Where to begin…
But I’ll touch on something no one else has here.
Shopping carts. It’s mindblowing to me that the country that sent men to the moon still hasn’t figured out that its easier for everyone if they turn on all 4 wheels rather than the 2 front ones.
That way you can slide your cart sideways to make room for other shoppers. And turning it takes no effort.
And even… even if it is some weird cost cutting thing. Why not make them turn on the rear wheels? That would still make it easier than in the front. Since you steer the cart from the rear.
Get your shit together. Put gun controll aside, put your dumb ass two party politics aside and focus on what matters. Your godawful shopping carts.
The level of nonsensical nationalist propaganda in the US is maybe only second to North Korea’s.
You made me think of my buddy from the states visiting me in Toronto 2010-ish laughing at the Canadian flags they sometimes saw flying from people’s houses and other buildings. I asked her what struck her so funny about them and she blanked for a second. She said, “It’s just weird seeing so many flags that aren’t American… Like, this is a country too… um.” We had a brilliant talk about flag-waving patriots for a bit, but seeing that glitch was really interesting and I’ve never forgotten it.
That said, I had plenty of teachers growing up and know tonnes of educators now who’d totally be into forcing students to salute the Canadian flag and pledge allegiance to their God & Country every morning. The only thing stopping them is legislation preventing it, not national identity.
Yeah kids reciting the pledge of allegiance is honestly psychotic.
A while ago I watched a live stream of CSPAN (I think?) where the House failed to form a government for several consecutive days. The way the entire process started with a prayer, and the many references to religion throughout, is just as disturbing as the personality cult around Stalin. That whole gang is fucked in the head.
Ok another thing people haven’t really touched on is government restrictions on dangerous shit generally. I’m not just talking about guns, but also cars. When I was in the states I saw so many car accidents and bits of car on the road. That doesn’t need to happen. It turns out that if you have proper driving tests and mandatory classes, people don’t crash as much. Same with guns though. Owning a gun is fine if you learn how to properly use and store it.
Despite his severe back problems, Luigi mangione is the only one of you who has a backbone.
That’s on education. We are plenty violent it’s just hard to know where to put it.
Ummm… Follow the money?
The USA is neither the best country nor the worst country. It’s just one of the countries.
From all the comments, this is one of them
c
ountriesnor the worst country.
Sorry, but even anti-America types seem to believe in American exceptionalism anymore. It’s just that instead of believing we’re some shining city on the hill, they believe we’re The Great Satan™.
the American was not ready to hear what he heard
Gun control works
It does. Two hands, firm grip, press the trigger as straight back as possible.
Donald Trump is the new US President, and you’re responsible.
None of that would have happened with a well-educated populace that could employ bullshit detection and critical thinking.
Hell, I doubt even conservatism in any capacity could survive as a going concern in such a society.
I’d be more inclined to take responsibility if we had a more representative electoral system like STAR voting. Then more then 2 political parties would be viable, with no spoiler effect.
But we don’t see the democratic party (self described democracy lovers) passing this much needed reform in states they control.
Perhaps the democrats enjoy yelling and screaming at people online and IRL that a vote not for (insert pro genocide status quo candidate) is a vote for Trump. They love it so much they prefer trump winning over having to compete for our votes.
USA could be, but isn’t the greatest country in the world.
I’m definitely ready to hear this, have heard it, know it, and hope it changes. Under our current political system it never will. We’re just an oligarchy in a trench coat at this point.
As an American, I’m not convinced we can be anything close to the greatest country. We are incapable of solving massive problems that should be abundantly obvious. And it’s not just the government, it’s also a huge number of dumb civilians that don’t want to educate themselves on how our own systems are failing.
Many countries have hard material problems holding them back. The US doesn’t. Abundant resources and fertile land, an existing vast and diverse economy, and a huge amount of wealth for investment. The US has more raw potential than any other country even now. The problem is people and culture. Lincoln was right on the money - no external threat can really undo the US. It will come from within.
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No shit, what American thinks either are true?
America, fuck yeah!
Has been a joke for like 30 years now
You haven’t met much of the rural population, have you?
This. Conservatives have poor media literacy. They don’t understand that they’re the punchline in stuff like that. They miss the point of stuff like RoboCop and Starship Troopers and unironically like those movies for the action and don’t even recognize the social commentary. They watched Team America and guffawed into their 24 packs of light beer at every shallow joke without recognizing that the jokes were intentionally shallow to point out what an idiot would think is a good joke. It’s like the TV show in Idiocracy. The real joke is below the surface.
Literally the opposite…
Where are you see conservatives talking about how great America has been under Bidnen?
Like, you put zero thinking into your comment, just like you assume the people you’re “dunking on” do.
You’re a different side of the same coin, that’s never meant opposites, you’re th same thing.
Just neither sid bis smart enough to figure it out, and both think only the other side is dumb
Believe me there’s no shortage of people who know that were not the shining city on the hill, unfortunately we’re drowned out by pandering patriotic country music and gunfire from mass shootings.
This clip from the Newsroom sums it up perfectly.
