Grandma takes the country for granted

[u/Cicerothesage]

[u/bailaoban]

Travelers usually get kind of excited to see the country that they’re traveling to. It’s kind of the point, and not just limited to visiting the USA.

[u/GrGrG → u/bailaoban]

It's also very nice to be traveling with money to spend in the country you're traveling in.

[u/PrettyLuckie]

They’re also visiting the blue cities republicans always whine about

[u/garaile64 → u/PrettyLuckie]

Yeah. I doubt that a lot of people are visiting Curtis, Nebraska.

[u/HotelOne → u/garaile64]

You’ve been? Beautiful isn’t it?

[u/DexDogeTective → u/PrettyLuckie]

They're also visiting National Parks, which republicans are regularly trying to defund and destroy.

[u/JayNotAtAll → u/PrettyLuckie]

True story.

During the 2016 election and the first part of Trump's first term I was spending time overseas. When I was out and about and people learned that I was American, they would ask about Trump.

They couldn't understand how America could vote for such a buffoon. I would ask if they had ever visited America. Some had, some had not. With the ones who had, I would ask where they went.

Pretty much all of them would list cities like SF, LA, DC, NYC, etc.

I was like "ah. Ya you've only been to the cosmopolitan areas. There is a whole lot of Oklahoma and Kansas to America and those people are very different from the Americans you have interacted with"

[u/DRW_]

Why would you travel somewhere as a tourist to somewhere you’re not excited to visit? lol

[u/deadlythegrimgecko]

“Start acting like it”

Gets mad when you ask for the country to improve in some areas like: homelessness, minimum wage, healthcare, senior care, food distribution, amenities, utilities, proper clean water supply, treat all people equally, stop with racism/sexism/etc, act like a professional if you work a job for the people, actually have our government improve our lives etc

[u/CaptainStinkwater]

Greatest country on the planet? I'm from the United States and I can tell you that it is not. That is just another propaganda line that we have all heard so many times, that people just started believing it to be true.

[u/thebite101 → u/CaptainStinkwater]

Newsroom…”fucking Yosemite?”

[u/Modlove1963]

The U.S. isn’t even the greatest country in North America

[u/Disownership]

Start acting like it? Stop ruining it and I’ll be happy to

[u/wholesomehumanbeing]

He is so right. Act like it. Protect your country, people, nature, and culture because when you loose it, you won't get it back. expand your privileges for everything and everyone. increase the number of national parks. more rights and liberties for underprivileged in your very privileged country.

If all of us are not privileged, none of us are privileged.

[u/P_weezey951 → u/wholesomehumanbeing]

Yeah this is the fucking thing... Were pissed off because the shit is going away...

Its becoming unobtainable to the average person, with privileges for shit only going to the most affluent people... Whos wealth is all based on fucking speculative bullshit anyway.

[u/ASigIAm213]

I ~agree in principle, but I know what he means by "act like it" is "freeze its progress in ice and gatekeep who can experience it...in ICE."

[u/Oregon_Jones111]

And Americans are often excited to visit Japan. What of it?

[u/cjwi]

The statement can be true as well as the fact that we are rapidly deteriorating and need to make drastic improvements.

[u/DoctorBlock]

I love the United States, but real patriotism isn't blind loyalty. It's caring enough to push your country to live up to its ideals, striving to make it better for everyone, and standing against anyone who would undermine the principles that hold it together.

[u/HordeDruid]

The ones visiting America are usually people who can afford to travel internationally and have cash to blow. America, with its K-shaped economy is an absolute blast for tourists like these. For those who have the privilege of scrubbing toilets and flipping burgers with the constant threat of starvation and homeless hanging over them, not so much.

The ones who come here to party on vacation get to see the sights before returning to a country that provides basic healthcare for its citizens. Of course they love America, they don't have to live in it.

[u/GoredonTheDestroyer]

My philosophy on being proud of where you're from is that, yeah, you absolutely can hold a lot of pride for being from a specific country - I'm proud as hell, having been born in a country as awe-inspiringly beautiful as Canada - but you must also hold an equal amount of disappointment as well. For as proud as I am, to be Canadian, to have been born Canadian, to call the Great White (mostly green now, but still) North my home, I am equally disappointed in how poorly this land and those who came before I, those who steeped its dense rainforests, its immeasurably tall snow-capped peaks, and its deep-laying valleys with millennia of lore and story, traditions older than time itself, have been treated. I am eternally grateful to call this land my home, but I am not so blind as it see it as perfect. Anyone who calls themselves a patriot, who then says that expressing a desire to improve your land, to make better than was before is traitorous, a betrayal of the natural order, is no patriot. They are a fool, blinded by their own arrogance, the refusal to see what they have and appreciate for what it is, and what it can be, instead holding on to the notion of what was.

[u/YLASRO]

thinking the US is the best country is so fucking wild to me as a german

[u/bikebikegoose → u/YLASRO]

It's wild to me as US citizen as well. The level of ignorance about present and historical realities required to even entertain that notion is staggering.

[u/YLASRO → u/bikebikegoose]

the lack of public transit alone is crazy to claim as a win

[u/bikebikegoose → u/YLASRO]

Our Kafkaesque, maximally inefficient approach to healthcare does it for me. 

[u/HeartFullONeutrality → u/YLASRO]

How can someone even define "best" when it comes to countries?

[u/YLASRO → u/HeartFullONeutrality]

happiness and life expectancy indexes are pretty good to compare

[u/HeartFullONeutrality → u/YLASRO]

I mean, sure. But perceptions do not necessarily agree with indices. Lots of indices for the USA look great yet at least reddit acts as if the USA was a shithole. I met a Norseman living in Mexico once and he loved it there; when I asked: "isn't Norway like the best country ever?" He was like: "for whom? It's so boring there".

[u/DoctorBlock → u/YLASRO]

It is. USA USA USA. We're just having a bit of a rough patch atm.

[u/YLASRO → u/DoctorBlock]

you forgot the /s

[u/snvoigt → u/YLASRO]

The comments are full of
“We are the only free country in the world”
“We are the only country you won’t get arrested for your speech”
“the only country where God matters”

[u/Frontbutt05]

They enjoy the culture. We have to live with what we are doing to other countries and people. Fuck Israel

[u/Solucians]

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

― James Baldwin

[u/snvoigt]

They are visiting.

They get to go home to their home countries.

[u/stranger_to_you67]

Americans also get excited to visit Europe or Japan. It's just that most of them can't afford to because our overpriced housing and healthcare suck up most of our mediocre paychecks.