What is Abnormal about the USA?

[cthulu2016]

Take a step back from a life of national self-image propaganda and really look at the USA. How does America differ from all other countries?

The two things about America that are most freakish, wildly off-the-charts DIFFERENT about America, versus other industrialized democracies are:

1) Military spending
2) Incarceration rate

Definition is a matter of difference. Most nations have trees and highways and pride in battles won and people who love their children. That stuff does not define America.

Military spending and incarceration are now our peculiar institutions. (That phrase, famously applied to the south vis-à-vis slavery, means the institution that is peculiar to the culture… singular and defining.)

It seems unlikely that these issues will play a large part in our national politics any time soon. In fact, our political system is incapable of addressing with these issues.

That does not, however, mean that they are not the most important issues.

Resolved: Everyone should do whatever they can to keep Obama in the White House for another four years.
Resolved: There are practical political reasons to not run on pardoning 100,000 felons and cutting the military in half.

Now, with that established… aside from politics, why the hell do we need to dwarf the world in our zeal for military might and imprisoning our citizens?

Is their an affirmative defense of these national policies?

[izquierdista]

1. 3) There is no public transportation

[cthulu2016]

4. There are other issues, of course

Our income inequality and lack of class mobility put us at one end of a chart of comparable nations. We suck at those things.

And I agree that our public transporation problems are notable. Again, we are one the sad side of the scale.

But the two things where we are just WTF?!? so out of scale with other first-world nations that we look like a different species are militray and penal. So that's what I chose to focus on.

[shraby]

2. No universal health care that covers all the citizens, run by the government.

[enough]

6. Yes, and a large part of the population that thinks we're superior to the rest of the world

because we do not have universal healthcare and pay orders of magnitude more for medications and medical services.

[Initech]

17. And a lot of that has to do with RW hate radio brainwashing than anything.

[abelenkpe]

7. +1000 nt

[HopeHoops]

3. More to the point - what ISN'T unusual?

[LonePirate]

5. The citizens of most countries demand their government provide solutions to problems. Not here.

I would be surprised if there is another country on the planet - especially one with a democratically elected government - where such a large percentage of its citizens do not want their government to help them or to help society at large. This dumbfounds me.

[dawg]

8. Income disparity.

I'm not certain, but I suspect our Gini index is a huge outlier compared to other first-world nations.

[RC]

9. How long will be be considered a first-world country?

We just think we are now because people in this country do not get our and visit other countries. They have nothing to compare to, except what our media allows.

[cthulu2016]

12. We are the worst, but that goes for a lot of things

I had a section of the OP about why I wasn't including income inequality and lack of class mobility and privitized health care, but cut it for brevity.

We suck at those things but I do not think our difference is as definitive. We are relatively indifferent to the welfare of our people, vs. the other first-world democracies, but there are plenty of poor nations where people have it worse in practice. Our over-spending on private health insurance is anomolous, but we do not have the world's lowest life expectancy.

But nobody can match our incarceration rate. And our military speaks for itself.

They stand out to me.

Also, they are less discussed than other issues -- more politically inviolate.

[riverwalker]

10. both are based on fear

if we figure out what the heck we are so afraid of, we would have your answer.

[Fumesucker]

14. We are afraid of what the M$M tells us to be afraid of..

Mostly libruls..

[cthulu2016]

15. Bingo

They are fearful and violent and politically untouchable. They cut to something distinct in our national psychology.

That's why I chose them, and not the many things we are merely bad on. I could have had a list of a zillion things, but these two are priorities where we appear not merely callous or stupid or greedy, but somehow deranged, and in a peculiar way.

[freshwest]

18. Fear of being called to account for what was done to natives and Africans? Desperation to make this

Country seem different than it was?

Arizona schools decide to censor a play by Shakespeare because it depicts one ethnic group screwing another. Twain was censored for showing Americans how unjust slavery was, because of the ugly words.

Not having dealt what allowed that thinking, never erased it. Censoring his books gave those who benefitted from slavery cover. As if to deal with the words and NOT the system spawning it. Why be afraid to allow kids to think that such a thing ever existed, or that it now exists in other forms?

I think it's guilt that creates the fear, that if we ever admit that this country was built on theft, a reckoning is due. The most advantaged refuse to admit that the slavery and robbing people of their land because even though it would heal this country, they'd lose dominance.

Social justice will cost them.

Of course, I that's just a passing idea, I could be all wrong, not a psychologist or anything like that.

[Initech]

11. 4) Too much fucking wealth in the hands of too few.

[Saving Hawaii]

13. As seen on GD:

What is Abnormal about the USA? 9 cthulu2016 38 min ago 1 min ago 10 144
Man chases stripper for 65 miles, then runs her over 42 The Straight Story 4 hrs ago 1 min ago 0 942

[jody]

16. Abnormal? We the People believe that a society composed of all diverse groups among the world

Last edited Sat Jan 14, 2012, 11:24 PM - Edit history (1)

can find compromises for divisive, polarizing issues that absent government lead to hate, strife, conflict, and ultimately war. Wars that kill one side so they exist as a subjugated minority for a time until circumstances give them the seat of power.

What goes around, comes around and the broad highway of hate leading inexorably to war is so easy to travel while the narrow path of love to peace seems impossible to journey.

[DeathToTheOil]

19. Don't beat yourselves up about military spending

Who else was gonna lead the West? Hey, I'm a child of the Cold War: I have never trusted the Russians.

[Nye Bevan]

20. (1) Saved the world in 1918.

(2) Saved the world in 1945.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. World War I was a stupid war and hardly had anything to do with "saving the world"

It was a family squabble among monarchs, King George V of England, Tsar Nicholas of Russia, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, who were first cousins (grandchildren of Queen Victoria). It opened the way for the Bolshevik Revolution. It killed a large percentage of a generation of young men in Europe and made the spread of the massive flu epidemic easier.

[Bigmack]

24. Yup! nt

[DeathToTheOil]

25. Neither was WWII

Which my dad served in. The Japanese didn't want to "conquer" America, they just wanted to glavny your influence in the Pacific.

[DirkGently]

21. Decades of corporatist "values." Everything must serve money. And expressly, NOT all the people.

[DeathToTheOil]

23. So, H.P. Lovecraft is Coming to Get Us Four Years Hence?

Alas, the Mayans shall have beat him to it!