Asklemmy

Love our land, loath our society.

The natural beauty of America is amazing, but the people seem to be mostly absolute shit.

The United States has done far more harm than good for humanity at large. The individualistic values it champions have led to a society that is fragmented and leaves many citizens in misery. Its global hegemony has resulted in the destruction of numerous countries, with countless lives lost due to its military interventions, coups, and regime change operations around the world. Moreover, the US's extractive policies have prevented other nations from developing their own economies, perpetuating a cycle of underdevelopment and dependency. Additionally, as one of the largest consumers of energy per capita and major producers of fossil fuels, the United States is among the worst offenders when it comes to climate change, exacerbating global environmental crises with its unsustainable practices.

Non-American here.

I don’t dislike America. I was a teenager in the ‘90s, when the culture was peaking in influence here in the UK, so I have great nostalgia for American things (which really helps when playing the daily NYT games). I’ve visited a few times, and always enjoyed my time there.

But I am real fucking tired of the American influence on the internet, on politics, and on attitudes around the world.

I’m tired of the American view being the default on social media, because the majority of social media sites are American, populated by Americans.

I’m tired of saying something that would completely uncontroversial outside the US that attracts a rash of people bitching at you because it’s not normal over there. Like letting our cats outside. I once said something on Reddit about my cat getting killed by a car, and got a bunch of replies from people telling me how irresponsible I am for letting her go outside.

I don’t use TikTok, but my wife does, and part of her kinda wants the US ban to go ahead, so that her feed is a bit more balanced towards Europe. And I get that.

:edit: I accept that this isn’t the fault of individual Americans, and hold no ill-will towards them. It’s down to the vast majority of global tech wealth being held in the US, giving the illusion that the whole internet is an American thing.

I also accept that this is rank hypocrisy coming from a Brit. If we’d had the internet 250 years ago, the whole world would be speaking English now, as opposed to most of it.

As a non American who used to live there, I can say some things are amazing and some things are awful.

I love the nature. The national parks are so beautiful. I like many of the people. And there are good job options there in tech.

But the awful things were a deal-breaker for me, and why I'd never want to live there again. The wealth inequality, the guns, the crime, the homelessness, the healthcare system, the partisan politics, etc.

So ultimately I probably fall on the side of not liking it.

Yes, I don't think many people realize how good we have it here. I say this having traveled to places and seen some shit (war in Iraq, gang violence in El Salvador, abject poverty in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan).

Can the U.S. be better? Of course it can. There are horrible things happening here and people are losing their rights at a scary rate. However, these horrible things are not on the same level of horror as that which is occurring/has been occurring in other countries, it's apples to oranges.

Anytime I've been overseas and I come back to America I realize how much I love it here. We have it so good here, really. But as someone else stated, there is huge inequality that needs to be addressed in order for EVERYONE here to have it so good.

Non-American here. You all keep making up the vilest "jokes" about French people. The sheer level of ignorance and disrespect deserves nothing but contempt and derision. And that's what you'll get from me and most of Europe.

Better learn to cope 😒.

Non-American here!

I've visited America a bunch of times and I really like it as a place, they have amazing scenery pretty much everywhere you look, and just about every individual American I've met has been really nice.

BUT...

I'd never want to live there. Their healthcare system is insane (sorry Americans but it is) and politically as a nation they're pretty bonkers. Guns, religion, general sort of global belligerence etc.

Also as an aside, San Francisco is genuinely one of the strangest places I've ever been to. I dunno if I was just there at a weird time, but it seemed like every single person there was either a millionaire or homeless. Absolutely nothing in between.

It depends on the state.

America big, America great. America have a lot of problems. A lot of good things and a lot of bad things.

We have so much wealth and resources, it just needs distributed much more fairly.

That is not a simple question. My life is what it is because I live in America. I am not driven to move elsewhere.

But America is far from what I want it to be. Last night's debate was a good example. I am so baffled that those two are who we have decided should have power.

Not even a little. We are being forced into sickness and poverty. We make just enough to put food on the table and even that's getting harder. An unexpected illness is setting people back on their bills. Every law that's passed goes against what the people want and the only way this will ever change is if we can afford to pay off a politician like all the major companies do. Voting doesn't feel like it makes a difference anymore and the only platform it feels like they use is "at least I'm not them". I've said it before and I'll say it again if someone paid for us to leave the US I'd be packed within a couple of hours.

I started to write a novel, but suffice it to say that I left nearly a decade ago and many things seem to be getting worse rather than better.

Yes. As a black man, America has produced a long very involved legacy of which I'm proud being my heritage.

Sure, it was absolutely founded on treating people like as sub-human, and there are people today that are trying to return me to that state, but fuck them as they've been fucked for the last century and a half. I'll be damned if I let them represent America.

No, I live here.

