Quote Originally Posted by Don Corleone
I'm not arguing everything the USA does is right or even rightly intended. We do have our flaws, and I think it would surprise you all if we started a thread where Americans only posted what they thought America's flaws are. One thing I do note about Americans more than any other country in the world is our willingness to take an honest self assessment. Not that we're good at it all the time, but we're better than anybody else.
I was intrigued by this statement of Don's in one of the Anti-American threads, and I'd like to see it play out. What do my fellow Americans think the problems with America are? In the interests of meeting Don's criteria, please save any positive comments for another place, even though you may have plenty of positive thoughts to balance the critical ones. Also, I don't want to exclude our non-American patrons, so if you're not an American feel free to post, but for the sake of self-criticism post the things you dislike about your own country.

Here's a few things to start us off:

  • America has had since its foundation a sense of Puritan morality, which can lead to repressive and sometimes stupid policies, such as prohibition during the 1930's and its modern counterpart in the war on drugs, and a peculiar aversion to anything sex-related.
  • We have an immense inward focus. We think America is the world, and have little awareness of other cultures and opinions.
  • We have shown ourselves willing to sacrifice the very ideals we hold most dear, as shown by our willingness to support dictators and oppression when they benefit American interests, or by our passing the Patriot Act.
  • We have a history of absolutely vile treatment of Native Americans.
  • We have an incredibly materialistic culture, mirroring the 'America is the world' idea with one of personal selfishness, often eclipsing ethical treatment of others, such as in the case of Enron executives. Related to this, we have an enormous rich-poor gap when our traditional strength comes from the middle class.
  • As a nation that strives to be an example of Democracy to the world, we have terrible voter turnout, little awareness of candidates and issues, and a feeling as average Americans that our vote doesn't really matter.

Those are the first to spring to mind anyway.

Ajax