• intensely_human@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    It’s not a lie. It’s a point of view. It’s a declaration of intent. Being #1 isn’t a privilege, it’s a responsibility, and a choice.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      The vast majority of people I see declaring we’re #1 are taking credit for it but not working to be the best in the world. It’s the people who are saying we shouldn’t help other people outside the US (or even inside). It’s not a declaration of intent for most people. It’s a badge of pride that they don’t deserve and don’t intend to maintain.

      If it actually were used like you imply, I don’t doubt we would be the best. It would require us working to improve the world around us, not just benefit ourselves. Usually it’s said out of nationalism though, not optimism.

    • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Sorry, bullshit.

      It’s always “we’re the beat, we’re the best at X” whereas the reality is that you have rampant poverty, institutionalized racism (hello US police forces!), shit and unaffordable healthcare with (apparently) doctors who put their religion over their Hippocratic oath, unaffordable education which doesn’t get you a good job anymore anyways, you don’t work to live, you live to work, you have almost no vacation days whatsoever, you have no free days agter when your baby is born,you can’t do anything anymore without a car, you have no freedoms, but they convinced you that parading around military style weapons is freedom somehow. You teach little children at school that sex is wrong, but it’s good to knoe what to do when the next mass murderer visits your school again. Your police is racist, uneducated, inept, and corrupt… I could go on, but you get the idea.

      Sorry, America sucks, to paraphrase someone else in this thread: it’s a third world country wearing the mask of a first world country.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        Right. Being #1 means being the best. “We are the best at X” is an equivalent statement to “We’re #1”.

        Not disputing that.

        What I’m saying is that both of those statements can be, and are, statements of intent.

        You really think a pizza place claiming “The best pizza in NYC!” thinks they’re stating an objective fact? No, they’re stating their commitment to acting as if that’s their role. It’s a commitment to excellence and striving.

    • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      I wanna know at what point America was the greatest country in the world when he said we use to be. Excluding one set of ppl America pretty much sucked for everyone else that lived here since its creation

      • Vinny_93@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        One could argue America was a straight white man utopium in the 20s. After the first World War America was the saviour of the western world. The economy was booming and the capitalist society we know today felt love opportunity and wealth.

        But again, this was definitely not the case for everyone.

        I think ‘the greatest country’ really rather depends on the metrics by which you judge these countries. It would stand to reason that the people in the video would see America as the greatest country by metric of wealth, power and freedom (for some). Skating over gender oppression, race oppression, poverty… For some people it would be better to be in America than anywhere else in the world.

        And the 20s were not the only decade this was the case. The 50s had many of the same appeal for wealthy, straight white men. And the 80s. Since then it’s been downhill.

        On the other hand… I wouldn’t wanna answer the question what is the greatest country in the world right now. As a European, I like to look at Scandinavian countries as a model for a great country. But I wouldn’t really leave the Netherlands for Denmark.

      • z00s@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        It’s a pretty subjective question really. If you mean greatest country for rich white guys then the US probably qualifies as the best for a reasonable chunk of its history.

        For everyone else, not so much.

  • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    Not American, but my views of America being “the good guy” completely crumbled when I read Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent.
    It made me put into perspective the amount of propaganda we’re being fed by mass media, just by reporting with carefully chosen words. It’s obviously not limited to America, because the same patterns are being used all around the world to justify imperialism, nationalism and ruthless capitalism.
    It also helped me realise how fucked up some of the things my government did (and is still doing to be fair) and we just gobble it up, because it’s insanely hard to get out of the bubbles we’ve created for ourselves.

  • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    I was a teenager during 9/11, and watching nearly every adult in my life go absolutely stark raving mad from both fear and blood lust was a real wake up call for me, I can tell you that much. If you aren’t old enough to remember it there’s nothing recent I can really compare it to. 9/11 and the Iraq War are what really got Fox News off the ground, so just imagine living in Fox News land, because it was absolutely tapping into some primal response a lot of people had.

    • psilotop@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      I had more or less the same experience. “Terrorists” were the villains in spy movies and they were NEVER in the USA. I thought we were invincible? Get a little older: oh look at the social services and infrastructure that other countries have for free.

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        … and how the us likes to bomb the shit of said infrastructure when it makes them money somehow.

    • zaphodb2002@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      I was a sophomore in high school, from a military (though pretty progressive) family. Both my grandfathers were sailors and my father went to West Point. I was in NJROTC and had every intention of going to Annapolis. I wanted to be an astronaut, so navy pilot seemed the path, and I would be making my family proud. I happened to be the one to put up the flag at school that morning. All of this is to say that I was very proud to be an American, and was looking forward to serving my country. The terror and confusion of that day hit me as hard as anyone else, but in the following weeks I was appalled to see how my fellow countrymen reacted. The way we reacted, with fear and hatred and overwhelming violence, both within and without, fundamentally changed how I saw my nation. I eventually dropped out of ROTC and started studying history and politics. I found punk music and took theater classes. I identified as social Democrat until the BLM riots of 2020, when I was radicalized. I now consider myself an anarchist.

    • oxomoxo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      I was in my early 20s and it definitely was a moment when I realized things weren’t what they seemed. I also fell for the narrative for a bit. Then a couple years later when it was revealed that the WMDs in Iraq were made up it started to all make sense. This country operates the highest, most advanced form of propaganda and corruption. It’s how it stays in power.

      I also believe this is what Israel is going through now. Leveraging primal blood lust to justify what being committed. No wonder the US is supportive.

  • papalonian@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Perspective from a mid-twenties American. I realized it was horseshit during the 2016 Trump election.

