"American Values" That Actually Exist All Over the World

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Hi all. Today I want to deconstruct the virulent concept of patriotism once again. I'm going to go over several "things that make America great" and then look at the rest of the world objectively.

"America runs the world! Woo!"

Ancient Egypt had the same attitude. So did Akkad ... and the Persian Empire ... and the Roman Empire ... and the British Empire. Every great power in history has seen itself as mighty and glorious. In the end, every great power is blown away by the unavoidable winds of change.

"America has freedom."

"Freedom" is very hard to define. Of course, many modern hunter-gatherer societies are democratic. This means that the concept of freedom is as old as humanity itself ... or maybe even older.

"We have free speech. Europe uses hate speech laws to supress speech that is politically incorrect."

In practice, hate speech laws don't work very well. Most European countries have their own far-right nationalist organisations which circumvent hate speech legislation using dog whistle terms and euphemisms. Most right-wing organisations in the US also use euphemisms even though they don't legally have to, in order to maintain an innocent public image. In other words, hate speech laws are basically nothing.

Furthermore, most third world countries don't have hate speech laws either.

"We have guns!"

Lots of other countries have guns. Yemen has guns. Switzerland has guns. Finland has guns. Iraq has guns. Mexico has guns. In some African countries, even the kids have guns!

"Capitalism rules! Universal health care is for commies!"

Almost every third world country doesn't have universal health care either. Unregulated capitalism is fairly common in the third world ... unless you count the corporate subsidies ... which also exist in America.

"We are devout Christians!"

The most devout fundamentalist Christians on the planet can be found in African countries such as Uganda. Africa is pretty American eh?

"We have all the technology!"

What about Japan? What about Sweden? What about Switzerland?

"We have the best attitude!"

Every single country says that about itself! What does that even mean? I don't think that it means a damn thing!

"We won the Space Race!"

The first man in space was a Soviet. The first woman in Space was a Soviet. The first satellite was made by the Soviets. America only won one part of the Space Race.

"We saved Europe in World War 2!"



Patriotism is for people who know nothing about the world as a whole. It's a religion.

We're still a cool country in a lot of ways.

We definitely have our faults. Sometimes, we exude arrogance.

I'm not one of those flag-waving "patriots"---but I do love my country. People who are so "gung-ho" get on my nerves.

And I love many other countries as well.

America is hardly perfect, particularly when it comes to race, and the growing chasm between the rich and poor. That said, America is a country that is literally composed of people and their ancestors who came from all over the world (many, admittedly, unwillingly), a fact that makes most Americans proud of being mutts. And while other nation states base their existence on a particular theology or ethnicity, we Americans like to believe our country was founded on the idealism of the Enlightenment. While we have not always lived up to those founding values, we've tried, while in certain instances we've even built upon and surpassed those values.

I don't like Americans saying that about World War II, but that pie chart is the exact opposite of an argument to refute that. You don't win wars by dying, you win wars by killing.

Europe, Canada have less economic freedom, because they have much higher effective tax rates.

Unlike the rest of the first world countries, Americans can potentially reduce the tax rate on say a $100,0000 income to 0-5% with tax deductions like mortgage interest deduction, retirement savings deduction, child deductions, home office deduction, medical savings accounts ....

I found this from 2012 ... take into account Trump just cut the personal rates further