Is the United States the best country ever?

[GEddie]

The United States was a great country from 1783-2009. Obama took office in 2009 and sent the nation plunging into liberalism that may be irreparable. I used to think that the United States was the greatest country on Earth until June 26th 2015. On that day, the Supreme Court forced all the states to accept same-sex marriage. This was the breaking point. I now prefer Russia over the United States. I admire Putin’s dedication to Christian values. I still hold hope that America can be fixed though. I have an American flag in my avatar to represent that hope. A Republican victory in the Presidential election would be a big step towards that hope. I sincerely hope that Bernie Sanders is not elected President. His election would cause me to cease all like for the United States because he is a socialist. Socialism goes against traditional American values. I think a Civil War may break out if Sanders were elected. I would support the new Confederate States of America in that war. The Confederacy probably would have been a great country if they won the first Civil War and gotten rid of racism. They would have respected Christian values.

Don’t kid yourself. In all likelihood, the CSA in order to survive would have become a poorer version of the USA, plus bringing transcontinental war to NA once a generation.

A new civil war wouldn’t even pretend to be chivalrous in the sense of the first. And other countries would plow in, turning America to a living Hell. (It almost happened the first time, and whoever is president sure won’t be no Lincoln.)

ICXC NIKA

 

[anon67074017]

Don’t kid yourself. In all likelihood, the CSA in order to survive would have become a poorer version of the USA, plus bringing transcontinental war to NA once a generation.

A new civil war wouldn’t even pretend to be chivalrous in the sense of the first. And other countries would plow in, turning America to a living Hell. (It almost happened the first time, and whoever is president sure won’t be no Lincoln.)

ICXC NIKA

Russia may intervene on the side of the Confederacy.

 

[stinkcat_14]

The United States was a great country from 1783-2009. Obama took office in 2009 and sent the nation plunging into liberalism that may be irreparable. I used to think that the United States was the greatest country on Earth until June 26th 2015. On that day, the Supreme Court forced all the states to accept same-sex marriage. This was the breaking point. I now prefer Russia over the United States. I admire Putin’s dedication to Christian values. I still hold hope that America can be fixed though. I have an American flag in my avatar to represent that hope. A Republican victory in the Presidential election would be a big step towards that hope. I sincerely hope that Bernie Sanders is not elected President. His election would cause me to cease all like for the United States because he is a socialist. Socialism goes against traditional American values. I think a Civil War may break out if Sanders were elected. I would support the new Confederate States of America in that war. The Confederacy probably would have been a great country if they won the first Civil War and gotten rid of racism. They would have respected Christian values.

What would have made the confederates start seeing the error of their ways and begin to respect Christian values?

 

[anon67074017]

What would have made the confederates start seeing the error of their ways and begin to respect Christian values?

I think international and internal pressure would have done the trick.

 

[whatsmyname]

It’s not the best it could be, but its better than any other.

I think that about sums up my feelings these days.

I think there’s room for improvement, but I like it better than anywhere else I’ve ever been or read about. I do, however, think we’re in decline.

As far as I know there’s never been a perfect country, unless you consider Eden before the Fall to be a country. But comparing our country not with perfection, but with countries that have existed or do actually exist, we’re pretty amazing.

I have freedom, equality, prosperity, virtually unlimited choice in everything, and on the negative side this mid-April, an enormous, huge, unfair, overly complicated tax bill with far too much phantom income and not enough of the real stuff to pay the bill.

 

[GEddie]

Russia may intervene on the side of the Confederacy.

You’d rather be a colonial of the Russians than a liberal American?

 

[PolarGuy]

Joseph3, you lost me at “Putin’s Christian values.”

He has Christian values the way Stalin had Christian values.

Putin is a former KGB colonel and KGB tactics - which are the polar opposite of all things Christian - infuse everything he does. Further, his political opponents all seem to die or vanish under suspicious circumstances.

Putin is a very strong nationalistic leader who appeals to russian feelings of lost pride, but that doesn’t make him Christian. What many fail to see is that Putin sometimes takes pro-Christianity stances the same way Stalin would do the same for political reasons. But Putin is absolutely no model of Christianity and neither is Russia.

Yes, the USA is the greatest nation on earth. I just finished educating some young anti-american on another thread, and I posted about a dozen reasons why the US was, and remains, the greatest nation on earth. Maybe I’ll do a cut & paste…

 

[GEddie]

Joseph3, you lost me at “Putin’s Christian values.”

