"Sounds braggy, but I work for the National Park Service and it’s the best job I’ve ever had in my career. I don’t think I ever want to leave. Plus, paid trips to all the parks and getting to see things “off the beaten path” that normal visitors just can’t get to. I love it and I love our parks"
"We’ve got all the weather. You want hot and humid? We have it! You want frigid? We have it! You want all the weather within 24 hours? We definitely have it!
Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes (not weather, I know), lightning? We’ve got it all!"
"Drink refills at restaurants."
"You get ice! And you get ice! And you get ice!"
"Answering this as a serial expat that has spent at this point 25% of my life overseas and has lived in multiple countries.
Few places on Earth embrace the “go do what you want” mentality like America. You want to be a wiccan priestess that lives in a yurt in the Cascade mountains? You want to be a good ol boy rancher in Utah?
You want to live your dream of opening a cupcake store for pets? No matter what you do there is a community of people cheering you on in America and that is a very rare and very cool thing."
"The openness of everything, there are just stretches of roads where you can go hundreds of miles without seeing anything and its gre"
"Ubiquitous air conditioning."
"Cultural diversity. We have everyone. African, Middle-eastern, Latin American, European, Australian, Russian, Asian, etc. Looking at anyone from any culture, you wouldn’t be able to tell if they are American or not. I think we are one of the most diverse countries in the world, and it’s reflected in how much you can explore into other cultures all around us. Chinatown, authentic Mexican restaurants, etc."
"Also Costco"
"I have lived in lots of other countries, but I am from the US. I have a few things to point out.
The roads are generally nice. Smooth, without huge potholes. I am generally talking about the highways.
Cleanliness. I have been to places with mountains of trash 6 feet high. Another related thing is that the US has very few stray dogs, and that keeps things overall cleaner."
"Food. I will not take criticism on this, our food is simultaneously the worst food you can eat and the tastiest sh#t that will ever graze your lips. You ever had a burger from Red Robin? Homemade biscuits and gravy (even though it wasn’t invented in the US)? Chocolate chip cookies?? Buffalo wing??? FRIED CHICKEN!!"
"I 100% agree with you. The racism I experienced living in Japan was very normalized. Americans will point fingers at their co-citizens for things like xenophobia and racism, but I’ve been to countries where nobody holds anyone accountable for what is essentially socially accepted racism.
In Germany, I heard more open sh#t-talking about Turkish people from middle-aged white Germans than I have ever heard openly from Old white Americans.
The U.S. is so critical of itself, that other countries really only read our criticisms and form their opinions entirely based on that."
"We have the confidence to point out our shortcomings and make fun of our stupidity. That’s a sign of a great nation trying to form a more perfect union."
"Our toilets flush powerfully. Very underrated thing I’m sure many Americans take for granted.
I’ve been to a few countries in Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean and all their toilets flush with a whimper. America gets all the sh#t down the drain."
"The amount of job opportunities"
"How outwardly kind the people that live in the USA are. There are mean people no matter where you are in this world, but in America there are a lot more outwardly kind people than there are in many other countries."
"The entertainment. Movies, music, television, you name it: all top-notch in America. So much so that alot of other countries copy our pop culture instead of making their own.
Also, the inventions from here are something to be proud of. American innovation is fantastic."
"That the life I have here is good.
I worked quite a bit in Haiti. I remember there was a shanty town not far from the customer’s location. The people there begged for scrap tin and lumber to build a house that was about the size of my walk in closet in my first house in the US. People were hungry. I remember my driver telling me how people are dirt and there was even good dirt and cheap dirt to eat. Their water was from a community well that looked like a mud puddle a 3-year-old had been tap dancing in. There was f@#king garbage everywhere, gangs set up road blocks, and we were threatened, shaken down, and harassed by the police.
In the US, I am middle class, probably upper middle class. I have a nice house with bathrooms bigger than those huts they built. I can be at one of five grocery stores in a 10 minute drive and buy damn near anything I want. The police here are relatively honest and crime probably doesn’t make the top 20 things I worry about in a day. The water in my toilet is probably cleaner than what they drank.
Even the poor people in the US often live a much better lifestyle than the normal people in poor countries."
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Racism is a trait that we evolved with. We developed a natural distrust for anyone different from us, and with good reason. Anyone who was trusting was wiped out.
Human beings always have, and continue to try to spread out and conquer anyone who has a different color, religion, economic philosophy, etc. European colonialism was nothing new. Alexander did the same thing, and we call him "great." Persians, Mongolians, Germans, Christians, Muslims and so on.
Slavery is a natural part of that. Slavery has also always existed, and still does. Rome, Greece, Egypt, Gaul, Maya, Inca, China, Japan, EVERYWHERE. Still, only white Americans are the devil because black people.
Nobody looks at history, nobody looks at themselves, and nobody looks at countries other that the US. All anyone is ever taught today is that white people are bad, and all other racism is acceptable or somehow justified. (??)
Nonsense.
We have not evolved with racism. That is a separate issue.
We have however evolved with xenophobia. That was indeed for survival.
But so what? Does that mean we just give in to an obsolete bit of hardwiring we haven't needed for ages and was, and still is, the cause for many of our problems?
We have evolved with violence as well which was great in a hostile prehistoric time. But most of us manage to no start fighting at every perceived slight or irritation.
We have also evolved with a love of sugar and fat with was essential when finding these things was like winning the jackpot in a time when food was scarce.
Most of us understand we can't just give in to those urges.
And we have many more of these. Some useful, others as useless and even dangerous like the appendix.
The the key to overcoming these obsolete pieces of hardwire is to learn, understand, and develop self control.
A large part of being a racist is seeing yourself as a victim. And looking for others to blame. Recognize something there? "All everyone is taught today is that white people are bad"?
Maybe you should look at yourself. Racism is different than xenophobia. Racism is believing your race is better or other races are somehow worse than ALWAYS on the basis of nonsensical stereotypes and flimsy "scientific facts" with no basis in reality.
No one is even saying white people are bad. But this IS a time of change yes.
The only thing that's changing though is that we recognize not only white men should be in positions of power, or be the lead in movies. Pretty reasonable things like that.
All that is changing is that people start saying something at injustices that were normal not even a decade ago.
It seems you try to justify your outdated hardwired hate because things are different and white men like you are not the only ones in power.
Equality doesn't mean you lose something. At least nothing not worth losing.
Yours is an incredibly racist comment. Check your own biases first, dear.
Give me one logical argument why my comment is racist, sweetheart.
Sula thinks it's racist because your commit doesn't go with their line of thinking and so many today think if you don't agree with me you're racist.