What is there to be proud of? An illegitimate court, house and senate bought and paid for by corporations and foreign governments, a capitalist economy that crushes 99.99 percent to lift the 0.01 even higher? These are points of shame, not pride.
I thought we were living in 2023. Why be proud of coincidence to happen to born in a location? Feel lucky compared to other locations, maybe that makes more sense.
Yeah, I've never understood it. Especially when that location gives you privilege over people in other places. You're proud because you were born in a wealthy country due to no control of your own? Fuck your pride, there are people starving to death. Feeling lucky you're not one of them, fine. Being proud of it? That makes you an asshole.
It's conceivable that one would be proud of their country for the actions their country takes, both domestic and/or world stage. Like I'm sure the people living in those Scandinavian where a vast majority of their country is healthy, happy, and even their criminals are treated with dignity and respect can be proud of how their country has turned out.
I don't think it's a common interpretation to feel self-directed pride due to one's country. Unless, maybe, you're the president or someone who makes actual decisions for the country.
The kids under 35 have only known post-911 snooping, bigotry, military adventurism, the 2008 mortgage crash, housing and education costing multiples of what previous generations paid (in adjusted dollars), COVID insanity, a political system that is completely inaccessible to them and utterly uncaring about their needs, and, finally, a climate being actively accelerated to disaster.
The wonder here shouldn’t be at their lack of patriotism. It should be at the fact that they aren’t setting fire to everything, murdering politicians, billionaires, and their lackeys, and generally grinding everything to a halt.
I feel like there's also the fact that everyone who has comfortably been established tells them they're lazy and aren't trying hard enough...to get past all the barriers those greedy people have set up
And that we have the resources to make sure they don't die and their teeth don't fall out...but they don't get it
And the fact that the elites have convinced them somehow that voting is pointless... They need to get shaken out of that.
If everyone who was in that 82% voted, the republican party would die overnight
To any “patriot” who would tell these young folks to just leave the United States, I’d like to submit a preemptive YOU are the one’s who should be getting the fuck out. YOU are the ones who are un-American, YOU are the ones supporting a traitor to our country, and YOU are the ones fucking it up for everyone else by voting against not just your interests, but our interests as the not billionaire class. Hopefully, enough youth in this can be motivated to make us something to be proud of, rather than an embarrassment.
I'll also add a preemptive "I have no fucks to give" to anyone who wants to try and shame me for not playing nice with these "patriots". I definitely spend quite a bit of time trying to understand these people, but only in the hopes that a method to marginalize racists/traitors/bigots can be developed. You want to try to figure out how to "work with" these people, go right ahead. Not going to waste my time.
Signed: One pissed off veteran.
I find Patriotism incredibly arrogant and somewhat ignorant of the world around you. I don't care where you're from, I only care about decent individuals.
You are confusing patriot and nationalist.
A Patriot loves his country and tries to do what's right for it, as in make it better.
A nationalist is a chauvinist, who believes his country is better than others, and deserves to have power over them. The nationalist is therefore also racist and xenophobe, and prefer isolation rather than cooperation with other countries.
I'm a patriot, but I realize my country has flaws, and some countries are better in some respects. But I still love my country.
Eh... If you live in a company that treats people fairly, is run by the people, for the people, takes care of the poor, and embodies liberty and justice for all, then that's something that you can be proud to be a part of. But unfortunately those are just things they teach school children here, not things that the country actually does.
I think a lot of people are confusing "proud" with "glad". I'm in the 35-54 range and I don't think there's much to be proud of anymore. And frankly I'm closer to embarrassed than indifferent on the subject given the progress we've lost in the last decade or so. But am I glad to be an American?
Sure, I'm glad I wasn't born in Russia only to be a bullet sponge in an unjustifiable war.
I'm glad I wasn't born in Afghanistan with the Taliban oppression.
I'm glad I wasn't born in Syria during one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts in modern history.
I'm glad I wasn't born to sift through cancerous e-waste or mine diamonds for a warlord in Africa.
I'm glad I wasn't born into North Korea (self explanatory)
So, while I'm glad I wasn't born under worse circumstances, I'm not proud that we're directly and indirectly responsible for many of those circumstances.
But, I also don't think it's an unsolvable problem. We could make America a place to be proud to be from, but that's a very long road from where we are right now and I fear that there's also a lot of potential to get worse if the tinderbox is mishandled.
This might be a little controvercial in american politics community (not so much under europeans but even here it kind of is) but there is no right way to be proud of the place you are born in! You can be proud of partular parts of your system, your society or similar but not the location, that's always fucking stupid!
