Quote:The thing is, it's a liberal tenant that America is not great.  I would venture to say that now, not so much, but once we were.  Let's take a look at some of the achievements that have come out of this country.  These are just off the top of my head.

 

First off is the founding of this country.  Many people sacrificed and died in order for this country to be created (one of the reasons that we observed our recent holiday), defeating a far superior British military.

 

Next, we came up with a system of law.  This has been followed for many years, and because of it, we developed into something great.

 

The Civil War came about that not only corrected what was wrong here (civil rights abuses, "slavery"), but it also united the states.

 

During WWII we came up with nuclear technology that helped end the war (we won by the way).  We also defeated two major enemies in the process, and many lives were lost.  Also during that time many other things were developed and/or improved on.  Think cars, television, electricity and appliances.

 

During the Korean War we expelled a violent and brutal dictator out of South Korea and have since then ensured the safety of South Korea.  Look at where North Korea is now.

 

By the end of that era, we developed jet engines and rocket engines and put a man on the moon.

 

It was shortly after this period of time when electronics and computer technology took off.  The C programming language was invented and developed (which is still in use today) as well as the UNIX computer operating system (again still in use today and runs much of the internet).

 

In the next period of time, the Cold War was ended due to us as a nation under the leadership of Ronald Reagan.  Also during that period the first home computer was born and being developed (the Apple).  It was also during that period of time that the internet was being developed.

 

I could go on and I probably missed a few things such as the development of electricity, the phone, etc.  However, I hope that you get the idea that America, and specifically The United States of America is great.  It's because of accomplishments made by people here long before you and I.

 

So if you don't like the "drilling" of patriotism into your meager brain, how about thinking about what the people did when they defeated the British Army back during our country's founding?

I don't think it's a liberal tenant at all that the country isn't great.  I think this is a great country.  But I also think we need to improve, and we certainly can't look past our past atrocities.

 

My wife did her master's thesis on how ignoring the worst parts of history in favor of the good ones leads to future problems.  We can't just ignore the fact that slavery was a major problem in this country.  We can't just ignore history.  And we absolutely shouldn't.  How blacks were treated during slavery, as well as the years after up until the Civil Rights Act, and even beyond that.  That's an important part of our history too.  So is FDR's Executive Order for Japanese Internment as well as his plan to pack the supreme court.  These aren't things we should ignore because America is great.  


Imagine if Germany refused to teach about the Holocaust.  Many countries have used historical revisionism in order to make themselves look better, and thus fail to learn from their mistakes.  "Those who fail to learn from History are doomed to repeat it" - George Santayana.  We shouldn't sweep our treatment of Native Americans under the rug to say "Well yeah, but we also fought off the British, so they were great people who should be revered."  The fact is they were imperfect people.  That doesn't take away from the great things they did.  We shouldn't sweep slavery under the rug, or the treatment of blacks during the years after the Civil War.  We should look at their fight for their rights.  If we don't, we could very well eventually underestimate the importance of the rights that we have today.


 


 

---