How would you categorize America?

[Nederland]

I've been wondering just how DU membership breaks down on the question of how history will view American actions over the last sixty years. There are times that I feel like many here at DU actually hate America, and believe that America is one of the worst countries on the planet. Hopefully I'm wrong...

[Nederland]

1. More Data Points (nt)

[ShimokitaJer]

2. None of the above

America is an extremely strong nation whose citizens are generally ignorant of the world outside their borders, led by a minority who have convinced the majority through fairly complete but well hidden control of the media that:

a) their way of life is not just the best, but the only way to maintain
civilization

b) they are strong enough as a nation to impose their will on the rest
of the world

c) they are physically threatened by certain outside forces, to be named
by the leadership

[redeye]

3. Not sure...

...America is a continent - in fact, two coontinents meeting at a very small point in Panama - of about 40 million square km, running down from near the North Pole to near the South Pole via the western hemisphere.

America is also the nickname of a nation of extremely arrogant people called the United States, which views itself as the only thing existing in the world. The US had - has - an enormous strength, namely 1/3 of the world's economy, the ability to dictate political systems to any other country but China, and lack of a distinct culture, which allows cultural globalization to take the form of integration rather than dominatino. However, it failed to utilize it during its greatest hour, the late 1990s, and rather has chosen to use its power for evil. It tries to keep its wealth inside its borders like tyrants trying to keep the power inside their castles or corporate oppressors doing their best to keep all wealth to themselves. It uses war as a common foreign policy tool. It masquerades as a democracy, even though at best, people can choose between two very similar candidates in elections - a Republican and a Democrat (in Congressional elections, Democrats run conservatives in GOP districts and GOPers do moderates in Democratic districts) - and at worst, it is known prior to the election who is going to win. Its people are ignorant of the world, ignorant of the plight of anyone who isn't their color, religion, or sexual orientation, ignorant of the existence of things other than their own pitiful nation.

Mind you, I don't think that the USA is the worst nation on the planet, or even one of them - only the worst first-world nation (maybe apart from Singapore and Israel, if they can be called first-world). I am very anti-American, against and to the chagrin of almost everybody on DU (look at GD in DU1, and look for a post by me on 7/4/2003). I am not anti-American because I think everything the US does is evil, or because I think that Americans are naturally inferior to non-Americans (they're inferior in some respects for enironmental reasons, much like you can say that blacks are inferior to whites in terms of socio-economics though not in terms of racial qualities), or even because I oppose most of the USA's recent actions. I am anti-American because I think that the USA has failed some of its duties, including to protect its people (two numbers: 9/11), to develop the undeveloped world (why exactly didn't the government increase foreign aid when it had the surplus to do so?), and to answer to its voters (between 2/3s and 80% of the Hosue races are uncompetitive - that's the voters answering to politicians, not the other way around); therefore, either its government and political structure should be replaced, or it should be dissolved.