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All fun, but you're forgetting:
-art festivals & shows
-concerts/music festivals
-baseball games, football games, basketball games, hockey games, soccer games (all with aforementioned hotdogs and beer, plus nachos)
-car shows
-museums
-theatre performances
-bars & breweries
-clubs
-going to parks
-golfing
-automobile races (legal and illegal )
-plain old people watching
-community events
-chatting with neighbors
-zoos/aquariums
-tourist attractions
-a *huge* variety of food/going out to eat
-watching a movie at the theatres (despite Netflix/Amazon prime/etc, people still do it)
-runs/walks/5Ks/10Ks/marathons/etc
-parades & holiday festivals
-city tours, architecture tours, etc
-****, anything you can think of that won't cause bodily or property harm
There's a whole lot to America outside of running around on a farm, shooting guns, drinking beer and grilling food. If that's you're idea of having fun, you haven't lived or had fun yet.
Nah, just kidding, I enjoy those things too. But your way isn't the only way. Different strokes for different folks.
News flash: in a big city you don't need a car!
Boring. Haha we had concerts. SPAC up in Saratoga was always a good time. If pot and getting high is your thing go when dave matthews band goes. Bars and nightclubs dont appeal to me unless its a tiki bar on the beach. I don't think anyone can be stressed out in Florida. Could have a terrible week at work, order up a rum runner or 2 and knock it back while listening to waves crash. Thats relaxation.
Car shows, used to go to them but unless they were held at the valley where you could open up the taps on the 1/4 mile strip. Otherwise it got boring quick. Unless there was something incredible like a 392 hemi or nail head sporting tripple offys and zoomies stuffed in a model A.
No car? I'd die. Especially if it snowed. No slinging the truck around and ripping donuts!? Having to rely on a bus or taxi nah...
Sporting events if you like overpriced drinks and food... Id rather call up my buddies and have a backyard football game. Cant stand watching sports but I sure do love playing tackle football. Watching and attending not my cup of tea personally. Hate sports bars especially.
Interesting there are so many definition of what America's identity is. What I find even worse is others breaking down what a person likes about America. Not everyone is going to be the same. Being an American is embracing another person's differences.
The concept of a national identity, especially in a melting pot like the US, is dumb. What does a person living in rural Maine have in common with some living in downtown Los Angeles? What did they ever have in common?
IMO, our country is being balkanized culturally, linguistically, and politically. Gone are the days when immigrants and citizens were a melting pot of our identifying culture out in mainstream. Now division and separatism seems to be the norm out in mainstream and in fact is encouraged and even admired by liberals.
Let me add, most of the people you mentioned here, don't want anything to do with each other. The Amish want to live as far away from us as possible, they fight with the government all the time, and they don't even vote.
A large portion of this country would love to get a deportation force to throw out probably tens of millions of Hispanics, Muslims, among others(including liberals). Lets not even discuss the racists.
Something like 25% of the population wants their state to secede from the union.
This rosy picture you painted, ain't reality.
When someone says they love America, they love their own backyard, and not much more than that.
A large portion of the population have never even left their state. They have no love for this country. They don't even know what this country is.
I think you may misunderstand me. I never said all of these people hang out together. I said they are all part of the American identity. If anything, I said it hoping people would take a look beyond their own backyards to see that.
If the country split up based on political and cultural differences, it would not be pretty. Nor would it be a matter of one region fighting another, as with the Civil War. It wouldn't even be a matter of the coasts vs. "fly-over" country. We are far more fractured than that, but we are also stuck with each other, unless we want to see the entire country shattered into hundreds of little city-states whose citizens can tolerate no difference of belief or habit.
Actually, all Western nations are being sacrificed on the alter of diveristy.
No, not all diversity is good. People waiving Mexican flags in conjunction with signs that say "not my president" need to be sent home to their president- Enrique Pena Nieto.
Those who want Sharia law need to practice it in Saudi Arabia, or in some other non-America desert.
Those who come to this country to collect benefits and wear Fidel Castro T-shirts need to be sent back to socialist countries, where undoubtedly they will be happier.
The end result of unfettered diversity is the Middle East, or the Balkans, and no, we don't want to live there. Nor is there anything in the constitution that says that we have to import people who do not understand the freedoms they are about to receive.
This has been said by every generation of conservative. Whatever your background is, people didn't want your ancestors here. If Ben Franklin had his way, the nationality that makes up the majority of the United States' population, Germans, wouldn't be here.
I was under the impression that countries exist primarily to protect their citizens.
Look back in time, what governments in the past 5,000 years of world history were formed primarily to protect their citizens? The Egyptians? Babylon? The Roman Empire? The British Empire? French Empire? The Soviet Union? China?
The American colonies were created to provide resources for the British Crown. And why was the United States formed? To protect its citizens? Which citizens exactly? What is a citizen?
The United States was formed, because the business-interests in this country, thought they would be better off breaking away from England. And it was the business-interests who created a government which served them. The founding fathers were some of the richest people in the country at the time.
The Revolutionary War here, and the later French Revolution, was about overthrowing the old aristocracy, and replacing it with the rule of the bourgeoisie capitalists.
