🐱 I Don’t Like America, But I’m Staying

I Don’t Like America, But I’m Staying - The Good Men Project

I love liberty and equality and diversity, and America still has a shot at being home to these things.

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I used to think I loved America.

I used to fully believe in its greatness.

Growing up, I bought into its songs and its anthems and its stirring mythology of liberty and opportunity, which I guess was understandable. For a suburban, cisgender, heterosexual male who identified as Christian, they were as true for me as for anyone. They were all I’d ever known. That version of America had always been available to me, even if it was out of reach for most people.

But the more I had my eyes opened by travel and experience and curiosity and education, the more I saw the cracks in the glistening whitewashed facade, and into the cavernous decay underneath. It is a sickness that seems more pervasive and profound than ever. As bad as I’ve come to realize it has always been, in many ways it feels far worse now.

Lately, I’m realizing that I really don’t like this nation very much: not the one we have been and certainly not the one I see us becoming.

I don’t like the fierce denial of Science.
I don’t like the mindless MAGA cultism.
I don’t like a cruel white Christian Church devoid of a compassionate Jesus of color.
I don’t like the unrepentant brutality of our law enforcement.
I don’t like a political party fully beholden to a traitorous monster.
I don’t like the racists emboldened to bully store clerks and harass black teenagers.
I don’t like seeing people I love devoured by baseless conspiracy.
I don’t like realizing how many people I know harbor white supremacy.
I don’t like so much of this place.

My adversaries tell me I should just get out, and on many days I agree with them. I confess to regularly daydreaming about leaving it all behind, about beginning again somewhere else: about escaping the coming flood of fascism that feels unstoppable, avoiding my increasingly hateful neighbors, and cutting off my untethered family members. Yet, I know even having the option to do such things is a symptom of my privilege and a luxury many cannot afford; people who will remain here regardless of what happens because their forebears had stayed.

And so even though I really don’t like America, I’m trying to stay in America, too.

I’m trying to stay because my children and so many other people’s children deserve to inherit something less like what this place is, and more like the place it could be: the nation the songs declare we are but have not yet been.

I’m trying to stay to show people that Christianity is not what they’ve been told it is by this MAGA, Bible Belt bastardization with a bloodthirsty, gun-toting, white Republican Jesus with no love for his neighbors.

I’m trying to stay to stand up to the grocery store bullies and the mosque door vandals and the social media terrorists and the truck flag bigots, to let them know that they don’t have the run of the house just because they have had a kindred spirit in the White House or steadfast advocates in the highest levels of Congress.

I’m trying to stay to be a builder of the country I dream of living in, the one whose glory I have seen brief flashes of; the one that has always been made better by good people who decided to be loud in the face of a really powerful violence that seemed to be winning.

I’m trying to stay here and get my hands dirty, instead of watching from a safe distance and praying someone does something to keep it all from hitting the fan, because that’s how we ended up here.

Most of all I’m trying to stay because I’ve done my time and made my mark and earned my scars—and I’m not about to let anyone threaten me or push me or shout me out of here:

because diversity is worth fighting for,
because going backward is not an option,
because the shared outrage of decent human beings is more necessary here than ever.

And yes, I fully believe it’s all going to get worse before it gets better, but I’m staying so that hopefully the worse isn’t quite as bad and so the better arrives a little bit sooner. I am going to be that light that resists a nation growing ever darker.

If things continue to devolve and our systems further fail and fascism gets a greater foothold, I may decide that remaining here is morally impossible.

But for now, I’m going to roll up my sleeves, steady myself, double my resolve, and work tirelessly alongside millions of others here, who don’t like America but who care deeply about the disparate people who deserve a much better version of it.

I love liberty and equality and diversity, and America still has a shot at being home to these things.

For now, that is enough reason to stay.

 

[MrJokerRager]

Because you let your academia run unchecked, especially during the 60s. Instead of all the "free sex, drugs and rock'n'roll", you should've controlled your own cultural narrative. But nooooooooooooooo.

Because anything that would've restricted the flow of "creativity" would've been an antithesis to Soviets, right? Not all ideas Soviets had were retarded, you know.

And oh, not to mention that you have completely and utterly failed in preventing the Soviet intelligence community from infiltrating universities.

The rot probably started much earlier when Woodrow Wilson imported thousands of kikes through Ellis Island, that were commies from the Soviet Union.

In hindsight, Ellis Island should have been firebombed and the state of liberty sent to some shithole in Louisiana.

 

[SiccDicc]

The rot probably started much earlier when Woodrow Wilson imported thousands of kikes through Ellis Island, that were commies from the Soviet Union.

In hindsight, Ellis Island should have been firebombed and the state of liberty sent to some shithole in Louisiana.

