Trump wants 'Patriotic Education'.

Secondhand Revenant

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If the most common state of humanity is "worse than trash" then I would still consider "trash" an improvement. A recovering alcoholic can and should be proud of themselves for going 6 months without a drink but just because you can feel pride in such a thing does not mean you dismiss that there is more work to be done.
Do you see anyone objecting to the phrase "America is improved over past centuries and its own past"? Because there's a wide gulf between a recovering alcoholic being called better than before and being called great
 

Revnak

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Ewww.... written as if you want to rape kids. Stop it.
Correction, a white girl crying. You’re one of the naive ones I guess.
Edit: you may note, my original post said “woman” for a reason.
 

Silvanus

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You sound like a Trump voter!
I think hollowing out the US manufacturing base to take advantage of quasi slave labor in China is a bad thing. Trump's against it. Defend our borders and sex trafficking will take a hit. Etc.
Trump isn't acting in any meaningful way against overseas slave-labour; he's slapping tariffs on imports in a kind of chauvinistic protectionism. And the "defending the border" stuff, when it's combined with refusing migrants citizenship and thus forcing victims of trafficking underground, only empowers the smugglers and denies their victims the support they need.

Trump doesn't give a shit about the human cost, and has not acted to ameliorate it.

If the most common state of humanity is "worse than trash" then I would still consider "trash" an improvement.
The examples Gorfias gave are not "the most common state of humanity". He cited a few of history's worst despots in order to make the comparison.

In terms of.... involvement in overseas conflicts, income inequality, nuclear proliferation, the US is not above the "common state of humanity". It's setting records, but not in the right direction.
 

lil devils x

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Trump isn't acting in any meaningful way against overseas slave-labour; he's slapping tariffs on imports in a kind of chauvinistic protectionism. And the "defending the border" stuff, when it's combined with refusing migrants citizenship and thus forcing victims of trafficking underground, only empowers the smugglers and denies their victims the support they need.

Trump doesn't give a shit about the human cost, and has not acted to ameliorate it.



The examples Gorfias gave are not "the most common state of humanity". He cited a few of history's worst despots in order to make the comparison.

In terms of.... involvement in overseas conflicts, income inequality, nuclear proliferation, the US is not above the "common state of humanity". It's setting records, but not in the right direction.
Yea Trump and caring about slave labor should never be said in the same paragraph.
 

Specter Von Baren

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The examples Gorfias gave are not "the most common state of humanity". He cited a few of history's worst despots in order to make the comparison.

In terms of.... involvement in overseas conflicts, income inequality, nuclear proliferation, the US is not above the "common state of humanity". It's setting records, but not in the right direction.
My comment is in regards to humanity throughout history.
 

ObsidianJones

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I like some of what you write, particularly that the freedom to move creates the danger that those left behind get to form an echo chamber of hate.

It is extremely hard to fire a unionized government employee. But it is a racket. Bad teachers are shuffled around rather than let go. Federalizing education will only make this more difficult.

I agree that educating our young about the nation's sins is vital to understanding who we are and where we came from and how to avoid mistakes of the past.

But you also write America was never great.

This suggests to me that you need much more saturation education in why others would state that is not the case.
I recently saw the musical "Hamilton" and was amazed. I am ashamed to admit all I knew of him was that he was killed in a duel. And that was... dooohhh... because of the Star Trek episode "Squire of Gothos". Much of the show amazed me due to it reminding me of things I knew. That our Founding Fathers were pretty sharp people. That they created a radical state where one could legally say what they wanted. Even against the state. That is radical. I promise you, there are many who do not want people to have these rights anymore. Their project was far from a certainty. Until the War of 1812, England acted like the US hadn't even won.... The English just didn't feel like continuing to fight for a while. We were that out matched. Dang. Now I gotta look up more on 1812 because the US wouldn't be a global power for another 100 years so I'm not sure how we got out of that one.
Global history is full of incredible savagery. But in the USA we have a lot of exceptional stuff we dare not lose. And we didn't get here from nowhere. And that's something I think is lacking in our current educational environment. I just really hope I can acquire that cat that barks because it may take some Federal elbow grease to make it happen.
Do you know what makes a burger great?

A nice fresh bun. Fresh and ripe tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce. Not to sweet but not too tart ketchup. Spicy Brown Mustard. A touch of mayo. A perfectly seasoned (I prefer garlic and onion powder, a touch of salt, black peppercorn pepper, white pepper, with a splash of Worcestershire sauce.) and thick patty, medium rare.

