Eurofag like @tonni. Think of the difference between Marcelo Garcia and Gordan Ryan. Both among the GOAT in BJJ but one is well known for being humble and the other a notorious braggart, its clear to see which is more easily appreciated. Would rather Americans be more like Garcia and less like Ryan.

I've posted before about how America does bad things "better" and more humanely on balance, with notable exceptions. I also believe A.E. is something vaguely real, but our insistence on it is childish and shameful most of the time.

 

[Supereem]

I've posted before about how America does bad things "better" and more humanely on balance, with notable exceptions. I also believe A.E. is something vaguely real, but our insistence on it is childish and shameful most of the time.

“We do bad things better”. You really are an exceptionally dense mob arnt ya? Do you tell black people that have suffered in your country that they suffered “better” than most?

Americans love to say freedom isn’t free, and I guess emotional awareness isn’t either!

 

[PHATV]

I just think it's a strange thing to claim. I would never look to the US as a shining example of anything other than military might.
The world is certainly a more violent and insecure place because of the US.

I wouldn't look to the US for shining examples of
Healthcare
Political corruption
Social mobility
Access to higher education
Worker rights
Livable minimum wage
Secularism
Wealth distribution
Etc

Silly. I assume you're comparing the US to some imaginary Utopia you've created in your mind, because you can't be comparing us to any other country that exists or has ever existed on the planet and think we have not been an overall exceptional addition to what you consider to be the cream of that crop. I would submit we are the greatest country to ever grace the planet earth, but I've course I may be biased a bit. We're far and away #1 in any of these categories:
Healthcare
Social mobility
Access to higher education

Actually you don't provide opportunities. Quite the opposite compared to a lot of nations.
You provide opportunities to those who can pay. Quite the difference

Except that's false. Patently false and silly. This is still the best place to move from poverty, and I mean abject poverty to middle and upper-middle class that there is anywhere in the world. And people coming here from India, China and many other places realize and prove this year after year. Educated people from all over the planet come here and show our (generally) sorry and complacent native-born asses how education and hard work lead to great success, here.
I also know several people who make six figures (or seven in a couple cases) and are very comfortable---who came from abject poverty here in the US. A solid, overflowing handful who fit in that category. That I know personally and know where they came from. One that got a baked potato for dinner 6 nights a week growing up and something "special" (i.e. not that special) one other night. Another where there was a plastic garbage can full of rolled oats in the corner of the kitchen and you made yourself and your younger siblings a bowl if you got hungry. Because that was your option if you were hungry. Rolled oats, or rolled oats. I know a man who had four brothers and they got a new shirt to share for school pictures each year and didn't always have shoes. Five boys, one shirt for pictures. Obviously, only one of them was wearing a shirt that fit properly in their photo each year. A couple where the situation was even worse. Crazy stuff. Yet somehow, without any connections, without a dime to their names coming out of high school, with no leg up or privilege of any kind, they succeeded here. To be fair, all were blessed with intelligence but that didn't do it, either. It was a "different" kind of attitude and ethic towards education and hard work that got them there. The same as the immigrants who find the same success. The formula seems simple.
That, and I feel like the ones I know always knew in the back of their minds that they wanted to have some bacon with their oats or a steak with that baked potato. lol
But there are few (if any) other places on the planet where you will find this happening with regularity. Yet it still does here. Every year. Year after year. Education, talent and hard work are greatly rewarded here without any caste system or concern about your race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, not a damn bit of it matters to your success. Only your own choices. And it permits the natural transfer of wealth as well. To the right people. Those who work for it and deserve it, get it.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Source?

My bad, the Founding Fathers kept it to North America

John Adams famously warned that Americans should not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy,”

...

Expansionist ambition was a key factor in the movement that led to the founding of the U.S. As a young man, Washington had explored and invested financially in the potential wealth of the great woodland that stretched from the Ohio River’s headwaters to its mouth at the Mississippi, and from Kentucky and western Virginia up to the Great Lakes.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hogeland-americas-forgotten-war-20170604-story.html


Possible expansion into present-day Latin America came a generation or two after:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine#Seeds_of_the_Monroe_Doctrine

http://jsr.fsu.edu/issues/vol15/wallace.html

 

[Harmonica]

My bad, the Founding Fathers kept it to North America

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-hogeland-americas-forgotten-war-20170604-story.html


Possible expansion into present-day Latin America came a generation or two after:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine#Seeds_of_the_Monroe_Doctrine

http://jsr.fsu.edu/issues/vol15/wallace.html

A good read, thanks.