"America is the greatest country on earth"

What do you think of American exceptionalism?
Is the U.S. uniquely better than the rest of the world? Should it have a mission to transform the world to its values?

America, the home of the brave, the land of the free. Founded on liberty and is always (or almost always) doing the right thing. Make it great again.
or...
Like how Noam Chomsky sees it, the U.S. never was "great", but is better today than it used to be. The U.S. was founded on slavery and native american genocide. Thank goodness we have left the past America. Going back to the previous America would be terrible.

It is a patriotic saying.

Bi0Hazard: The way I see it, anytime somebody says their country is the best in the world, they're being a jerk. No country has a spotless history.

Bi0Hazard: Is the U.S. uniquely better than the rest of the world?

It wouldn't even make it on my top 10 countries to live in.

admin: But saying that you have the "best" country doesn't necessarily mean you think it has a spotless history.
However, some do seem to see it that way.

Famousdebater: What don't you like about the U.S.?

Famousdebater: I mean, the United States is such a great country.
We:
-Have violent riots in the streets
-Have more people in prison than any other country
-Piss off minority groups
-Have common mass shootings
-Spend more on the military than the next 5-6 highest military spending countries combined and is the third highest form of spending (Behind social security, medicare, and medicaid).
-Have a government that spies on citizens and other countries.
-Wage wars on poor countries and destabilize them.
-Lack universal healthcare, and instead have a crumbling healthcare system that results in pharmaceutical companies raising drug prices tremendously for profit.
-have increasing wealth inequality.
-are an oligarchic country.
-have a GREAT president.
-have more overweight citizens than any other country.
-have greater military power than any other country.

There are just so many great things about the U.S. It just has to at least make it into your top 10.

I mean, if you have a population that loves their new president so much that they are willing to smash windows, charge police, and set things on fire on inauguration day, this must really be a great place.

The US was the best country prior to the start of twentieth century, and despite the damage that socialism caused (what Chomsky praises, I detest), US still remains the best country. This is because the Constitution of United States was created in the right spirit: to protect individual's inalienable rights, in that the government is the servant of a citizen and the Constitution is a limitation on the government.

Furthermore, an American does not share the existentialist philosophy of the europeans (developed by the German philosophers), but in the spirit is an Aristotelian. This is clearly seen in the conception of the American dream: to have a big house, and to enjoy life.

Finally, America has always been the place in which a man of any race or persuasion could make something of himself and attain the American dream, through productive work and enterprise.

boris7698: The U.S. was even worse in the past, we took steps to make it better (got worse in few ways).
Finally, America has always been the place in which a man of any race or persuasion could make something of himself and attain the American dream, through productive work and enterprise.
A country founded on slavery and Native American genocide is definitely a country that has always been a place for all races.

America inherited slavery from Europe. It is important to evaluate ideas in the context of the historical setting of the times. Aristotle supported slavery, but no one holds it against him. Just about every thinker and regular person in those times supported it. An idea is innovative if it stands out from the common-plate ideas. In case of USA, it was the first country that protected individual rights (the idea first proposed by Locke).

The Natives were against civilization. But, majority of Natives that died, did so not because of wars, but because of getting sick from European illnesses. Also, Natives had to concept of property rights, so they didn't own any land, and couldn't have any claim to it, anyway. USA should never have given them the reservations and tax cuts. Even with all this help, many of them are drunks.

boris7698: America inherited slavery from Europe.
That is where the white modern Americans descended from (and the first settlers).

Yes, it is important to look at it in a historical context. Abolishing slavery in the United States was seen as a radical idea in the past. It was seen as normal and nothing wrong with it in the general population.
It is great that the U.S. was founded on individual rights but still had ways to go. Women couldn't vote (the U.S. was founded on patriarchy) until the 1920s. The civil rights movement came and the U.S. had guaranteed a form of retirement for its seniors (social security) and had medical care for them (medicare). The U.S. has made improvements (with individual rights too) and I am glad that we did progress from the past.
Also, Natives had to concept of property rights, so they didn't own any land, and couldn't have any claim to it, anyway. USA should never have given them the reservations and tax cuts. Even with all this help, many of them are drunks.
The Europeans took over the land they inhabited and formed their own civilization. The U.S. government should respect their land, they lived on it for longer than we did. Ownership of land is relative to the society they lived in and property is a social construct, so it doesn't make a difference if they had private property or not. Domination is the same everywhere.

American's also inherited from Europe that women couldn't vote. That the status quo was seen normal is expected... Why wold you expect a change in an age-old system not be appear radical ?

The civil rights movement came and the U.S. had guaranteed a form of retirement for its seniors (social security) and had medical care for them (medicare). The U.S. has made improvements (with individual rights too) and I am glad that we did progress from the past.

I don't know the details about the civil rights movement, but social security and medicare (and the FED and New Deal later) is what I consider to be a bad thing.