That's a great burger to me.

If someone attempted that burger, and gave me mold bread but had everything else, that's not a great burger.

If they gave me all the other fixings but gave me rotted meat, that is not a great burger.

The only thing that can make it great is all the elements that I consider a great burger to be. I have no need to make compromises. Nor do I expect anyone else to do the same.

America is a country. It is a country I am used to. It's the same country that lies and criminalizes my people to the fact that if I don't hold myself in just such a way, I can be throw in jail for resisting arrest without doing anything wrong, and some people on these forums would gleefully look into my past to see if I did anything wrong to warrant how much of a danger I was and it was a good arrest.

It is a country where the President can be recorded that this virus that has crippled the world is very dangerous and more lethal than anything we're letting on, admit that he has constantly downplayed how lethal it is, and STILL HAVE PEOPLE BACK HIM AND PARROT HIS LIES.

Where police brutality is met with anything other than righteous indignation.

Where the ripping apart of families and sticking kids into cages isn't met with universal feelings of betrayal to a Country's reported principles of family above all... just because we can label the families 'alien' or 'illegals' .

A country that still dictates what rights a woman has over her own body.

A country that reports religious freedom but then will place restrictions on the wrong religion because we labeled it a religion of hate.

A country that will allow their poorest citizens to have water tainted with frack run off or rusted iron from corroded pipes.

A country that will give most of its federal money to the already richest schools.

A country that will allow citizens to go into Reservation land... rape women, destroy property, and terrorize the rightful owners of this land... just to have them giggle to themselves while they cross into American soil so they can free of charges.

Gorfias, I literally don't have enough time or human memory to list all the things this country has done to even its citizens. We're not talking about foreign policy. We're not even touching about the past. Even just right now and with people in our own borders, I am jam packed with examples of what not great this this country does on the regular.

There's beauty here. To be certain. But that doesn't erase the bad it does. The best it can do it bring it near to neutral. But it even fails to do that.

You like this country, Gorfias. It might have been good to you. And believe it or not, I am actually glad if it was. I do want people to thrive. But this country picks and chooses who gets to thrive. And those who thrive are usually ok with excluding others who do not have their pedigree. There's nothing great about that. An imbalance system can only be great to those who benefit from it.

I judge a country by not how it gleams on a pedestal, but by the way it treats those who didn't make it to the gleaming pedestal. Those who suffered through bad luck, mania, or by design. And this country's image is tarnished by such a reflection. Look at the minority, the female, the LGBTQ+ members of this forum, have them tell you how they've experienced life in this nation, and then see if you have to over look their experience to still say America's a great country.

Nothing can be great and allow such suffering if it is in its power to change it.
 

Terminal Blue

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My comment is in regards to humanity throughout history.
Let's take this at face value.

So what?

Human history is not very nice. Congratulations, you have reached the starting point the rest of us reached a long time ago. It is only a small group of white conservative men who have ever been able to imagine that history was a nice place. The rest of us can't buy into this delusion of an imaginary glorious past, because it wasn't glorious for people like us.

That is actually what is at stake here. The right needs its imaginary golden age in the past, it needs its glorious heroes and noble history which everyone can unite behind. It's why they need "patriotic history" because they need to believe that the past is something worth returning to or celebrating. It's not enough to have survived it, they have to deny that it was ever cruel, or ever atrocious.

This is not about the miserable technicalities of whether the US's history is slightly less shit than some other country noone cares about. That shouldn't be good enough for anyone with any integrity to be "proud" of, or unite behind.
 
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Hawki

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It is only a small group of white conservative men who have ever been able to imagine that history was a nice place.
If you think that only "white conservative men" think that, you haven't been paying attention. If anything, a number of 'utopia theorists' are as counterpoint to that group. But even counterpoints aside, aspiring to a golden bygone age is common globally, and even in subsets within nations.
 

Asita

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My mom used to tell me that Nazi Germany became what it did due to an excess of patriotism. I counter that France fell to the Nazis because there was not enough of a sense of patriotism.
...And? I fail to see the relevance of that exchange to anything I said. Moreover, that characterization strongly suggests that you're drawing largely from stereotype, and would greatly benefit from doing some more reading on the Battle of France. While there's a lot that went wrong (such as leaving the Ardennes basically undefended under the presumption that they were impassible), let's not conflate France being flanked, losing 87,000 soldiers (plus 12,000 MIA, 120,000 wounded and a whopping 1,540,000 captured), 1,274 planes, and 1,749 tanks with them not loving their country.



