What is the point of living in the US?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, you immigrated here. Do you often do "pointless" things?

I immigrated when I was 22 years old. It's not like I was thinking about real estate, kids, schools, etc. If I knew what I know now, I would never come here.

Right and many of us would leave for certain countries. No I wouldn’t leave here for Russia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Higher earning potential
Cheaper real estate
A lot of land and space
Access to latest and greatest healthcare treatments and technology
Great military protection
Variety in terrain and environment
Solid infrastructure
Less red tape than many other western countries
Government mostly leaving you alone

Nice that you recognize having a strong military is a big reason why Americans enjoys the level of freedom, options and opportunities they have. I’m also disgusted by how little Americans respect the people who serve in the military compared to other countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher earning potential
Cheaper real estate
A lot of land and space
Access to latest and greatest healthcare treatments and technology
Great military protection
Variety in terrain and environment
Solid infrastructure
Less red tape than many other western countries
Government mostly leaving you alone

Nice that you recognize having a strong military is a big reason why Americans enjoys the level of freedom, options and opportunities they have. I’m also disgusted by how little Americans respect the people who serve in the military compared to other countries.

The U.S. would be more civic-minded and united if it forced young people to do a year of military duty or public service right after graduating high school. Most other countries have this requirement and it instills a sense of common purpose and solidarity, plus respect for their public servants.

Frankly, I think a lot of elites would prefer Americans to be divided and NOT have that shared experience. It makes this country easier to control.

[Anonymous]

As a Black woman, I cannot wait to leave this country. There was a time I felt hopeful that the arc of the moral universe in the US would bend towards justice, but I no longer have that delusion. I have no faith in U.S. institutions, laws, values or my fellow Americans. Of course, no country is perfect, but I look forward to less open hostility towards my values and my person in a different country. I will certainly renounce my citizenship. I will have no need to return here. My family have been here since the 1700s, have fought in its wars, fought for civil rights for all, including the rights of women and LGBTQ citizens, but we have never been regarded as human, let alone American by most white Americans and most likely never will.

[Anonymous]

Where are you headed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher earning potential
Cheaper real estate
A lot of land and space
Access to latest and greatest healthcare treatments and technology
Great military protection
Variety in terrain and environment
Solid infrastructure
Less red tape than many other western countries
Government mostly leaving you alone

Nice that you recognize having a strong military is a big reason why Americans enjoys the level of freedom, options and opportunities they have. I’m also disgusted by how little Americans respect the people who serve in the military compared to other countries.

The U.S. would be more civic-minded and united if it forced young people to do a year of military duty or public service right after graduating high school. Most other countries have this requirement and it instills a sense of common purpose and solidarity, plus respect for their public servants.

Frankly, I think a lot of elites would prefer Americans to be divided and NOT have that shared experience. It makes this country easier to control.

I’ve always liked this idea. Americans sans integrity will find a way for their kids to get out of it, though. Dual nationals will flash their other passports, kids will suddenly develop disqualifying conditions, mega-rich will bribe away a la Varsity Blues, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "American Dream" is just a fantasy sold to others abroad and here. The US is really a backwards country

It’s not backwards, it’s just a big country full of flawed humans. But it has successfully branded itself as something exceptional. As there is no common ethnicity or land to tie it together, only the shared love of god and gold. That makes for a pretty shallow culture.

The US actually is/has been exceptional by virtually every important metric. Scientific and economic innovation, economic growth, human rights, international power, to name a few.

You can argue that we've regressed and/or that the rest of the world has caught up, but it's silly to ignore this country's importance and exceptionalism over the last 200 years.

Objectively speaking, the US is meaningfully different from Serbia or Ghana or Paraguay.

This. Most technological advances, new medications and inventions come from the US. In addition, almost every genre of modern music. We also have a robust film industry. There is our patent and legal system that has supported most of our achievements.

I am not convinced by American exceptionalism. So...a group of outsiders come to a physically vast and resource rich land and appropriates basically everything, uses free and low paid labour to take advantage of it and builds a powerful economy at a time when the critical mass of your domestic economy was all-important, builds up wealth that then supports a flourishing of the arts, sciences and learning. I mean, this has happened time and time again throughout history, right? Greece, Egypt, China, Rome, the UK. They all had their time. Even the tiny Netherlands was one of the most powerful countries in Europe back in the 1500s. Isn't the only difference that the US has happened in recent history? I'm not sure the US has regressed or whether the pattern that you see throughout history has just been repeated, ie none of these exceptional places stays exceptional forever.

You're posting like the Belgians stayed in the Belgian Congo, and didn't just exploit the natural resources.