Eh, it's more than likely Germany's fault with their exodus of academics fleeing to the US during the end of the Weimar Republic.

 

[atleast3letterslong]

Please leave and give your citizenship to a migrant who does love America, hot dogs and freedom. Thanks.

Keep the illegals deport the democrats

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

You can cheat the Orange Man out of office

FTFY.

I don’t like the racists emboldened to bully store clerks and harass black teenagers.

There's a reason that those black teenagers are being harassed....

but I can't quite put my finger on it.

 

[Vince McMahon]

Eh, it's more than likely Germany's fault with their exodus of academics fleeing to the US during the end of the Weimar Republic.

As much as I hate to say it, Hitler didn't go far enough when it came to degeneracy.

That being said, he was a meth addict, but, you know.

 

[LurkTrawl]

Move to Canada or the U.K. then. If you really didn't like the U.S. you wouldn't stay here, and you're too fucking mentally handicapped to realize that turning it into the places you don't want to move to currently would leave your rat-ass nowhere left to run from the shit that's keeping you moving to those places you don't want to move.

This is the rat chewing a hole in the bottom of the wooden ship.

 

[tehpope]

Move to Canada or the U.K. then. If you really didn't like the U.S. you wouldn't stay here, and you're too fucking mentally handicapped to realize that turning it into the places you don't want to move to currently would leave your rat-ass nowhere left to run from the shit that's keeping you moving to those places you don't want to move.

As if they could move to Canuckland or United Cuckedom. Most countries have a lot stricter immigration rules than we do. And you have to be useful (STEM) or a useful idiot of the right color (ie not white) to get in.

 

[atleast3letterslong]

I'm starting to appreciate those guys from the Balkans and Turkey. Even Croatians living in their cave dwellings and Turks living in their mud huts are proud of their countries even if it's a backwater shit hole with no redeeming qualities. While Americans with their multi ethnic empire and functioning government are ashamed of it.

 

[LurkTrawl]

While Americans ... are ashamed of it.

Americans aren't ashamed of it, ungrateful progressives who have no idea how good they have it are. They might have American citizenship, but I've met Cubans (ethnicity not nationality) for fuck's sake who are proud both of the U.S. and for being American who weren't even born here.

 

[atleast3letterslong]

Move to Canada or the U.K. then. If you really didn't like the U.S. you wouldn't stay here, and you're too fucking mentally handicapped to realize that turning it into the places you don't want to move to currently would leave your rat-ass nowhere left to run from the shit that's keeping you moving to those places you don't want to move.

This is the rat chewing a hole in the bottom of the wooden ship.

They don't like Canada either because of their treatment of the natives (can't remember their actual name). I constantly see posts about how evil Canada is even though it's quite the opposite in reality. I understand that Canada has serious problems with tribal lands like the U.S. but people are making it out like they're on par or worse than the United States in every way. It's ridiculous they're never happy. In what world is Canada not progressive enough?

 

[The Ultimate Ramotith]

Where ae you going to move, then? /sincere/

 

[ExsanguinateHorizon]

Man, barring corruption which there absolutely will be a citizenship exchange program would be amazing. There should be some caveats like it's a permanent revoking of citizenry or a minimum departure of 10 years. Government covers relocation costs but nothing luxurious. Proof of education or direct to tradeskill or something for whoever is coming in, no suspiciously hairy 10 year old 'refugees.' Nobody would have an excuse anymore, no more sighing about how hard it is to move as they sit in the comfort of a bloated first world. You don't like it here, fuck off so we can give a chance to high quality individuals.

 

[Tuxedo_Zemus]

Because you let your academia run unchecked, especially during the 60s. Instead of all the "free sex, drugs and rock'n'roll", you should've controlled your own cultural narrative. But nooooooooooooooo.

Because anything that would've restricted the flow of "creativity" would've been an antithesis to Soviets, right? Not all ideas Soviets had were retarded, you know.

And oh, not to mention that you have completely and utterly failed in preventing the Soviet intelligence community from infiltrating universities.

Let's be fair here, by the time the 60's rolled around all of our institutions were thoroughly Jewed. We didn't have much control over that.

 

[Vince McMahon]

Croatians living in their cave dwellings and Turks living in their mud huts

Both have a tradition of governance and history far richer than US could ever hope to experience.

 

[Iceland Heavy]

Where ae you going to move, then? /sincere/

He won't leave America, but if he lives in California or somewhere similar he will leave that to come shit up your state and turn it into the shithole he left in the name of ''''empathy''''.

 

[drfuzzyballs]

The more I learn about the culture and laws of Europe, Canada and Australia the more I appreciate the USA.