There are great things about Western traditions. Can we improve? Sure. Should we remind ourselves of the sins of the past? Absolutely. But teach kids to be ashamed of things like the enlightenment, valuing human rights, which some say exist only because Jews are trying to pull one over on you? That the US flag is "upsetting" to some people? I think we need to fight this sort of thing. Or get ready to be thrown in an oven.
Nobody is disputing that there are traditions that are worth preserving for the value people find in them. Nobody is saying that people should be taught to feel shame of their history. Hell, if you look back at my post you'll note that I indirectly addressed that. "If 'was <nation> great?' is a question you hope to answer in studying history, you are perverting the purpose of the discipline". That cuts both ways. History should not be tied to your pride, period. It naturally follows that the converse also holds true; your sense of shame should not be tied to your understanding of history. There's damn good reason for this, and - forgive my saying - you've kinda stumbled into it with this response.

Pride (and its negative counterpart of shame) is a dangerous emotion when it comes to learning. Moreso than probably any other emotion, it prejudices you and warps how you process information, if not closing your mind to it entirely. This is especially true when 'tribes' are involved, such as religions, families, teams, cliques, subcultures, and - yes - nations, to name but a few examples. When the learner's pride becomes a factor for history, all of a sudden it's not about learning what happened, but interpreting events so that their tribe is in the right. It becomes less about learning about the Hundred Days and more about proving the Bonapartists or Royalists as traitors to the crown. All of a sudden an explanation that "history should not be perverted into a tool to encourage national pride" gets read as "Western traditions should be dissolved and we should teach kids to be ashamed of things like enlightenment and valuing human rights".

What should have been a pursuit of knowledge that would help us echo the triumphs and avoid the follies of those who came before us gets warped as we end up rewriting the story to present our favored heroes in the best light and our favored villains in the worst. And the insidious thing is that it's often not even conscious. In emotionally investing ourselves in an outcome that suits our pride, we prejudice ourselves and start interpreting information in ways that fit that prejudice. And when pride is the goal, that goes a step further and codifies that prejudice, flat out encouraging that the events be warped to be more Pro-<tribe>.
 
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Mister Mumbler

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My mom used to tell me that Nazi Germany became what it did due to an excess of patriotism. I counter that France fell to the Nazis because there was not enough of a sense of patriotism.
Ummm...France didn't fall because of a lack of patriotism, they fell because they had prepared for another Great War while the Germans were preparing to do a Desert Storm, or are we operating on the "French are cowards" meme?
 

Secondhand Revenant

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Ummm...France didn't fall because of a lack of patriotism, they fell because they had prepared for another Great War while the Germans were preparing to do a Desert Storm, or are we operating on the "French are cowards" meme?
Yeh, it's not comparable things tbh. Like your sense of patriotism as a determinant of your government and what you think is a good thing is reasonable. Your patriotism as a determinant of how you planned for a war is uh???
 

Trunkage

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Ummm...France didn't fall because of a lack of patriotism, they fell because they had prepared for another Great War while the Germans were preparing to do a Desert Storm, or are we operating on the "French are cowards" meme?
I mean, the US lost the Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria wars over the last couple of decades. They definitely only lost it because the US soldiers weren't patriotic enough. It definitely wasn't because the US is terrible at handling insurgencies.
 

Specter Von Baren

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One can argue that WWII could have been a lot less bad had the bullet been bitten earlier and a lack of "patriotism" or will to fight ended up leading to an even worse situation. (Honestly this was just the first excuse I've had to post this gif because I find it funny)
 
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gorfias

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...And? I fail to see the relevance of that exchange to anything I said. Moreover, that characterization strongly suggests that you're drawing largely from stereotype, and would greatly benefit from doing some more reading on the Battle of France. While there's a lot that went wrong (such as leaving the Ardennes basically undefended under the presumption that they were impassible), let's not conflate France being flanked, losing 87,000 soldiers (plus 12,000 MIA, 120,000 wounded and a whopping 1,540,000 captured), 1,274 planes, and 1,749 tanks with them not loving their country.





Nobody is disputing that there are traditions that are worth preserving for the value people find in them. Nobody is saying that people should be taught to feel shame of their history. Hell, if you look back at my post you'll note that I indirectly addressed that. "If 'was <nation> great?' is a question you hope to answer in studying history, you are perverting the purpose of the discipline". That cuts both ways. History should not be tied to your pride, period. It naturally follows that the converse also holds true; your sense of shame should not be tied to your understanding of history. There's damn good reason for this, and - forgive my saying - you've kinda stumbled into it with this response.