America took over the world, because our capitalists were able to create massive wealth, by conquering this continent, murdering many of the natives, enslaving Africans, and building up our industry through high tariffs, and corporate subsidies. While exploiting the resources of this vast continent, as well as exploiting/bullying many of our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.
Later, we would more-or-less conquer/dominate/occupy most of the countries in the world.
The idea that America exists to protect you, is hilarious. This government doesn't give a **** about you. It only cares about money, and power. If it pretends to care about you, its only because it is useful. Keeping you happy, or keeping you alive, to keep working, and keep consuming.
And who honestly believes America was founded as a land of tolerance? Tolerance for who exactly? Until the 1960's, this country was about as tolerant as Nazi-Germany.
Well duh... Got boys thinking they're girls. Girls thinking they're boys... Or "identifying" as something else...
Know what makes America great?
Guns
Fireworks
Trucks
Beer
Bikinis
Quads dirtbikes jetskis snowmobiles boats Harleys
Beaches
Back roads
Mountains
Race cars (be it drag racing, dirt oval, asphalt oval, auto cross, road courses whatever)
Building stuff
Bon Fires
Fishing
Hunting
Growing crops
BBQs
(All things fun and great that most libs despise for it may offend, objectify, harm the environment, or pose a risk to someones health/life for we should all live in sterile safe bubbles)
I feel bad for people stuck in cities and the city mentality... Theres a whole lot to America outside of grabbing a hot dog at 2am, overpriced night clubs, congested road ways, nowhere to park a car or pay an arm and a leg for parking. If thats your idea of living or fun. You haven't lived or had fun yet.
Get you some ear phones an mp3 player download you some jams, find a helmet buy a dirtbike. Buy a truck. Fill it with guns ammo beer fire works pallets. Mount 2 American flags in the bed. Jump a 90 foot triple, take the win in a race car spend sleepless nights building something only stopping to shower change and go to work. Get a Banshee rip through trails in a blur. Or stud the tires and rip across a frozen lake. Throw sand paddle tires and launch it in the dunes. Build a sled rip up a trail and a mountain. Swap the suspension and track and race across a frozen lake. Do donuts and burnouts with your truck on some back roads. Get a Harley. Punch it out, swap the cams ditch the silent mufflers for some pipes. Have a bon fire. Shoot some bottle rockets mortars set off a block buster some fire crackers.
Buy a snowboard rip down a mountain. Get a tow strap have your buddies tow you around an unplowed parking lot on that snowboard or even a sled.
Buy an old muscle car throw some headers to glasspacks and a big honkin cam with a 4 barrel.
Shoot a deer. Some ducks and turkey or wild hogs.
Throw a BBQ slam a beer or 2.
Thats the America I lived in. Not one sheltered from a good time...
Not disputing that some of the items on your list might be enjoyable pursuits, but they do not equal "greatness."
Greatness is having a Constitution that allows us to be free people and living an a country where even the poorest citizens still have better housing and food than the majority of people on this planet.
That... yes. That makes a country great.
The ability to be upwardly mobile and improve one's lot in life. That makes a country great.
So many things that do not seem like tangible stuff are the very underpinnings that allow you to enjoy all the stuff you mentioned up there.
__________________
When in doubt, check it out: FAQ
Look back in time, what governments in the past 5,000 years of world history were formed primarily to protect their citizens? The Egyptians? Babylon? The Roman Empire? The British Empire? French Empire? The Soviet Union? China?
The American colonies were created to provide resources for the British Crown. And why was the United States formed? To protect its citizens? Which citizens exactly? What is a citizen?
The United States was formed, because the business-interests in this country, thought they would be better off breaking away from England. And it was the business-interests who created a government which served them. The founding fathers were some of the richest people in the country at the time.
The Revolutionary War here, and the later French Revolution, was about overthrowing the old aristocracy, and replacing it with the rule of the bourgeoisie capitalists.
America took over the world, because our capitalists were able to create massive wealth, by conquering this continent, murdering many of the natives, enslaving Africans, and building up our industry through high tariffs, and corporate subsidies. While exploiting the resources of this vast continent, as well as exploiting/bullying many of our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.
Later, we would more-or-less conquer/dominate/occupy most of the countries in the world.
The idea that America exists to protect you, is hilarious. This government doesn't give a **** about you. It only cares about money, and power. If it pretends to care about you, its only because it is useful. Keeping you happy, or keeping you alive, to keep working, and keep consuming.
And who honestly believes America was founded as a land of tolerance? Tolerance for who exactly? Until the 1960's, this country was about as tolerant as Nazi-Germany.
Interesting there are so many definition of what America's identity is. What I find even worse is others breaking down what a person likes about America. Not everyone is going to be the same. Being an American is embracing another person's differences.
That's kind of a broad statement. I don't like it thrown in my face out in public. For example I find it offensive seeing women out in public with their faces and bodies entirely covered or them walking way behind their husbands as if they aren't worth anything and are lesser human beings. It reeks of what our nation does not represent and that is freedom. Now some may call it religious freedom but it isn't something I want to see out in public nor do I embrace that. That's just one example of offensive things in public but I'll just leave it at that.
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