    I was turning 18 just in time to vote in this election, and it was right around then that I started forming my own ideas about politics and what political “side” I stood on. Like a majority people with a semi-functioning brain, I thought Trump was an actual joke, a meme that had no chance at actually winning, like how we were acting when Kanye ran. Unironically, I thought that having trainwrecks of a leader was something that “other countries” did, obviously America wouldn’t let someone like this win because even though we make little mistakes here and there like Iraq and slavery we’re still the good guys and we wouldn’t actually let a moron like Trump become our president.

    When it became obvious that he was more than a joke and an actual serious candidate with high potential to win, I realized that the only people consistently talking about how amazing America was at everything were the people voting for him, and I started dissecting the things I’d taken for granted.

    • daddyjones@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      You think slavery was a “little” mistake?

      As an aside, my autocorrect wanted slavery to be Disney and I was a little tempted to let it stand.

      • JimboDHimbo@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        Nah I don’t think they think slavery was little. They were just being “cheeky.” You can tell because of the big jump from Iraq to slavery. If they used immigration instead of Iraq I’d have a different opinion on their intention.

  • DragonConsort@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Not an American, but I realised it when I had to talk one of my online friends out of suicide because he almost worked himself to death (ten or more hour shifts six days a week for over a month) and couldn’t afford rent.

  • nfh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    Younger millennial here: I don’t remember a particular moment, but it was somewhere during the 2nd Bush administration. Between the horrible things that happened in Guantanamo Bay, the completely unjustified war on Iraq, and the harm I saw No Child Left Behind inflicting on my own community, the country’s flaws were very apparent to me.

    When an obvious charlatan got elected in 2016, that devastated my hope that things would improve.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    My answer to this is so complex I’m not sure I can put it into words. Grew up at the very height of cold war US #1 propaganda in a military community. I’m a veteran. So many moments where those sentiments rang a little hollow, even if they were enticing, but I really wasn’t aware enough to put it all together at any one moment.

    I’m in my 50s now, and over time enough of those myths of US exceptionalism were weakened as I learned more about US imperialism, and became more aware of how easy it is to find yourself choosing between food and medicine (or even getting neither) in the US, and could see how so much of our culture revolves around hiding our flaws from ourselves like avoiding seeing your own fat naked ass (or similar insecurity you have) in the mirror.

    I think we have the potential to live up to every single bit of propaganda. I think we’ve done a poor job executing on it. Individual people I meet every single day amaze me with how wonderful and generous they are. But huge groups of our people are pretty awful, and a much bigger group is still avoiding looking at their fat ass in the mirror when they come out of the shower. I’m not sure whether things will head up or down from here.

    I’ll close with this, which covers most of my bases I think: https://youtu.be/OO18F4aKGzQ

  • Lemminary@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    I’m not American, but I grew up there. I knew the US was a little off when I realized it was over-the-top religious which spilled over into politics. I had this idea that whatever country was the most progressive and secular would naturally gravitate towards good policies. I think my gut feeling was right. The best countries are indeed irreligious and don’t have entire communities that lose their minds over pop music that when played backward sounds like Satan speaking. That’s about when I discovered the liberal vs conservative dipole and how the Republicans try to dismantle everything good going for the country. Combo that with the low wages, the racism, the glass ceilings, over-policing, lack of public funding, lack of open public spaces*, and the injustice that I saw. I quickly realized the American dream was a mirage enjoyed by a select few and I left.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love the US as my second home and wish it the best. But to call it #1 is crazy talk.

    • Maybe it was the cities I was living in but I could not go out and spend $0 and sit at a plaza without being accused of loitering. I find that ridiculous for a first-world country.
  • Jakdracula@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    America is #1 in production of aircraft carriers. America is #1 in the number of incarcerated citizens per capita America is #1 in the number of adults who think angels are real America is #1 in defense spending

  • JimboDHimbo@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    When I was in basic training and during some down time one of the instructors put on a compilation of people deemed terrorists being killed in various ways. The majority of my fellow trainees were cheering and it weirded me the fuck out.

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    When they had us stand up in grade school and pledge allegiance to the flag. Nope, no thanks. If we’re that amazing we wouldn’t compel children to worship nationalist symbols.

    On the other hand we’re #1 at a lot of things, like medical bankruptcies, mass shootings and incarceration per capita. So, go us and our amazing country?

    • iheartneopets@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Same for me, stopped doing it in high school ~2011. Felt weird and culty to me, so I sat for it. My critical examination only continued from there, and I grew up in a very conservative/nationalistic household.

      So everyone should try not to worry about conservatives having all of the kids, lmao. Conservatives birth future leftists too ✌️

  • Signtist@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    For me it was when I was around 8 or 9 and met someone from Kenya. They could speak perfect English, wore normal clothes, and talked about having electricity. I’d literally never been told that those things existed in Africa - every reference to that continent only talked about tribes and jungles, save for Egypt which only talked about ruins and deserts. I asked around and found that most of the rest of the world has the same stuff we have, and most countries have a functioning government. I was so confused - why were we the country of freedom when everyone else has the same thing?

    At the time I just assumed that there was something I was missing, or maybe the rest of the world just caught up to our idea, but eventually I came to the conclusion that they tell us we’re the country of freedom - and keep our studies of other countries to a minimum when we’re young - so that we can internalize the rhetoric that our country is the best before we find out that most other countries about the same, and often better in certain ways.

      • Signtist@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        I realized that later, yeah. That’s not something that a kid would usually realize is bad on their own, though; if it’s something you and everyone you know has always done, most people wouldn’t think to question it.