He has Christian values the way Stalin had Christian values.

Putin is a former KGB colonel and KGB tactics - which are the polar opposite of all things Christian - infuse everything he does. Further, his political opponents all seem to die or vanish under suspicious circumstances.

Putin is a very strong nationalistic leader who appeals to russian feelings of lost pride, but that doesn’t make him Christian. What many fail to see is that Putin sometimes takes pro-Christianity stances the same way Stalin would do the same for political reasons. But Putin is absolutely no model of Christianity and neither is Russia.

Yes, the USA is the greatest nation on earth. I just finished educating some young anti-american on another thread, and I posted about a dozen reasons why the US was, and remains, the greatest nation on earth. Maybe I’ll do a cut & paste…

By all means, do so, Polar.

 

[mikekle]

A country is only as good as it’s citizens and we (The U S A) have the greatest constitution. If the citizens, We the People, would demand the politicians in Washington DC to follow the constitution, we would be the greatest country on Earth.

However, what percentage of the population has never read the constitution?
How many of We the People don’t care about our constitution?

Here is a very good place to start

youtube.com/watch?v=pIKhRERqPS4

Yep, Thomas Jefferson said it best…

"When a people fear their government, there is tyranny, when the government fears the people, there is liberty"

I think its safe to say the US is one where the people fear their government, its sad we do not have more patriots like we did at the time of the American Revolution, people today are too worried about their own quality of life, heck, majority of people today even take the governments side over their fellow citizens on certain issues, where in the past, these folks would get tarred and feathered in public for doing such a thing. LOL

 

[clem456]

I’ll make a respectful objection to the question itself.

 

[PolarGuy]

Americans don’t know what fear of the government is.

Does the government arrest you for what you say about your leaders? Drag you through a show trial before a corrupt judge? Sentence you to a gulag? When it does, you can fear he government. When it does…you live in the USSR.

My point is that Americans have no real reason to fear their government. I don’t doubt that, say, the IRS was wrongfully sicced on people, but compared to some other world regimes in recent memory, that’s nothing.

 

[PolarGuy]

Here are some reasons the USA is still the best nation on earth:

1. KINDNESS: America, more than any nation on earth, is founded on kindness. Americans are boundlessly kind and give charitably to many other nations, much more so. Earthquake in Peru? We help. Tsunami in Thailand? Same. Famine in Africa? Same. Russia? Not so much.
2. FREEDOM: America is founded on personal freedom. In Europe the state controls things. In Russia there are no freedoms. Same goes for Russia, China, and much of Asia. Other areas with freedoms do so largely because the US led the way.
3. FREE ENTERPRISE: America is founded on the concept of free enterprise. Apple; Microsoft; Walmart; and a million other companies have given the world great innovations, enriching the lives of millions…
4. OPPORTUNITY: …While making their owners, and those that invest in them rich. You are incentivized here to go as high as you can.
5. SPIRIT OF INNOVATION: Akin to #3 & #4 above, the world can be divided into 2 groups: Nations that have sent men to the moon, and those that haven’t. The former is only the USA. US innovations include heavier than air airplanes; the electric light; cures for a multitude of diseases; the cotton gin; the assembly line; and other inventions that leapt humanity forward.
6. STORES OVERFLOWING WITH MATERIAL RICHES: America has never had a famine. Do you have any concept of what a breadline is like? If you don’t, you live in the USA. If you want to learn, move to Russia or some third world nation. Do you have any concept of what a supermarket is like in Russia? Trust me, it’s NOT like a Shoprite; Publix; PriceChopper; PigglyWiggly, etc.
7. MILITARY LEADERS WHO ANSWER TO ELECTED OFFICIALS, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND: Look at most of the rest of the world. This describes the USA but perilously few other nations.
8. NON-CORRUPT GOVERNMENTS: Would you like to encounter police in Mexico; Turkey; or other nations where you can be stopped and given a minor ticket you didn’t deserve, but which can be fixed with a bribe? Or how about corrupt judges? A large part of the world could be described as having governments akin to cesspools. For that matter, we have…

8A. CHECKS & BALANCES ON GOVERNMENT: Very, VERY few nations have anything like the concept of checks & balances on government power: Executives, legislatures, and courts, all of whom control the other branches of government so no branch causes tyranny. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than, say, a monarchy or a nation without these balances? Yes. That also leads to…

