Frequently I see someone say something like “if you don’t love this country you can just leave” or words to that effect. It’s not so much that I don’t love this country but it comes down to all the ways the country has changed for the worse since I was born. In some cases these changes are doing tangible damage. In most cases these changes are just flat out embarrassing.

Because the USA is big we’ve always faced a bit of a challenge with other countries around the globe. Often they love our media but don’t like that fact that we’re so big and powerful. Overall I think they’ve respected us for trying to do good and be a good planetary citizen and for providing a modicum of stability.

But now that opinion is shifting and it’s hard to be a proud American in the current climate what with us siding with Russia and North Korea and our new USA-centric foreign policies. We are emphasizing ourselves first and forsaking our greater role on planet Earth. Being a bully to put it more succinctly.

Let’s look at some of the ways the USA has changed in our lifetime.

Welcoming immigrants

I very clearly remember learning in elementary school about the Statue of Liberty and the phrase “give me your tired…” and being very proud that we were a country that would give anyone a chance. Now the rhetoric has turned and we’re pretty stridently anti-immigrant. There’s a lot of sentiment that people should “come here legally like we did.”

There are different perspectives on that to put it bluntly. Going the furthest back it’s pretty well known that we took the lands by force from the native Americans. And then when USA rule was the law of the land we didn’t even have any laws about immigration. So yeah, your family came here legally but only because there were no laws against it. Ellis Island required only that you have a few bucks in your pocket and not be diseased, that was it. Now it’s true we did go through periods of strong sentiment against the Irish, Catholics, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, and of course all flavors of Latinos. But actual laws against immigration were spotty. Until relatively recently.

Helping the world

We are a very rich nation and we have chosen to help other parts of the planet with disease, hunger, education, and more. Until this year when USAID was cancelled we seem to have adopted the idea that we are instead being taken advantage of. This is really unfortunate both for us and our standing in the perspective of the rest of the world. And obviously also for the communities that were benefiting from this generosity. “With great power comes great responsibility” to quote the comic books. There is a popular false dichotomy that we shouldn’t give any money to another country while we have [pick a domestic problem]. That’s just not how that works. Many of those problems are complex and not easily solved with an infusion of money. And there’s strong bias against many social programs that help people. Maybe there is in fact some small percentage of fraud or inefficiency with the program. You shouldn’t stop doing something overall good just because there are cases of malfeasance. Best is the enemy of better.

The world’s policeman

As the largest economy on the planet we’ve also tasked ourselves with some degree of responsibility for keeping the order on the planet. That has not always been perfect and we’ve certainly acted as a bully in certain areas which didn’t match our worldview. We’ve either directly instigated change in areas you could argue were not our business, or simply put our proverbial finger on the scale. But overall we’ve been a force for good and attempted to play a role advocating for stability and humans rights around the planet. That also has shifted as we are now aligning with enemies whose conduct we would have roundly criticized previously. And we are refusing to honor previous commitments to help our allies.

Love of science

In the 60s we held the common view that anything was possible through science. But now there is a strong public distrust of science and ironically a lot of people use of technology (and science) on social networks on the Internet to argue against the benefits of science. Now it’s true there have been some missteps (remember when we put a radium plate in our shirt pocket to make cigarettes mellower?) but in general science corrects itself and most cases of greed cloaked in science garb are eventually rooted out and stopped. The areas of conspiracy theories and pseudo-science that are holding more sway than actual science are too numerous to mention. And the reasons for the rise of these anti-science views are also numerous.

I remember just a decade ago reading how in Thailand they didn’t have motorcycle helmet laws and you could either spend $50 on an optional helmet or a $50 talisman to keep you safe. Folks leaned strongly towards buying the talisman. And we smirked at what we considered to be a third-world view of the realities of traffic safety. But now, just in the last few years, that sort of thinking is becoming common here in the USA.

Increasing acceptance of “different” people

It’s pretty well understood that we’ve had centuries of discriminating against or even enslaving certain people. Affirmative Action and DEI have attempted to compensate somewhat for those many years of inequality. Both those programs are now being vilified as being “discrimination against whites” or something to that effect. Those programs are certainly not perfect but they are the best that has been proposed. It is disappointing to see the USA moving backwards in this fashion. I thought racism was dead and buried but just scratch the surface and it’s apparently alive and well.

Defense of democracy

We’ve always stood on the side of democracy but now we’re apparently OK with currying favor with other dictators, supporting them, ceding land to them, and extorting money from countries in exchange for help. This isn’t the America I grew up in.

In summary

I loved this country but the country I fell in love with is far different than the one we see today. If we want to go back to the “good times”, why can’t we go back to these American values?