Americans have not had it hard in a long time. No world wars have been fought on our soil. The wars we have been in since WW2 have not been very popular. I grew up gen X and we pretty much thought the world was going to end and that the previous generations handed us a pile of shit.
The kids now days look at all of us like a bunch of hypocritical ass hats. If I was a kid watching the shit adults are doing and talking about now, I would not be proud either. I would be embarrassed. I am embarrassed of what we have/are becoming. A lot of older people sit around and bitch about the younger generation but we are the ones that raised them. We are the ones not taking care of business like we told them they should. We are the ones babbling nonsense, disrespecting the law, doing all the things we told our kids not to do. Why the hell should they listen, or be proud or form the same values as we may have? We are literally showing them that none of this matters and then turn around and blame them for telling us all to fuck off.
I am very proud to say that I'm not proud to be an American. Being proud of your country is a path toward genocide.
You can have pride in your country without being stupid about it.
I'm proud to be an American. I'm not proud of everything America does.
I'm proud that we were the first to land on the moon. I'm proud that we (eventually) helped win WWII over the Nazis. I'm proud of parts of our art and culture, Asimov, (early) Game of Thrones, most of the best games in the world.
I also protested the Iraq war. I think our ultra-capitalist, corporate worshipping ways have been a negative influence on the world.
I'm proud of Al Gore's call to action on climate change. I'm not proud we haven't done much about it.
I'm proud we have the potential to get off planet, self-sustaining colonies going. I wish we'd push harder for it.
You can find reasons to be proud of your country without endorsing everything they do.
How dare you come here with nuance
Well, y'know, we were an explicit apartheid state for 80% of our history, and were founded on the back of slavery and genocide so brutal it served as the blueprint for Nazi Germany... The more alarming part is that anyone is proud of our nation.
I'm not young and I'm really not proud. It's honestly embarrassing. Trump was a disgrace and ruined any sense of pride I had.
Why would they be? I'm not.
Why would anyone be proud of something they had zero control over?
It's extremely stupid.
If there's anything people should take pride in it would be their own work and accomplishments... Certainly not where they were born or anything else equally arbitrary that could have just as easily gone another way.
Be proud of something that you have no personal responsibility for creating is weird.
I mean, gestures broadly
I'm 65 now. When I was a kid, I was relatively patriotic. Civil rights, moon landing, all that stuff. Now? Not so much. The US is still much better than many other countries but it's not the world leader that used to be.
Being proud of a piece of land just because you happen to be born in it makes no sense, but it's specially nonsensical when that land belongs to the US.
The American Dream. You can keep it.
In the words of George Carlin (I think) "you know why they call it the American dream? Because you've got to be asleep to believe it."
Good be proud of things you do, not how you were born.
It seems strange to me that people have pride in the circumstances of their birth, something which they have no control over. Most Americans became Americans by doing nothing more than sliding out of their mother's womb. It's one thing to be proud to be a citizen if you worked hard and took the citizenship test to earn it, or during certain times where citizenship actually matters like when doing one's civic duties such as voting or attending jury service, but the people who go around boasting about how proud they are to be American always seem so phony to me. What exactly are they proud of? Why are they proud of it? So bizarre.
I second that and I'm 54. America has given us precious little to be proud of and the "American Exceptionalism" folks seem willfully ignorant.
I consider myself an Oregonian first and foremost.
I'm embarrassed to be American at this point... Republicans are literal fucking nazis, democrats continue catering to the whims of corporate lobbyist bribes, and corruption is everywhere. Nothing will change until the boomers start dying off ~2032, and that's assuming we can remain a democracy that long.
Why would u be extremely proud lol.
What's funny is there is a big contingent of mostly older Americans who are flag-waving super-patriots- except when it comes to anything Democrats or people on the left do. America is the best country on Earth. It's also being destroyed by the "woke mob" and Antifa and the "Biden crime family." None of it makes any sense, but if you ask them what they think of America, they will immediately say it's the greatest country in the world.
This Gen Xer isn't either. I drank the Kool Aid so hard as a teen. I joined the army and learned how to fall out of perfectly good airplanes. Lost all of that after 9/11. It took me a few years but all the Bush regime lies and invading Iraq really brought it into focus for me.
I'm grateful for having been born here, but I can't find it within myself to be prideful over something that I had no control over such as the circumstances of my birth. I have a different concept of pride. I'm prideful for things that I've done such as reaching milestones, accomplishing goals, etc. I don't hate this country, but I definitely don't believe we're the best, but I definitely don't believe we're the worst. For what it's worth, it's my home and I plan on staying.
I'm 45, and my nationality is nothing to be proud of.
I mean...
*gestures around at everything
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