1. A JUSTICE SYSTEM THAT IS THE WORLD’S MODEL: Judges aren’t corrupt. Justice does not go to the highest bidder. Criminal defendants are assured by law of a fair trial. Those who can’t afford a lawyer get one for free. Defendants are given the benefit of the doubt and are assumed to be innocent. Try getting those in Russia. [Has anyone ever read *One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? The inmates of that Russian prison are all innocent…and Solzenheitsen lived it and knew what it was like].
2. MILITARY HISTORY: Unlike Russia or Japan in WWII, American armies are not comprised of armies of rapists who invade a nation with their pants around their ankles, raping as they go. We conquer and build free nations in our wake (think West Germany; Japan); Russia conquers to enslave.
3. PEOPLE WHO COME HERE WITH NOTHING, MERELY FOR OPPORTUNITY.: Think Cuban boat people. You see this or you don’t. Russia, and most of the rest of the world, on the other hand, has a history of closing their borders to keep people in.
4. A HISTORY OF USING OUR MILITARY TO PROTECT OTHERS: In WWI, a strong case can be made that only the US saved Western Europe from the Kaiser. Since 1945, no combination of the French army (!?!), the Bundeswehr, etc., could have kept Russia in check, and only the US nuclear triad scared off the Soviets AKA the evil empire (and they were exactly that, and maybe still are).
5. HOPE: Do people even know what a “Potemkin village” is? A screen displaying a picture of a nice home, hung over a rotting shack to make it look nice to the politicians who race by it in cars. Russia is filled with them. Google it. Further, as Bono of U2 put it, “In America you see a big house and think, ‘if I work hard I can have that.’ In Europe you see a big house and think, ‘let’s get the guy who owns it.’” On this note, no matter how high minded and egalitarian places like Germany, France, Italy, etc., claim to be, none of them have ever elected a black man as leader like we did. In America there are few barriers based on skin color, heritage, etc., and those that are, are falling.
6. FREEDOM OF RELIGION: We have no requirement that you worship a particular religion or even that you have religion.
7. WE HAVE ALL OF THE ABOVE; MOST OTHER COUNTRIES ONLY HAVE SOME AT BEST. Sure, England; Switzerland; and Australia are all nice nations. But only the US has ALL of the above…

God Bless the USA!

**

 

[adawgj]

Best in opportunity I would say yes

 

[GEddie]

8A. CHECKS & BALANCES ON GOVERNMENT: Very, VERY few nations have anything like the concept of checks & balances on government power: Executives, legislatures, and courts, all of whom control the other branches of government so no branch causes tyranny. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than, say, a monarchy or a nation without these balances? Yes.

And let’s not forget

8b). Federalism. Something we inherited from the Colonies and the Continental Congress, which slows down the wheels of government and limits its powers by dividing it between the national and state levels. If it hadn’t gone into somewhat of an abeyance post 1865, there would be a lot less aversion to government today.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Latias]

1. MILITARY HISTORY: Unlike Russia or Japan in WWII, American armies are not comprised of armies of rapists who invade a nation with their pants around their ankles, raping as they go. We conquer and build free nations in our wake (think West Germany; Japan); Russia conquers to enslave.

Do you have any evidence that there were millions of rapes, rather than a mere higher instance of rapes. It is most likely that the higher incidence of rapes was primarily driven by resentment of the destruction of the Wehrmacht caused in the Soviet Union.

It is likely that the rapes committed by the Western Allies were under-reported in the interest of propaganda and it is also anathema to speak of them in the Western media. The incidence of rapes has been infected with bias and propaganda.

The few scholars who have looked more closely at rape by G.I.’s have attributed its racially skewed prosecution to “the Jim Crow army,” which was happy to depict rape as a problem only among the noncombat support units to which black soldiers were mostly limited.

“White soldiers got a pass because of their combat status,” said William I. Hitchcock, author of “The Bitter Road to Freedom” (2008), a history of the liberation of Western Europe from the perspective of often traumatized local civilians. “The Army wasn’t interested in prosecuting a battle-scarred sergeant.”

Ms. Roberts, who closely studied transcripts of 15 courts-martial in Northern France, certainly sees American racism at work. “Let’s Look at Rape!,” a 1944 Army pamphlet credited to “a Negro Chaplain,” contained a prominent illustration of a noose — a clear suggestion that the Army was going to “protect the color line,” she writes. (Among the soldiers hanged for rape and murder was Louis Till, the father of Emmett Till.)

nytimes.com/2013/05/21/books/rape-by-american-soldiers-in-world-war-ii-france.html?_r=0

It seems like the picture is similar to the one depicted in the Turner Diaries were blacks have some inhuman compulsion to rape.