Pride (and its negative counterpart of shame) is a dangerous emotion when it comes to learning. Moreso than probably any other emotion, it prejudices you and warps how you process information, if not closing your mind to it entirely. This is especially true when 'tribes' are involved, such as religions, families, teams, cliques, subcultures, and - yes - nations, to name but a few examples. When the learner's pride becomes a factor for history, all of a sudden it's not about learning what happened, but interpreting events so that their tribe is in the right. It becomes less about learning about the Hundred Days and more about proving the Bonapartists or Royalists as traitors to the crown. All of a sudden an explanation that "history should not be perverted into a tool to encourage national pride" gets read as "Western traditions should be dissolved and we should teach kids to be ashamed of things like enlightenment and valuing human rights".

What should have been a pursuit of knowledge that would help us echo the triumphs and avoid the follies of those who came before us gets warped as we end up rewriting the story to present our favored heroes in the best light and our favored villains in the worst. And the insidious thing is that it's often not even conscious. In emotionally investing ourselves in an outcome that suits our pride, we prejudice ourselves and start interpreting information in ways that fit that prejudice. And when pride is the goal, that goes a step further and codifies that prejudice, flat out encouraging that the events be warped to be more Pro-<tribe>.
I can acknowledge that there is a difference between pride in positive aspects of one's nation and a mindless jingoism and tribalism that, as we discussed, was part of how Nazi Germany became what it was. But thank you, lot of good food for thought in your post.

Do you know what makes a burger great?

A nice fresh bun. Fresh and ripe tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce. Not to sweet but not too tart ketchup. Spicy Brown Mustard. A touch of mayo. A perfectly seasoned (I prefer garlic and onion powder, a touch of salt, black peppercorn pepper, white pepper, with a splash of Worcestershire sauce.) and thick patty, medium rare.

That's a great burger to me.

If someone attempted that burger, and gave me mold bread but had everything else, that's not a great burger.

If they gave me all the other fixings but gave me rotted meat, that is not a great burger.

The only thing that can make it great is all the elements that I consider a great burger to be. I have no need to make compromises. Nor do I expect anyone else to do the same.

America is a country. It is a country I am used to. It's the same country that lies and criminalizes my people to the fact that if I don't hold myself in just such a way, I can be throw in jail for resisting arrest without doing anything wrong, and some people on these forums would gleefully look into my past to see if I did anything wrong to warrant how much of a danger I was and it was a good arrest.

It is a country where the President can be recorded that this virus that has crippled the world is very dangerous and more lethal than anything we're letting on, admit that he has constantly downplayed how lethal it is, and STILL HAVE PEOPLE BACK HIM AND PARROT HIS LIES.

Where police brutality is met with anything other than righteous indignation.

Where the ripping apart of families and sticking kids into cages isn't met with universal feelings of betrayal to a Country's reported principles of family above all... just because we can label the families 'alien' or 'illegals' .

A country that still dictates what rights a woman has over her own body.

A country that reports religious freedom but then will place restrictions on the wrong religion because we labeled it a religion of hate.

A country that will allow their poorest citizens to have water tainted with frack run off or rusted iron from corroded pipes.

A country that will give most of its federal money to the already richest schools.

A country that will allow citizens to go into Reservation land... rape women, destroy property, and terrorize the rightful owners of this land... just to have them giggle to themselves while they cross into American soil so they can free of charges.

Gorfias, I literally don't have enough time or human memory to list all the things this country has done to even its citizens. We're not talking about foreign policy. We're not even touching about the past. Even just right now and with people in our own borders, I am jam packed with examples of what not great this this country does on the regular.

There's beauty here. To be certain. But that doesn't erase the bad it does. The best it can do it bring it near to neutral. But it even fails to do that.

You like this country, Gorfias. It might have been good to you. And believe it or not, I am actually glad if it was. I do want people to thrive. But this country picks and chooses who gets to thrive. And those who thrive are usually ok with excluding others who do not have their pedigree. There's nothing great about that. An imbalance system can only be great to those who benefit from it.

I judge a country by not how it gleams on a pedestal, but by the way it treats those who didn't make it to the gleaming pedestal. Those who suffered through bad luck, mania, or by design. And this country's image is tarnished by such a reflection. Look at the minority, the female, the LGBTQ+ members of this forum, have them tell you how they've experienced life in this nation, and then see if you have to over look their experience to still say America's a great country.

