this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024

138 points (100.0% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

7146 readers

54 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!

How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.

If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.

Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)

If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].

Rules:

1. NO POLITICS

Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.

2. Be civil.

Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...

Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.

5. No trolling.

This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.

Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

138

People who generalize as if the US is one government instead of one big inept government and then 50+ governments that have districts and counties and cities are aggravatingly ignorant and smug. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

102 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"The US should do X and they suck because they don't!" Each state has it's own laws on education. Some places suck, some do not. It's not a monolith.

"The US has shitty beer lol" We have some of the best beer in the world but it's local/state/region only and never exported unlike fancy Euro beer.

The US for better or worse is a, hmmm 🤔 a unity of government states under a federation called America. It's very hard to get federal laws and bills passed, especially for education. The states want the power to chooses for themselves what they do, and the federal government hangs above them, sometimes intervening.

We are a huge country that has a relatively unique circumstance of government, population, and young brutal history. I'm a Californian and I live in the Bay Area which almost literally a different country than most of America, especially the South and Midwest.

I'm so sick of people, especially smug Europeans, talking like they know Americans and America but they don't really know shit about us except the movies and going to NYC and Miami.

Yes I am having a bad day.

To be honest I love Europe and have friends there that I miss dearly! I've been many times. But dumbassery is dumbassery.

EDIT: You people are an exhausting swarm of pecking ravens and I've spent all the "toxic" energy I want arguing with half you because you just hear what you want to hear and fit the stereotype I loathe I think you only commented out of trained reflex and a few of you are just unsophisticated haters. Whatever, fuck you, and all that jazz.

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Given the diversity of 50+ states, find me one that values human life of fellow state members with centrally provided healthcare so they're not left to choose between bankruptcy or life, views education as a public good and access to it has a low barrier to access it, doesn't have for-profit prisons or has a network of public transport infrastructure that relies on a system of trains or trams?

My country had wars with it's neighbours from single digit centuries. Comparing differences in Europe to the US states is like comparing McDonald's differences with local cuisine refined over centuries.

With so many differences where can I find social values that are comfortable with pederasty as in ancient Greece?

Knowledge is almost free nowadays. Reading history of countries offers a fascinating perspective of how we got here. For better or worse, the US is pretty homogenous in its value system, religious beliefs, political beliefs and language.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

New York, Massachusetts, and California. I have free healthcare. Now fuck off.

Smug. Ignorant.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What you really want here is for Congress to be disbanded and a Parliament put in place. I agree.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm fed up fighting over which celebrity gets to play king every 4 years. I'd accept if the position were instead chosen at random (lottery) from the pool of all qualifying citizens.

When was the last time we had a president from the lower class?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Never. Maybe Obama kinda?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Preamble: this respon is the result of me learning a lot quickly and although the tone may have the scent of a smack-down, it really isn't. The only thing I knew before I started writing this was that both Michelle and Barack were lawyers, and lawyers are rarely lower class (unless they're shit lawyers, and even then... look at Giuliani).

The Obamas were well-off long before his election; maybe not rich, but certainly solid middle/upper middle-class. Michelle alone had an income of $317k. Even in the state senate, which dragged his salary down, Barack was pulling $90k - for a total household income of $400k. Once he entered the US, that number jumped into the millions.

They were both successful lawyers, and were solidly upper middle-class since well before his election to president. Barack himself went to Columbia and Harvard; both his parents were college educated - his mother was a PhD-degreed anthropologist; he himself attended a private prepatory school.

Barack, at least, did not come from a lower-class upbringing, and since marrying Michelle were well on their way to upper-class.

But that was a reasonable guess; he has been the only recent president who wasn't upper class, at least. You'd have to go back before Reagan to find a president who didn't come from money, and I'm not sure that even then would you find one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You are a myopic Mobius strip of illiterate douchebag.

load more comments