I hate

• religious zealotry
• massive dichotomy in polotical ideologies
• identity politics
• warmongering
• brainwashing (pledge of allegiance?!)
• poor treatment of poor and homeless
• prison complex
• poor education system
• incredibly expensive healthcare
• terrible zoning laws and car centricity
• hiroshima, native genocide, iraq, and so many more. The US has shed so much blood and terror inflicted on the world population
• world police, vigilante, the US is basically every bad movie villian in country form
• regressing views on women's rights
• the history of slavery

It depends on what you mean. America the government courting christofascism? Hell fucking no. I wish all the Republicans and neolibs in power would have a heart attack. I also wish to live long enough to read Trump's and Alito's obituaries. But I do love my local community too much to just abandon them. At best, I would call my relationship with America akin to Stockholm Syndrome.

I fucking hate this dystopian hellscape of misery and torment and I hope it gets glassed. Land of the fee, home of the slave. If I get drafted in WW3 I'm a turncoat as soon as they hand me a gun.

At least we made UNIX. UNIX is cool.

I love America. I'm rather less fond of some of the people in it. The land is beautiful and varied. There is so much space here. And the constitution is really special, I think, though not perfect. The biggest flaw is people haven't been taking politics seriously and have elected unserious people.

I swore to defend it many years ago. At the time I was a kid just paying lip service to a required oath, swearing to a god I never believed in, but the truth is I do love it and I would fight for it, warts and all.

Naw, it made some kinda sense for a while but the writers really jumped the shark in the past decade.

This is a nation founded on the ideals of genocide, slavery, and white nationalism. No I do not like the US. I'd not trust anyone who does. The USA should be dissolved.

America sucks. The government and the "America" it upholds is an institution of evil, a factory for global war and oppression all while insultingly calling itself "land of the free", and anyone who latches onto its historical "achievements" probably sucks too.

Does no one understand the difference between a country and the continent where it is?

Meh. I’m an American and I don’t hate it here. But I’m from (and moved back to) a culturally distinct place (New Orleans) so I don’t really identify with the dominant culture. I loathe the politics/corruption and how our government is structured. (The amendments are the best part of our constitution and maybe we should think about that for a bit.) I’m deeply ashamed that we’re the world’s biggest arms dealer and oil/gas producer.

That being said, we have beautiful landscapes and individual American people are usually kind, decent people, at least on an interpersonal level. The corruption of companies and elected officials doesn’t usually extend to the middle class. (Like, you don’t have to bribe someone to get a driver’s license or permits or whatever.) There’s obviously loads of advantages to being an American citizen, just as there are to being an EU citizen. I love our national parks. Just the western half of the United States contains enough varied forms of amazing landscapes to keep a person occupied for a lifetime.

So, I wouldn’t say I like America as a political entity. It’s definitely in my top 30 or so countries to live. I wouldn’t give up my citizenship for a random place but, having travelled extensively, there’s a lot of countries that have a better form of government and a healthier balance between oligarchs and labor.

America, americans, or american politicians? I've got different opinions. The common american may be misguided or misinformed, but they're not hateful. America itself, has done incredible damage to the world, all while claiming they're all for liberty and freedom after being dragged into the most clear-cut good vs. bad war almost a hundred years ago. Ever since, it's has been dragged kicking and screaming towards progress, and fighting very hard to go back to the stone age. American politicians are nearly all wastes of skin.

For reference, I'm latino.

I would feel better about america, as a non american, if the country on the whole would accept they aren’t the only country in the world, and didn’t continuously consider themselves the greatest. Actually acknowledge their history and the atrocities committed to get it to where it is today.

Have some god damn humility

I’m European and I have mixed feelings about the US.

There are some great sceneries, nice peoples and my accent does wonders there. I like its smaller towns and countryside.

But at the same I hate its cities. You can see the most widen gap between poverty and absurdly rich peoples in the same street. You can have a wonderful avenue and once in the back alley it looks like third world. I’ve never seen that many weird people than in the us. There’s too much violence and capitalism. And don’t get me on the fucking tipping culture.

TL:DR; No, I hate the USA.

The world isn't black and white. I agree with some of the reasons I like the USA in the comments over here - like subculture, universities, research institutes, etc, but I want to discuss about what I don't like.

As a South Asian, I feel grateful that we have governance over our own land by our own people. I can't help but pity and empathize with the aboriginal folks and native Americans, whose right over their own sacred lands were snatched, their lakes polluted, and mountains defiled, their tradition destroyed, and them being treated like third-class citizens in their own land. Long ago, they were nomads, but today, based on what side of the border they ended up in, they're either natives or illegal immigrants.

I hate the tone-deaf white defaultism, I hate it's genocidal campaign and foreign interference, and worst of all, I hate how it still enables exploitation and wage-theft.

And what I hate even more is shoving down everyone's throat like a clockwork about how groups opposing them were bad. Obviously, for example, the Nazis were bad, no doubt about it, but addressing so in a way so as to ignore your own terrible past absolves the crimes of the collective West, which is quite convenient for the imperialist empire.

Now, let me break it down - the amount of crimes under the Old Glory or the Union Jack exceeds far more than that under the Nazi flag. But someone decided that the Old Glory or the Union Jack aren't hate symbols, but singled out on the Nazi flag. Being a PoC in America must suck so much, imagine having to see that disgusting hate symbol that enslaved your ancestors, bombed houses and dropped chemical agents on farms.

I love it, and that's why I want to improve it. And you can't fix a problem without acknowledging it exists.