Nothing can be great and allow such suffering if it is in its power to change it.
Chris Rock once spoke of the experience and feelings of those of his background saying that he has become fabulously wealthy and able to freely criticize the government he is in and that is very good, but is like that uncle that put you through college... but did molest you as a kid. As a Jew, my social history in the US is mixed and I do think the ADOS experience very unique. Knowing that the ideals and practices of this nation made his wealth and liberty possible to me is relevant. That Oprah Winfrey isn't just among the most powerful women around or the most powerful black people around... she, without anyone's permission, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world (I'd never heard of Barack Obama until she endorsed him and I credit his Presidency on her: without her I think HRC would have been the 2008 nominee).
It may be flip to write, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". I do not mean to be so. But that "bathwater" has created an environment in which people have liberty and opportunities undreamt of in the vast majority of the world throughout history. And it is great.
What is great should be acknowledged and preserved.
 
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Revnak

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One can argue that WWII could have been a lot less bad had the bullet been bitten earlier and a lack of "patriotism" or will to fight ended up leading to an even worse situation. (Honestly this was just the first excuse I've had to post this gif because I find it funny)
Eeeeehhhh, questionable. The German war machine was probably ready to beat the French for some time. A longer period of the British Empire vs the Axis period may have allowed for an invasion of Britain to become more feasible, and the Germans always would’ve been able to sweep through Western Poland. The extra time before the start of the war was probably most beneficial to the USSR, not the Nazis.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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I can acknowledge that there is a difference between pride in positive aspects of one's nation and a mindless jingoism and tribalism that, as we discussed, was part of how Nazi Germany became what it was. But thank you, lot of good food for thought in your post.


Chris Rock once spoke of the experience and feelings of those of his background saying that he has become fabulously wealthy and able to freely criticize the government he is in and that is very good, but is like that uncle that put you through college... but did molest you as a kid. As a Jew, my social history in the US is mixed and I do think the ADOS experience very unique. Knowing that the ideals and practices of this nation made his wealth and liberty possible to me is relevant. That Oprah Winfrey isn't just among the most powerful women around or the most powerful black people around... she, without anyone's permission, is one of the most powerful individuals in the world (I'd never heard of Barack Obama until she endorsed him and I credit his Presidency on her: without her I think HRC would have been the 2008 nominee).
It may be flip to write, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". I do not mean to be so. But that "bathwater" has created an environment in which people have liberty and opportunities undreamt of in the vast majority of the world throughout history. And it is great.
What is great should be acknowledged and preserved.
Some people, sometimes, if they don't criticize too hard. Some people also win the lottery. That some people excel in spite of their environment doesn't mean their environment is great.
 

Hawki

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Nobody is saying that people should be taught to feel shame of their history.
Um, that's fairly common in various discourses. It might not be taught per se, but I've encountered no shortage of such claims.

Of course, the flipside is taking pride in history. From an intellectual point of view, it's silly (being 'proud of your country' for instance - congratulations, you were born in one of over 200 nation-states, have a cookie), but, well, we're only human.

"Western traditions should be dissolved and we should teach kids to be ashamed of things like enlightenment and valuing human rights".
The Enlightenment was a racist endeavour, and human rights are a tool of racism/white supremacy/Western hemogeny.

I know it's true because people have said it's true.

Again, whether people agree with the arguments or not aside, the arguments are definitely out there.
 

gorfias

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Some people, sometimes, if they don't criticize too hard. Some people also win the lottery. That some people excel in spite of their environment doesn't mean their environment is great.
Too true. But the amount of people that do great in the USA does not seem an accident. I actually have known many of the types of people that make up the idea behind books like, "The Millionaire Next Door". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door My own family history had an immigrant to this country, unable to speak English and selling produce from a truck, come here and rais 4 sons who all served in our military and went on to become professionals. I have to think that has something to do with our system of relative liberty.

What? the fuck?
The statement below: more from me after...
I was unaware that sex traffickers had themselves and their victims apply for entry as refugees. Pretty sure your knowledge of this issue boils down to sheer terror at the idea of a brown man having sex with a white woman.
It comes across as dismissive that some 80% of girls and women using illegal services to come to the USA get raped. That there is sex trafficking that can at least be slowed by real border enforcement. I really don't think he should have written it and asked him to stop it.