I like the clip, but IMO they basically bailed out in the end by all the nonsense quoted from the ~3:25 mark on.
Jeff basically makes it sound like the US used to be incredibly self-aware, humble, kind, and well-administrated, but I think what most Americans don’t choose to understand is that since the very settling of the continent, it’s been a highly fraught, contentious situation, much of it characterised by greed, cruelty, violence, intolerance and self-righteousness.
Now yes, from what I understand of history, under FDR we more or less hit a peak of being a well-run, progressive country, on the level of many modern Euro countries more or less, but most of that was specifically in response to the utter disaster of the Great Depression and the need to adjust powerfully, swiftly and accurately. Meanwhile, IIRC during his presidency, there was in fact a right-wing movement intending to remove him by underhanded means.
So I like the hopefulness of the clip, but in the end I also find it pretty typical of Americans being largely unwilling to understand the hows and whys of the nation, going back to the early 1600’s.
Eh, sorry for the dang essay. :S
Man I forgot how good that show was
Yeah, most of us in the U.S. don’t think this way. This is just republicans, and they aren’t really here on Lemmy.
What? We have two right wing parties to choose from! Is that not enough? Should we make three right wing parties so you feel we are better represented?
Gun control works.
And OK maybe it doesn’t solve the problem 100%, but it solves it 99%, and that’s a lot of schoolkids that aren’t dead any more. Look at any first world country for working examples; I’m in the UK, and yes we still have some gun violence, but it’s a whole load less than it would have otherwise been.
And it’s incredibly short sighted to reject any solution that doesn’t solve a problem 100%. Partial solutions are good.
You have a massive obesity problem that is killing you and it is not normal.
The U.S. is an oligarchy.
Luigi knows
We obviously know this.
No, no, we know that one.
Gasoline prices are heavily subsidized in the US, the gas price you complain about is cheap compared to other countries.
The commodity price for gasoline right now looks to be about 2 USD per gallon. Retail gasoline in the USA is at least a dollar more due to taxes and markup.
Subsidies may play a role as well, but the taxes in some countries are extreme by American standards. My take on it is that a fuel tax is effectively neutral if it brings in enough revenue to pay for the road system.
The fuel tax isn’t enough to cover the damage to the environment and quality of life, though. That’s why taxes are that high in many other places. Same way cigarettes are taxed to help discourage use and to help cover the increased healthcare costs it puts on everyone
Fuel, and other car-related taxes (sometimes based on horsepower or engine displacement) in most countries in Europe were much higher than in the USA long before there was widespread concern about the environmental impact of cars.
Which is why I said “environment and quality of life” - they don’t want their cities dominated by cars (making life dangerous for pedestrians) and for cars to become a requirement for living. So taxes are added to discourage (not eliminate) driving and car ownership
But also, the mess of smog from exhaust and other impacts beyond climate change have been known since the first automobiles. Concerns about the ‘environment’ is more than greenhouse gasses.
Roads aren’t the only societal cost of cars.
Any price lower than that required to compensate for all the negative externalities of both driving and using fossil fuels to do it still counts as subsidized.
A failure to set an excise tax on a product or service that offsets its externalities is not a subsidy. A lower tax rate than a competing product is arguably a subsidy.
I’m not aware of any modern societies that make a credible attempt to adjust the price of all or most goods and services to include their externalities. That sounds like a good idea in theory, but very difficult to implement in practice.
The fuel tax in other countries primarily exists to make people use less fuel in order to save the world from global warming.
What state do you live in that the road system is funded adequately? I never hear someone comment positively about the general state of road conditions.
Florida, with the tourist money and gas taxes all our roads and highways are solid. The great weather year round means they can maintain and build roads all the time non stop.
Adequately is a difficult determination.
Is it adequate if there are state maintained dirt roads? In some states, the state or county chooses not to pave all of their roads.
Is it adequately funded if they have potholes? Due to weather conditions, some states are notorious for potholes.
Is it adequately funded if the road gets washed out or carried away by flooding? California gets mudslides that take out sections of roads, other states get sinkholes or hurricanes/tornados destroying their roads
How long can one of these issues plague a road before we consider them underfunded?
My opinion is that the US has too many roads. Most roads are maintained by county or municipalities, and are funded through infinite growth model.
When a developer creates a new subdivision, they pave the roads. Once done, they usually relinquish these roads to the county/city who are responsible for maintaining the roads.
Typically maintenance is low until they require replacing. The cities and counties don’t save money or plan well for replacing these roads and rely on new tax revenue to fund replacing them.
It builds a slowly ballooning road maintenance cost that someone will have to pay. I believe someone made a video about this very fact. I don’t have the link handy
The level of uneducation in the US is a threat to the entire species. Most of Ylyour people are uneducated, fat and dangerous. After the last election, I have lost hope in the US as a collectivity, you deserve your unfair system because you chose it. You elected a convict rapist, fellon, racist, fat billionaire who doesn’t pay taxes and tried to steal the election, your deserve to be treated the way you will be, you made a choice.