It wasn't their land. They roamed on it, but they didn't agriculture it. Furthermore, they resisted Europeans precisely because the Europeans wanted to agriculture it in order to turn raw nature into cultivated nature. They would have no problem with Europeans roaming it like them. Only man who works the land, owns it. (See John Locke on this, as the originator).

I can somewhat agree with you in that recording of who owns what land must be universally record to avoid disputation. But the natives had no central government to keep track of that. Thats is what I mean when I say that they had no concept of property rights. Maybe, if there were, Europeans could have bought some of it.

And, as far as domination, people have conquered land since the beginning of history. Once the land was conquered, it was under the rule of the conquerer. But this fact is never used to criticize a civilization. For instance, after Muslim Mongols conquered India, they have several centuries of prosperity running it, and built the Taj Mahal. No one says that Taj Mahal and the civilization that built sucks, because it also started with a bloodshed.

America was a very great country (and the best one) in the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s. It was founded by Christians to be a safe haven for them. And because of its Christian principles, it was in fact the greatest nation in all of human history. Of course it's not really that great anymore since her people have forgotten God.

It was a great light to the rest of the world on how to live and to be an example for them. Since the 1900s it really started to go downhill. It strayed from the Bible and that's why. Americans started to believe in evolution instead of Genesis. Men have failed to lead and protect their families and the nation crumbled. Women started to vote, which as a result, feminized and weakened the government. And instead of being housewives, women abandoned men for their own career and failed to raise the children. So the children grew up to be disobedient and violent, raising murder rates in this country. Then sodomy started to become acceptable in the US, which will ultimately destroy this country as the final blow.

boris7698: American's also inherited from Europe that women couldn't vote.
duh, I am not sure what point you are trying to make.
That the status quo was seen normal is expected... Why wold you expect a change in an age-old system not be appear radical ?
It would be radical, but overtime, we changed for the better. We have come a long ways as a country. I see the progress as for the better. Like what you say, the Europeans brought their culture to North America, we changed it to a society based on liberal principles more and more overtime. I wouldn't want to live in the past U.S. as an alternative to today.
I don't know the details about the civil rights movement, but social security and medicare (and the FED and New Deal later) is what I consider to be a bad thing.
Yes, since you support laissez faire capitalism. I see social democracy as a higher stage of development since it can exist if there is enough wealth to support itself (which requires more wealth than laissez faire), and is able to grant positive and negative rights.
It wasn't their land. They roamed on it, but they didn't agriculture it.
What makes it "not theirs"? Property and ownership is simply relative and a social construct, therefore, it doesn't make a difference to them. However, domination and war is the same for both of them (if they attempt to govern the land they roam).
Only man who works the land, owns it.
That is a social construct. It could only be that way if society invents it.
But the natives had no central government to keep track of that.
What I meant was that whatever the society views property as, it doesn't justify domination and coercion either way. Property is not a universal concept, it is relative, so it is really cultural arrogance to say that the private property Europeans were justified in conquering the native Americans because they had private property and Native Americans didn't.
For instance, after Muslim Mongols conquered India, they have several centuries of prosperity running it, and built the Taj Mahal. No one says that Taj Mahal and the civilization that built sucks, because it also started with a bloodshed.
But I wouldn't support the methods behind it.

You can see from the capitalism debate my view that property is inherent in the nature of man. It is not a matter of society. Whatever man touches with his mind, is his. An analogy with different animals: if a lion catches a lamb, the lamb is his. What agility is to the lion, reason is to man.

Here's John Locke on private property,

27. Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others.

The only place where society comes in, is to decide finer details of what it means to tresspass. For instance, obviously a meter below and above my house is still my property. But what about 100 meters above the house ?

Or, about the river example: I could have dump arsenic in my pond, but am I allowed to dump arsenic into a flowing river thats passing through my territory?

Krazy: Christianity wasn't what defined America. What defined it was the enterprising spirit, and desire for material success. It was the American dream. This is diametrical opposite to what Christianity wanted from people: to be humble, and to support the Church, the only place were lavish splendor of wealth was permitted.

Mothers who lived in cities did not raise their newborn already during medieval times. They were raised by care-takers full-time until they were about two. The reasons for this was most children died, and this way it didn't hurt so much to loose them. Also, children didn't have a close relationship with their mother, because of this.

boris7698: My point on this is that whatever we claim to be "ours" is what we call property, which is a social construct. The fact that you are saying that whatever a person touches with their reason is theirs is an example of you adding an immaterial idea to a material existence from your subjective mind. I am sure you would agree that what many people see is not really there (like ghosts, alien abductions, visions of god, etc.) because it is being generated within their mind. The same is true of immaterial ideas applied to the natural world. Subjective abstraction is required for this since they require a mind to generate. This means that it is nothing more to say that whatever a human touches is theirs than to hallucinate a ghost in front of your face. The only way I see out of this is to say that these immaterial ideas exist independent of humans and are within nature (or deny naturalist ideas altogether). Like spirituality. An objective moral code with moral rights included. This, of course, is merely metaphysical theory as well that holds to spiritualist concepts.
It doesn't work to say that humans naturally cling to things they design or independently use things without interference (as if humans evolved to form a individual property society, that is, form property by instinct, referred to as a natural right) since even if they did, the concept of "owning" something is still an abstraction. Simply put, it is just applying a form of morals.

