How I think We Should View Our Country’s Flaws
*This is not meant to be a full on diagnosis of a certain situation within our world and in no means should be taken as fact, rather it should be viewed as my way to express thoughts about an idea within our country I’ve thought a bit about and which I believe other’s should think about as well.*
The war in Ukraine has brought about an immense amount of thought in regards to the situation in Russia and how countries around the world treat people in comparison with the USA. We already have situations like the Britney Griner case which has started to make a couple high profile people who are normally apprehensive towards our government recognize the inherent evil that Russia itself holds in our world. Rather than viewing our country as a place of hatred and evil, they recognize that, although those things exist in our world, our country itself is not a haven for that behavior.
I have seen the way people in the US have bashed and called attention to the mistakes in our country's past. And I recognize that those mistakes should be rectified in some manner or fashion. But, on the other hand, we cannot view our country as a place to leave or a place inferior to other world powers, when in places like Russia they attempt to use the ethnic and social minorities to fight their wars in places the majority of the country does not want to fight. Or in places like China where consistent and horrific persecution of an ethnic and cultural minority is something that has happened for the past 10 or so years.
The value our country places on honesty is something I truly treasure. But, in the past couple years, give or take 15 or so, the way our country has responded to the past has been done in a manner that does not speak to the actual being of our world. It doesn’t bring any value to the conversation about fixing our country to be in a better place than it was. Bashing something does not create a diamond, putting it under extreme pressure and heat and then allowing it to take its natural course is something that we should take into consideration. The honesty that comes with viewing our country's past as something to look on as a warning but also a hopeful message is something we should take careful thought in and examine closer.
Our country might not have everything right in how we executed our statements of justice or our morality in our laws, but one thing I believe we did get right is that we were not afraid to fix our mistakes. I don’t mean there weren’t people who despised change, I mean there were more people who wanted it. And although the people in power might have held on for dear life for a little while, eventually the situation we wanted to fix got fixed. So while I don’t understand the need to bash our country as something that needs to be burned, placing it in the context of history is valuable in how we understand our place in the world.
To bring this idea to a close, our country is not worse in any stretch of the imagination in comparison to other world powers. I think the inherent simplicity or comfort that has come with how our country is run has created a system of thought that can be dangerous if we are not honest with the facts. If we don't take time to evaluate how our country is doing in comparison with places like Russia or China, then we discount the greatness that our country has built. I don’t agree that we need to “Make America Great Again,” I think we need to make America thoughtful again. Instead of chasing a thought that has been cured long ago, fight for things in our country that deserve to be fought. But don’t bash the system that has shown its capability for change in our country's past.
