tl;dr “America good, me not want think about complicated stuff.”
Phewf, I was worried we might go a whole thread without mentioning how bad America was. Thanks!
The Fourth of July
131–140 of 324 posts
Re: The Fourth of July
#132There seems to be more hatred for this country, from within, than ever before in my life. This has been trending all day: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23FvckTheForth&src=trend_click Yet I still love it more than not. That seems to make me an "other" to so many of these people.
22% of Americans use twitter. Most tweets are from 10% of those people. There are many people who yell and scream so loudly on-line that people believe their numbers to be much greater than they are. It frustrates me when someone takes action because "people on twitter are mad". Decisions are being made based on who has the most active thumbs. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...
So only 72,600,000 Americans use Twitter? And that's your argument that it's insignificant?
Re: The Fourth of July
#133As a father, a husband, a former soldier and an American, this brings a tear to my eye. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” - Lincoln As an American I feel we are bound not by our failures of past moral…
What me and my family talked about today is that, as immigrants, we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country. They seem to never waste an opportunity to remind others of their disdain and it is more and more visible these days e.g. in big news media or on Twitter. Makes me sad and I hope this can change.
This has also been a constant topic amongst my family, extended family and many friends (mostly european).
My entire family (including me) and extended family immigrated here within the last 10-30 years, yet we all love living here, and have the same sentiment around people who have been born here. They were given such a great opportunity (that we all had to work for), yet most of them throw it away and have little love for the country and what it offers.
I even have family and friends on H1B/student visas who despite all thesese issues, are supporting a lot of these right-wing issues after these protests, which was a bit surprising (considering the ban on the visas)
Re: The Fourth of July
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
What me and my family talked about today is that, as immigrants, we are so sad how much the "native born" people of the US hate their own country. They seem to never waste an opportunity to remind others of their disdain and it is more and more visible these days e.g. in big news media or on Twitter. Makes me sad and I hope this can change.
Yeah, and so many people of color came to the US with a suite case and less than $1000 dollars, and then became a successful person in a few years. I certainly did. My wife certainly did. My team, my gardener, and my contractor certainly did. Some people who are from the same school as I went to have even become CEOs of big companies, and some have become famous professors or head of prestigious universities. If anyt…
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Re: The Fourth of July
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which policies or lack thereof specifically target the black people? We should definite fight to abolish them. Otherwise, wouldn’t it fair to say that the US legal system has flaws that every group may suffer, and therefore it’s really about law and order?
Just so I understand your framing: Do you consider the poll taxes and literacy requirements for voting of the Jim Crow era to have been policies that specifically targeted black people or not? They were written in a racially neutral way (and the 14th and 15th Amendments were in effect then, and they were ruled constitutional).
They are, right? Every book I read says so, and I don’t see a reason to dispute the claim. Are you saying they are not?
Re: The Fourth of July
#136Given this introduction: > I've re-posted this many times, because it's fundamental to what it means to me to be an American. I was thinking I was in for something uplifting. Instead I got: > In 1946, Congress reneged on FDR's promise. Filipino solders who fought for us and their families were not given their promised citizenship, let alone benefits. ... They waited 44 years, until after most of them were dead. This…
“We” didn’t betray anyone, unless you were in Congress in 1946.
Re: The Fourth of July
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Arlington VA was retroceded, no reason the rest (aside from actual federal buildings and facilities) couldn't be.
I imagine it's possible, but "no reason" is definitely a stretch. The parts of DC that are federal land are hardly contiguous, and trying to force a clean split between DC and Maryland looks like it would be a nightmare: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/local/dc-marijuana-m...
you wouldn't have to be perfect. You could carve out just the contiguous core. I believe this was floated by Jeff Flake. Federal buildings can, in general, exist on state land.
Re: The Fourth of July
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
22% of Americans use twitter. Most tweets are from 10% of those people. There are many people who yell and scream so loudly on-line that people believe their numbers to be much greater than they are. It frustrates me when someone takes action because "people on twitter are mad". Decisions are being made based on who has the most active thumbs. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...
So only 72,600,000 Americans use Twitter? And that's your argument that it's insignificant?
No, the argument is 78% of Americans don't use Twitter at all, 20% have Twitter accounts but are not very active, and only 2% are responsible for the vast majority of tweets. In other words, what you see on Twitter, especially when it comes to somewhat more extreme messages, is not representative at all for the US population as a whole.
Re: The Fourth of July
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just so I understand your framing: Do you consider the poll taxes and literacy requirements for voting of the Jim Crow era to have been policies that specifically targeted black people or not? They were written in a racially neutral way (and the 14th and 15th Amendments were in effect then, and they were ruled constitutional).
They are, right? Every book I read says so, and I don’t see a reason to dispute the claim. Are you saying they are not?
Yes, they are (or at least I think they are).
I think we have other policies today that are similar in effect - gerrymandered election districts and intentional poor placement / management of polling stations being the most obvious examples in my eyes.
There's also stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigford_v._Glickman .
Re: The Fourth of July
#140A bit sentimental, but on holidays we can accept that. The bigger problem with this historical account is that it is incomplete. We Americans like to pretend that this story begins with WWII, when the evil Empire of Japan invaded those bucolic isles of the Philippines, whose brave residents were inspired by MacArthur to rise up against colonialism. In reality, this history began in 1898. Americans pretended to ally w…
The story began in 1898? Are you certain about that?
The US went to war against Spain in 1898 and took the Philippine away from Spain. The US promised the Filipinos independence and then reneged on it and fought brutal war against the Filipinos for 14 years.