Yes, since you support laissez faire capitalism. I see social democracy as a higher stage of development since it can exist if there is enough wealth to support itself (which requires more wealth than laissez faire), and is able to grant positive and negative rights.


The reasons why I support capitalism, are the reasons why I reject socialism. Saying that i reject socialistic constructs because I support capitalism, hides the real reason, behind adherence to an "-ism". The real reason is this. In order to fund the social services, money is stolen from people by the government. Why is stealing bad? Because it doesn't respect the rights of these people.

Back to the indians. Without a mutually accepted legal framework, it is impossible for people to co-exist. The legal framework of Europeans was that only cultivated land can constitute private property, the initial owner of which is the cultivator. The legal framework of the Natives, is that Europeans should not come to America, unless they will live in the same fashion as them -- never significantly changing the raw nature, because the Natives rely on migration of wild animals (rather than on herding animals).

There are several ways to resolve this: (a) accept the legal (and moral) framework with which you don't agree, and never signed to, or (b) have a war, in order to establish one legal framework, or (c) stay at a considerable distance in order to avoid the conflict, which would mean for Europeans to stay in Europe, because the Natives claimed all of the American continents.

Another point, is your statement that ideas are subjective. Ideas are not subjective, because all ideas are designed to work in reality. Even the misguided ones such as Christianity, had derived their ideas by observing something in reality, and they attempt to apply them to reality. In so much as the ideas indeed correspond to reality, they are objective. In so much that they don't, they are a result of a reasoning error, or refusal to reason.

The most objective idea wins, simply by its nature: it corresponds better to reality, and will give better results. In the case of Natives vs Europeans, the ideas that Europeans had yielded a greater command of nature, than the ideas of the Natives. The Natives too attempted to command nature, but with inferior technology. For instance, they burnt forests in order to make them thinner, so that hunting is easier through them. They created various hunting spears and knives. They had a system of marriage to increase amount of children. All-in-all, they weren't Yogis who didn't want to touch anything. But, they didn't want to touch it too much, or didn't have the ability to do so, even if they wanted to.

In contrast, the Europeans implemented moulding of nature on a much grander scale. Their ideas are more objective.

The idea that cultivated resource becomes private becomes clear when considering land on the moon. Can anyone claim to own a chunk of the moon, by a mere declaration that he was first to declare so? Or Venus? Or any other planet in the cosmos?

The Natives themselves agree with the thesis of Locke, when they state that the land is their because they were there first. Well: why is being somewhere first is important? How is that different from not being there, like the case of land on the moon? The difference is that being somewhere is the first step to making use of it, in a human way. (For Natives, it was just to hunt.)

The land of America is too vast, however, to call of it "cultivated" by hunting, so, therefore belonging to Natives. The Natives should have accepted that not all people want to hunt the land, but rather want to grow stuff on it. They should have accepted a registry of who owns what, and this way they could have still had plenty of land to hunt at. Instead, what they did is that they attacked European settlers, and got as a response their defence.

boris7698: Another point, is your statement that ideas are subjective. Ideas are not subjective, because all ideas are designed to work in reality.
Property is relative to the society. You can say it is objective since a legal framework is established, but what I mean by objective is that it is universal in humanity, not just a specific human society. The idea of property is created by humans, so it is not objective. You just see "objective" as ideas that correspond with reality, but those concepts themselves are still subjective. So, right here, you are basically admitting that they are subjective, but since humans apply them to reality, they become objective. However, they are still subjective, it is just that the human society as a whole accepts it and lives by it.

So you seem to think individual property is something natural to humans. However, like I said, the concept of "individual property" applied is still subjective. Though, I do not agree that the idea of private property corresponds best with reality. I see private property as not innate in human society, but constructed by human society.
The Natives themselves agree with the thesis of Locke, when they state that the land is their because they were there first. Well: why is being somewhere first is important?
To say that some land belongs to someone else is indeed a social construct in itself.
The Natives should have accepted that not all people want to hunt the land, but rather want to grow stuff on it. They should have accepted a registry of who owns what, and this way they could have still had plenty of land to hunt at.
That is looking at it from the Europeans perspective but ignoring the Native American perspective. In order to be consistent, it is important to use a historicist point of view.

Saying the US is the "best country in the world" is I think a very heavy burden to prove. You would need to define the metrics for "best" which could be anything from the government (The Economist just moved it down on their list to a "flawed democracy"), quality of life, treatment of minorities... On most metrics, the US does not win and therefore it cannot be the "best" country. As for transferring their values to the rest of the world, I think that the US should not participate in these efforts. At most, I support gentle non-violent influences to democratize countries, but once again the US is not necessarily the best model for a full democracy.