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Certainly many countries have atrocious human rights violations that the US thankfully does not have. It's possible to acknowledge that but also acknowledge the reality that we aren't perfect.
And responding very generally to the OPs statement, wanting to see various improvements in US policy and culture in things that we do need to do a better job with doesn't deny that.
I think wanting to see the US do better at things that are our weaker points, and working constructively at it is much more patriotic than than saying we are the best at everything when in actuality we have room for improvement. Decline happens when we fail to see that there are things we can improve.
It sort of feels like a two for one type of argument. On one hand, the beauty og America is that she can turn her back on the flag and thr government cannot do anything about it.
She’s free to express her grievances.
But Im sure some people in this country(and in this forum in particular, would wanna see her head on a pike, and would be cool with punishing “unpatriotic” folks).
"beauty of America"... How beautiful is it really to do what she did?
I understand what you are saying - but she looks foolish and ignorant, because people around the world would love to be in her shoes. And it looks selfish... why is she competing for her country when her actions say she doesn't believe in it?
Decline is an endless riot whipped up by false narratives and there's no one adult enough to say 'that's enough'.
I'm not sure if you're replying to my post or not since I mentioned that decline was from not using opportunities to improve things, but that wasn't the point I was making or the context I was making it in as civil unrest is a sign something is off. And yes, any type of violence or destruction certainly has to be dealt with with appropriate consequences for the perpetrator.
But no, what I was talking about was simply recognizing when we see certain things happening here (i.e. declining life expectancy, higher violent crime, poverty, poor infrastructure, etc.) and taking a critical look at what we can do better, both as individuals and society, learning from other examples of what works and what doesn't.
And, let's be honest, sometimes that means acknowledging that other countries are doing better than us at certain things though we can certainly acknowledge to do better than other countries at other things. It's better to be realistic and actually work to be better than either being full of wishful thinking when reality doesn't support it or dystopian when reality doesn't support that either.
That's certainly a good practice for individuals, businesses, communities, and the country. It's recognizing that if we're going to claim to be so wonderful we need to actually back that up with actions and not just slogans.
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