I wasn’t posting a criticism. I was just saying, if you look at the big picture, there have been many ‘exceptional’ countries or civilisations throughout history which therefore means none of them was actually exceptional. That doesn’t make the US a better or a worse place to live in. But this myth of exceptionalism seems to really blinker some people to other viewpoints.

I agree the USA is far from the only country, either now or historically, that has looked at itself as exceptional and that such thinking may invite people to turn a blind eye to its flaws.

Having said that, one of the aspects in which it is unusual, if not exceptional, is the extent to which people feel free to emphasize its flaws and criticize its leaders - and believe with some reason that doing so likely enhances, rather than detracts from, their standing in the country.

Do you think so? People in most modern democracies freely criticise their leaders.

Not to the extent as we do in the US.

I guess you've never been to France, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a Black woman, I cannot wait to leave this country. There was a time I felt hopeful that the arc of the moral universe in the US would bend towards justice, but I no longer have that delusion. I have no faith in U.S. institutions, laws, values or my fellow Americans. Of course, no country is perfect, but I look forward to less open hostility towards my values and my person in a different country. I will certainly renounce my citizenship. I will have no need to return here. My family have been here since the 1700s, have fought in its wars, fought for civil rights for all, including the rights of women and LGBTQ citizens, but we have never been regarded as human, let alone American by most white Americans and most likely never will.

Have you ever lived abroad? Even renouncing your citizenship, people will hate you because of your country of birth and then because of your race. African countries are among the hardest on black Americans returning to their country. B

[Anonymous]

The US is a very large geographically and diverse (culturally and geographically) country. You don’t have to leave the US altogether to get a different flavor. Probably the biggest constant is the need for health insurance. You’re never going to get public healthcare here. But you should have known that already at 22.

What affordable cities outside of the US has consistently excellent schools and universities, high incomes, low taxes, free healthcare, no crime, big cheap houses, no traffic, and walkable to lots of great restaurants and cute little coffee shops? Please enlighten us because it sounds amazing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a Black woman, I cannot wait to leave this country. There was a time I felt hopeful that the arc of the moral universe in the US would bend towards justice, but I no longer have that delusion. I have no faith in U.S. institutions, laws, values or my fellow Americans. Of course, no country is perfect, but I look forward to less open hostility towards my values and my person in a different country. I will certainly renounce my citizenship. I will have no need to return here. My family have been here since the 1700s, have fought in its wars, fought for civil rights for all, including the rights of women and LGBTQ citizens, but we have never been regarded as human, let alone American by most white Americans and most likely never will.

I'm starting to feel the same way. I'm a white lesbian. Most of my family has been in the US or on the continent since the 1600s. The fact that our democracy has been revealed to be a sham in the last few years (Trump, Jan 6, etc) really disappoints me. I feel like a naive fool. I'm not likely to leave the country, but I don't feel the same way I did about it before 2016.

[Anonymous]

It’s easier for me because my home country is very unstable. I was actually thinking about going back after receiving my US citizenship but then boom it took a 180 degree turn after developing rapidly and steadily for almost 3 decades.
So it’s great to be a citizen of a stable, predictable country.
I also liked how the US handled covid. Even CA didn’t go completely crazy Australia style locking people down. Florida was business as usual all along. I have started to value the federalist nature of the country and the fact that everyone can find a place to their liking instead of having to obey federal policies.
I am planning to move somewhere cheaper when I retire though. Not sure if my country will come around by then but there are some similar ones around it so there is choice. But I will always have a mailing address and a bank account here!

[Anonymous]

As to what makes the US less great… I think it’s being overwhelmed with low quality human capital, and the erosion of Protestant work ethic.
Generational poverty, low quality illegal or semi legal immigration, immigration from cultures that value success but don’t value honesty and playing by the rules, also mental health crisis where mentally ill people are allowed to literally run the streets being a public nuisance at best and danger to others at worst… all this is overwhelming America and of course standards of living are diminishing.

[Anonymous]

I am an immigration and have been here for almost 14 years. Everyday I get more disappointed with the atphosphere here, hypeinflation, housing with high property tax, schools and career opporutnities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigrant, so the question is highly relevant to me. The real estate is so expensive that it entirely negates the point of earning high salaries. Schools are garbage, crime is rampant, nothing is walkable... once upon a time at least you could get a huge house to compensate for that. Not any more. I am now embarrassed to show tiny old houses with low ceilings and vinyl siding that go for million+.

Leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an immigration and have been here for almost 14 years. Everyday I get more disappointed with the atphosphere here, hypeinflation, housing with high property tax, schools and career opporutnities.

Leave.