In France, Ms. Roberts also found a desperate letter from the mayor of Le Havre in August 1945 urging American commanders to set up brothels outside the city, to halt the “scenes contrary to decency” that overran the streets, day and night. They refused, partly, Ms. Roberts argues, out of concern that condoning prostitution would look bad to “American mothers and sweethearts,” as one soldier put it.

Keeping G.I. sex hidden from the home front, she writes, ensured that it would be on full public view in France: a “two-sided attitude,” she said, that is reflected in the current military sexual abuse crisis.

Ms. Roberts is not the first scholar to bring the sexual side of World War II into clearer view. The 1990s brought a surge of scholarship on the Soviet Army’s mass rapes on the Eastern front, fed partly by the international campaign to have rape recognized as a war crime after the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. At the same time, gender historians began taking a closer look at “fraternization” by American soldiers, with particular attention to what women thought they were getting out of the bargain.
…
Work that looked at sexual assaults by American soldiers, even on a small scale, remained controversial. J. Robert Lilly’s “Taken by Force,” a groundbreaking study of rapes of French, German and British civilian women by G.I.’s, based on courts-martial records Mr. Lilly uncovered, drew a strong response when it was published in France in 2003. But the book, which emphasized the grossly disproportionate prosecution of black soldiers, struggled to find an American publisher amid tensions between the United States and Europe over Iraq.

“American presses wouldn’t touch the subject with a 10-foot barge pole,” said Mr. Lilly, a sociology professor at Northern Kentucky University. (Palgrave Macmillan published his book in the United States in 2007.)

 

[Latias]

The US also had autocratic allies such as Singman Rhee, Suharto, Pinochet, the Saudi monarchy. The US also abetted human rights atrocities in Latin America during the Cold War.

Moreover, people who actually lived the East Germany, the Soviet Union, and Hungary liked it under socialism. This is indicated by several polls, for example.

 

[Murmurs]

The US also had autocratic allies such as Singman Rhee, Suharto, Pinochet, the Saudi monarchy. The US also abetted human rights atrocities in Latin America during the Cold War.

Moreover, people who actually lived the East Germany, the Soviet Union, and Hungary liked it under socialism. This is indicated by several polls, for example.

I think if you asked people in those countries, were you able to a) ask and b) get a truthful answer and c) they were able to compare and contrast, in, say 1980, they would prefer what they have today. The fondness for former communist rule is known in Germany as ‘Ostalgie’ (portmanteau of ‘ost’/east and nostalgia). It doesn’t mean that people would be very happy if a return was forced upon them.

The mere fact that they can today express such sentiments is proof positive that they are in the sense of political freedoms, better off today.

 

[stinkcat_14]

The US also had autocratic allies such as Singman Rhee, Suharto, Pinochet, the Saudi monarchy. The US also abetted human rights atrocities in Latin America during the Cold War.

Moreover, people who actually lived the East Germany, the Soviet Union, and Hungary liked it under socialism. This is indicated by several polls, for example.

Is that why they had to build the wall? To keep people from getting into paradise?

 

[EleanorArr]

The Bill of Rights;
Straws that come in individual packets;
Everything has a ‘peanut butter’ flavor;
Ice cream not a dessert so much as a sprinkle delivery medium;
Pharmacies have whole aisles of antacids (possibly because of the previous two things);
So many varieties of coffee, because personal choice is more important than anything else (including good coffee);
The NYT is the perfect size for ease of reading but still big enough that one can judge tabloid readers;
Canada for a neighbor.

All the important things

 

[PolarGuy]

Latias, you asked if I had “any evidence” of “millions of rapes” by Russians against Germans. I most certainly do:

–historian Antony Beevor estimates that 1.4 million rapes occurred in east Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania alone (and none of these areas were occupied by american or British forces).
–he’s called it the greatest mass rape in history.
–historian bill Hitchcock has documented women being raped 60-70 times.
–100,000 more rapes occurred in Berlin (another area us troops never got to in WWII) based on records of abortions surging in that area shortly thereafter.
–many rapes were committed in public and/or in front of the women’s families, to deliberately add to the humiliation.

Denying these rapes is akin to denying the holocaust.

Rapes of German women in WWII has it’s own wikipedia page if you’d care to look.

I reiterate that the red army in WWII was an army of rapists.