As children raised in the United States of America, we were expected every morning to recite the pledge of allegiance to our country. In grade school, we were taught that our first president,...
Link to the article it's responding to: https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-american-58299798
All these people trying to retroactively rescue the conceptions of America as progressive from the 19th century all ignore the fact that what made America actually exceptional was not democracy, plenty of societies around the world had as much or more, it was free land. The USA and Canada were the one place you could go from being a serf or tenant farmer to actually owning land* and become something like an aristocrat. That is GONE, and the replacement for it, a suburban lifestyle and the job to support it*, is also GONE. America is not fucking good or special or more progressive today even on its own terms. As a trans person I can say that the only way it is more 'progressive' for us is in it's sheer incompetence of construction and inefficiency that lets some of us slip through the cracks of oppression that you see in other countries. America is a fucking shithole, that were it not for the giant pile of imperial lucre that it accidneted its way into after the second world war, would be a complete poverty riven basket case; not just a partially poverty riven basket case.
Racial and ethnic restrictions may apply, actual freedom and rights sold separately. Please see small print for further conditions, no refunds.*
All these people trying to retroactively rescue the conceptions of America as progressive from the 19th century all ignore the fact that what made America actually exceptional was not democracy, plenty of societies around the world had as much or more, it was free land. The USA and Canada were the one place you could go from being a serf or tenant farmer to actually owning land* and become something like an aristocrat. That is GONE, and the replacement for it, a suburban lifestyle and the job to support it*, is also GONE. America is not fucking good or special or more progressive today even on its own terms. As a trans person I can say that the only way it is more 'progressive' for us is in it's sheer incompetence of construction and inefficiency that lets some of us slip through the cracks of oppression that you see in other countries. America is a fucking shithole, that were it not for the giant pile of imperial lucre that it accidneted its way into after the second world war, would be a complete poverty riven basket case; not just a partially poverty riven basket case.
Racial and ethnic restrictions may apply, actual freedom and rights sold separately. Please see small print for further conditions, no refunds.*