What makes America Great?

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AverageBozo
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Joined: May 11th, 2021, 11:20 am

Re: What makes America Great?

Post by AverageBozo »

What I like most about America, in the sense that it makes me feel good about being an American, may be summed up in a word: freedom.

Freedom to love or not to love. Freedom to think as I choose about politics, sex and religion. Freedom to make decisions about things that affect my existence. Freedom to vote. Freedom to express my opinions. Freedom to choose from a vast variety of groceries (or just about anything else). And other freedoms I take so much for granted that I’ve failed to mention them here.
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3017Metaphysician
Posts: 1621
Joined: July 9th, 2021, 8:59 am

Re: What makes America Great?

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

AverageBozo wrote: August 31st, 2022, 3:47 pm What I like most about America, in the sense that it makes me feel good about being an American, may be summed up in a word: freedom.

Freedom to love or not to love. Freedom to think as I choose about politics, sex and religion. Freedom to make decisions about things that affect my existence. Freedom to vote. Freedom to express my opinions. Freedom to choose from a vast variety of groceries (or just about anything else). And other freedoms I take so much for granted that I’ve failed to mention them here.
Hear ye, hear ye !!!!!
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
Alias
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Joined: November 26th, 2011, 8:10 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Terry Pratchett

Re: What makes America Great?

Post by Alias »

What is 'greatness'? In a person, in an achievement, in a nation?
Most countries do or have at some time in their history, considered themselves 'great'. It's ion their anthems, in their art, in their literature. Usually, it means, they beat another people in a war, or lots of people in lots of wars - put somebody else down, been themselves on top. Maybe sometimes only for a couple of years, maybe sometimes for a couple of centuries. They never talk about the human cost, or the cost to their environment (except as "so much brave blood shed on these battlefields" or some such damn thing.
What makes America 'great' is that's it's never not been at war with the natives, with its neighbours, with itself, with nations far away that it's had no particular stake in, or with immaterial concepts like 'crime', 'poverty', 'drugs' or 'terror'. Being always at war means you can keep declaring victories, whether they're real or not. You can keep making statues of heroes, whether they're heroic or not.
Those who can induce you to believe absurdities can induce you to commit atrocities. - Voltaire
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