Ask Lemmy

"All men are created equal"

IS SLAVE STATE

Always has been

Welcome to the club. People from other countries have these thoughts for some time already.

Any day you're able to rise above the cult of nationalism is a good day.

No, you shouldn’t, because nearly half the country voted against Trump. It wasn’t enough, but it certainly indicates a significant portion of the country opposes him and the ideologies behind him. What we, as Americans, should be ashamed of is our pathetic educational system, which is at the root of this problem.

Both Republicans and Democrats are at the core of this problem. Republicans don’t want any public education at all and Democrats have polluted public education with Far Left propaganda that has fueled conservative rage and helped Far Right people divide the nation. Race and gender issues have eclipsed class issues, which are the real problems of the nation. As much as LGBT and racial groups deserve their particular rights, the real divisions at the heart of America are between the middle- and working-classes and the ultra-rich. Corporations are the prime devil that need to be taken down, not White men. Plenty of White men are suffering at the hands of corporations and they need to be woken up. The most recent election has shown that non-Whites are just as susceptible to Trump’s charms as anyone else. We need to stop focusing on superficial divisors such as race and gender and start focusing on class divisors much more.

I am from Canada, and while the flag could go either way for me, mounties, even in their blood-red uniforms do turn my stomach. (Paintings by Kent Monkman, showcasing the "Sixties Scoop"

Our past further back has not been much help.

In addition to the physical appropriation of land was the colonial effort to eliminate the transmission of cultural identity, traditional skills, and connection to the land. Beginning in 1883 (while this was the date of the first federally established church school, similar institutions existed as early as the 1830s, years before Canadian federation) Indian Residential Schools (IRSs) were established in Canada (as were American Indian Boarding Schools in 1862). Children were forcibly removed from their families and were institutionalized in IRSs with the explicit goal of ‘taking the Indian out of the child’. These mandated church-run IRSs endeavoured to save the souls of the ‘savages’ by immersing them in Euro–Christian beliefs and eradicating access to traditional socialization values, language, practices and ways of life. By the 1930s, roughly 75% of First Nations children attended IRSs, as did many Métis and Inuit children. The last of the IRSs was closed in 1996, but by then several generations of children had experienced the mistreatment that abounded in these institutions.

Then to really prove we could be as evil as everyone thinks we're polite, we added this gem to our crown.

"It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards a final solution of our Indian Problem." -Duncan Campbell Scott to BC Indian Agent Gen. Major D. MacKay.

And there are those who say it is in the past, and everyone is crying over things from long ago, yet 1996 is not so long ago for Residential Schools, and our police deny any ongoing wrong-doings. I for one do not feel patriotism for our past, though I have some small hope for our future.

Yes and no.

You can can display an American flag and not be a facist. Facists can’t co-opt the US flag.

The flags that look similar to the American flag, but have a blue line or are black/grey are the ones that cringe me up. Those are actual false flags and are anti-patriotic. Right up there with the “rebel” flag.

Maybe get a tiny little flag and put it in your garden.

I'm with you. I'm on vacation in a foreign country. There was a performance and part of it was asking the crowd where they were from. I felt no enthusiasm when the performer asked the crowd to cheer if they were from the USA. It felt shameful.

I've always felt pride in the ideals of my nation, and shame from its actions.

But at least I still hold onto the ideals. It's not nothing.

The flag doesn't bother me but the pledge to it does. The traitor flags (Confederate battle flag and one bearing a president's name) do.

I'd say the only reason you didn't feel that before was ignorance, the American flag is NOT a thing of good. It has been fucked up from the very beginning. And to us who are not Americans, it's very obvious how much your country absolutely forces brainwashing of all citizens from the second they're born. American patriotism and love for the flag etc. is in the same way that for example a priest shows how much they're against homosexuality and other sins like it then they're found with child-p (I don't want to fully write it) and stuff like that. It's the school bully that screams about how cool and strong they are, when they're exactly the opposite.

I would advise you not to hate people you don’t know just because they fly a flag but your feelings are valid. Nationalism is a toxic ideology founded in violence and oppression at its very core.

As a Canadian, my favourite thing about the American flag is there isn't a lot of room for a 51st star on there. It would break the symmetry.

As to our maple leaf, I've had mixed feelings about it. As a kid, I thought it was cute and friendly as national flags go. Then later, watching assholes in Dodge Rams with the flag whipping around next to their Fuck Trudeau stickers during that aggravatingly endless trucker rally left me less enthused. But now with Trump threatening annexation, I've rediscovered its beauty!

Look for the helpers

What you're feeling is rationality. Nationalism is an extension of basic primal instinct humans have developed to protect their tribe, but it is only detrimental to modern life.

I dont think these meets my standards for ask lemmy. Just throwing that out there.

You aren't unjustified in this. Politics has become a complex web, and it's difficult to grasp a singular feeling for the nation they pertain to, such as pride, especially when you politicize something like the flag. Even if your stance is on the other side of the spectrum, this is on America.

It also stands for showing sign of dementia these days.