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MAGA doesn't really like freedom of expression.
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
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When I protested a couple weeks ago a few people yelled at me at that I didn’t love America… the irony would be hilarious if it wasn’t reflecting a sad reality.
Truth is, Trumpists absolutely do not like free speech.
At this point, I kinda do hate America.
I hate a significant portion of the American population and that the values we brag about are actually propganada to justify our worst tendencies.
Oh wait, maybe I do hate America.
Yeah. The more I listen to older generations about the shit the US government pulled in the past, the more I realize that this shit happening now is kind of par for the course for good ole America.
Like. The government killed black protestors in the civil rights era. Outright killed. Right now, though deportation is awful, there are no deaths, yet, that we've heard of. And thousands of civil rights activists were jailed for peaceful protest, which is happening again.
And McCarthyism was the government targeting those that didn't agree with their desired economy, essentially political dissenters. People lost their jobs and more. So. The government ruining the lives of dissenters isn't new either.
And disabled individuals lost their humanity in the forced sterilization era, and innocent Japanese were forced into concentration camps. So the dehumanization of trans people has precedence.
Yall. America sucks.
Everyone that went to El Salvador might as well have been given a death sentence. The El Salvadorian head of state said they would go to prison without trials, and be forced to do slave labor till they die.
My sincere hope is that they're rescued before this goes too far. Is that Polly Anna? Probably. But I'm hanging onto that.
See, the thing is I grew up outside the US and was taught about the civil rights movement as well - did they just not talk about what the police and federal government were doing for a century? Was it all framed as a minority of whites that were being racist or something?
Some kids are told about it in school, and then that chapter ends and the lesson moves on and the kids forget about it. Beyond that, Americans have to actively seek out that information.
With Trump making moves to erase all evidence of the history I mentioned above, it's about to get a lot worse.
While all of this is true, and America is up there among the worst crimes in modern history, most countries histories are littered with horrific shit.
It's worth remembering that ALL of human history is atrocity and injustice galore, so despite all the horrors the last few decades are almost certainly the best and safest time to exist (for humans, not the rest of the planet). When we look back at the 50's and 60's middle classes in the west, we do so with rose tinted goggles; they were a small percentage of the human population in absolute terms. The average human globally — especially in the bottom percentiles — were much poorer, less educated, and had a lower quality of life than they do today.
also, financing brutal dictatorships in other countries in the last century while trying to stop the advances of "communism", including brazil, where i live. thousands of people ruthlessly tortured, kidnapped and killed where i live for "political reasons".
Fucking hell. Yes.
Americans have been told this glamorous story about their history in schools that has made us think that this behavior we are seeing today “isn’t who we are.”
It definitely is who we are and it makes me sick.
Death to America!
And buttersauce
It’s difficult notion to wrestle with… I never like showing my patriotism and I always read American history very critically (thanks Howard Zinn!) but it’s also the only country I’ve lived in and will probably stay in for the rest of my life. I’m inspired that change can happen (even if it’s bad) in this country and even if is a long and hard path, I guess I can’t say I’ve given up yet. I also have two kids so I gotta try to give them something better.
We will probably stay here too because of family and all that. But we have no kids, and if shit really goes south we’re outta here. Problem is, no country wants us.
I don't, I absolutely love America, I'm just really tired of a lot of nonsense, such as:
That stuff combined results in the nonsense we see here, where the American peoples' voice isn't really reflected in political policy.
See , that’s the thing. At this point, that IS America. I understand loving the abstract notion and original intent of America, but that’s not what it is now.
I think it's like a parent, they may get dementia, leave the family to pursue drugs or a lover, or even turn abusive, yet you still love them on some level. I imagine a number of the Jews who survived the Holocaust also still loved Germany after the war.
A country is much more than its government. Even if I end up leaving the US, I'll still feel a sense of "home" when I meet another American or something. Even if I'm no longer welcome there, I would still call it my home.
You can hate what someone has become while still loving them.
Great point, I will always regard it with a wistfulness.
And I absolutely do hope that things will improve. I think the American spirit is still alive and well, it's just going through a bit of an episode right now. I agree with a few of the things Trump is doing (cutting waste and trying to uncover fraud), but I absolutely hate the way he's going about it, and I disagree with the apparent longer term plans.
I sincerely hope we all survive this and the next admin can undo the worst of it while keeping most of the good changes. We'll see. I feel like the next few months will be incredibly important.
What Trump says they’re doing and what they actually are doing are complete opposites. “Getting rid of fraud” while pillaging public coffers with huge conflicts of interest and corruption. “Efficiency” while cutting people illegally and indiscriminately, then paying them to come back and do nothing. It will take a long time to recover from this.
Right, which is why I said:
Some of the changes are good, and but many are just outright cronyism.
What I mean is that I can’t think of any changes at all that are good.
Here's a big one: cuts to Dept of Education. We've spent a ton on education since 2000 w/ nothing to show for it, while at the same time making college more expensive. I blame fed student loans on making college more expensive, because it increased ease of access to funding (thus increasing demand at colleges), without actually preparing kids for school better, so we ended up w/ tons of kids either dropping out or getting useless degrees and being saddled w/ debt they can't discharge in bankruptcy.
Trump isn't actually fixing the core of the issue though, he's just moving student loans to the Treasury. Ideally we'd completely end the program, increase Pell Grants a bit, and leave access to education to the states.
So then what is he doing here that is good?
Mostly signaling where the problems are. Ideally we'd be fixing issues with legislation, not EOs though.
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