What fact (if any) makes you ashamed to be an American?

33 comments

1. Japanese internment was pretty fucked.

2. There have been 13 shootings at schools so far in 2023. That includes one committed by a six-year old.

3. Our history of slavery and genocide

4. In my opinion, being ashamed of specific facts or things about America is not the same thing as being “ashamed to be an American.” I have no specific comment on people who are genuinely ashamed of a simple fact of their birth or citizenship.

5. Post exceeds character limit.

6. Nothing. How can I be ashamed of what I have no control over?

7. Leading cause of death among children in the U.S. is gun violence.

8. Nothing, because I haven’t done or supported any of our “worst hits”, as you might say. Mostly because I either wasn’t born or was too young to even have opinions on things, much less vote, whenever something dumb happened(Invading Iraq, leaving Iraq before it was ready), or I didn’t vote for the person who did it(leaving Afghanistan knowing we were abandoning them all to tyranny). The fact that in 3 presidential elections I’ve yet to support a candidate who won does help alot in this regard.

9. Nothing

10. Last summer, there was a mass shooting at my dad’s place of work that killed someone I knew, in which the perpetrator bought his weapon on a whim and shot up the office 2 hours later. Just yesterday, there was a mass shooting at an elementary school near where I live that killed 3 nine-year-olds. And all the Republicans with total governmental control in both places have to say is “thoughts and prayers.”

11. Nothing really.

    Most of us are always trying to do better.

12. No shame whatsoever.

13. There are things America has done that I’m ashamed of, but I’m not ashamed to be American at all.

14. We don’t always pass / make laws out off need … things don’t happen out of political petty ness

15. No fact makes me ashamed of my country. I know America has done horrible things in the past, but it is our job to learn from the past and never allow those atrocities to happen again

16. What just happened yesterday because it keeps happening again and again. Half the country doesn’t care and will never care.

17. I’m not ashamed to be American.

    Clearly there are things, and people, I’m less proud of or outright dislike, but I don’t feel any type of shame for things I have no part in.

    Honestly, I have no shame in general, but that’s a different question lol

18. School Shootings

19. Nothing. America changed and grew. There is a reason why half of all immigrants come here

20. Fueling wars around the world.

21. I’m not ashamed to be American. I’m not ashamed of my country. I’m ashamed of bought-and-paid-for partisan politicians who put their pocketbooks over the lives of the people, and that those who remind us what we should and must do as a country are treated like Chicken Little.

22. The #1 cause of deaths for children and adolescents is guns.

    This is almost entirely preventable.

23. Our obesity rates

24. Leftist progressivism: [extreme] political correctness, “social justice warriors”, critical [race] theory, post-modernism, [radical] feminism, Black Lives Matter, etcetera…

    And slavery

25. There are many things about my country that I’m not necessarily proud of, but nothing will make me ashamed to be American.

26. Oh man, there are *so* many things it’s hard to pick just one.

    But my top two are:

    * we stopped producing the El Camino

    * Them Crooked Vultures never released a second album

27. Our rate of violent crime/homicide is shameful, though I don’t personally feel ashamed to be American.

28. The complacency. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard” has been forgotten. It’s always “muh American way” or “muh taxes” these days.

29. I refuse to feel shame for something I personally had no part of. Sympathy and empathy, absolutely. Offer help where I can, you bet. But shame? No.

30. Not ashamed, but exasperated:

    The anti-intellectualism. And people seem to not even understand or accept what that means.

    The last time anti-intellectualism came up in this sub, all the comments were like, “The US isn’t anti-intellectual! We just [proceeds to describe anti-intellectualism]…”

31. Almost nothing. I do hate when people in this sub are defensive and rude to people here, and I also don’t like when things that the US actually isn’t doing great at and can improve – it just completely ignored — life expectancy, obesity, health care, etc.

32. Shame and criticism are not the same thing.

    I am not ashamed to be an American. I am proud that, as a whole, America has been a force for good in the world. I can still criticise certain things and be proud of my country.

33. Each mass shooting there’s” thoughts and prayers “ yeah like that’s going to fix anything.