Much like Jesus would not recognise his "followers", Cap would not recognise the "america" he was fighting for...
Considering he went to war in the 40s, I think he would recognize this America. For all of our flaws, we're doing better now than we were then.
Like he said - he fought not because America is great, but because it is fragile. America is not some shining precious jewel, it's a deeply flawed creature - the only thing that marks it as worth saving is the ideal that all people are equal. The further we get from that, the closer we come to being nothing more than trash and a rag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiorello_La_Guardia
New York City in the 1930s was full of Socialists and Communists.
Much of the 1950s Red Scare was set up to punish the 'premature anti-fascists' who a young Steve Rogers would have listened to.
For all of our flaws, we’re doing better now than we were then.
Really? How many Palestinians were the US helping to murder back in the 40s? How many Afghans? How many Iraqis?
Or are you just happy that the people being murdered happen to be brown people and not ones you think should be included in the "white enough" club?
I agree with your statements on ideals, but I do not think America was on the precipice of becoming a fascist dictatorship in the 40s.
You might be surprised, there were a lot of pro nazi Americans. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed what might have been a quiet agreement with the new reich
But in that fragility, he understood that we were only as strong as our weakest link
It may be my ignorance, but the history of the USA i know starts with the massacre of indigenous people, then goes to the massacre of black people, then the massacre of mexicans, the massacre of communists, then the massacre of vietnamese ppl, then iraqs and afhgans, and so on. Where is the part that inspires the idea that the USA has such great values?
You left out a bit. We also fought the British, and the Confederacy, and the Spanish, and the Kaiser, and the Nazis, and Imperial Japan.
America's history is complicated, and full of atrocities, like the history of nearly every major nation.
The values he's referring to in the comic are the core principles espoused in the founding documents. The idea of one nation with liberty and justice for all. At no point in history have those ideas been fully realized, but striving to meet those ideals is what America means to the Captain, not some borders on a map or colors on a flag.
But they were founded on the idea of the liberty of men... as long as they are white, protestant, male land-owners...
...which was remarkably liberal for its time.
Not really that liberal, compared to what the people they colonized were doing, before the europeans arrived.
You are correct, actually. Not sure why you are downvoted. Several traditional tribal government structures of indigenous peoples were much more democratic in form.
However, besides the Iroquois Confederacy, it's hard to consider them as being sufficiently organised to be considered a state in the traditional sense. This isn't meant to exclude all indigenous governments; the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca civilisations were all examples of (non-democratic) highly organised states, especially in comparison to the North American tribes around and after European contact.
Dang. This is a real Captain America from a "What If?" Published in 1983. "What if Captain America was thawed out today (1983)?"
Please save us, Cap. Oh wait, I guess now Disney owns you, too.
Cap got so disillusioned by Watergate that he changed his name to Nomad for a while.
Damn. I haven't heard anyone pushing cap that hard this time around, I wonder what the modern version would look like these days
If he saw what politics and patriotism have become now, he would probably just start drinking. Like everyone else.
Sounds like pinko commie talk. Am I right?
The business coup plot in the 1930s almost succeeded for a reason. There are... unsavory elements in the American political apparatus.
He didn't say women. /s
Remember when Nixon made him so hopping mad he quit and took on the mantle of Nomad over it? Pepperidge farm remembers.
I'm pretty convinced all the craziness with hydra cap and old cap was just the writers trying to dodge the backlash of having Steve Rogers be the cap that made all the political statements that Sam Wilson did as cap during that stretch that happened to line up somewhat with the Trump Presidency.
Oh look... American Exceptionalism and American Innocence all rolled up into one ubermensch-style Objectivist "super hero" character.
History teaches us what US "ideals" truly are and always have been - and all the "soft power" the US can conjure won't be able to paint over it ever again.
"Objectivism is when an antifascist nazi-killer says that a nation which fails to embody ideals of equality is trash."
If objectivism was how you describe it I'd be an objectivist.
"American exceptionalism is when you think that America, a country founded on a handful of documents, relates to the ideals expressed in those documents."
I’ll offer a cautionary note on that take. We really need to meet our heroes, in this case our founding fathers, and frame their words and mindset in the time they said what they did. Those “ideals” revolved around landed white males and not the sugar-coated “I can not tell a lie” history we got in 4th grade.
Those ideals are largely enlightenment-era ideals which still resonate today.
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent & respectable Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights & previleges, if by decency & propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?—Pharisaical Britain! to pride thyself in setting free a single Slave that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many hundreds of thousands are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity!
It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.
The origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled; and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent?
The Founding Fathers were deeply imperfect men who were, in many ways, products of their time. But as far as ideals and not specific policy positions go, they're worth the naming.
Again, you are framing their words in your mind today and ignoring the context they were written. For instance, “all men are created equal” was intended to give all white males a shot at “equality” in reference to hereditary white aristocracy, not people of other colors. We have revised that to mean literally everyone.
You offer up quotes to prove how great they were but in the next breath say they were flawed while using those quotes as a rebuttal to my statement pointing out that these men were flawed.
Pick one.
Please read about these people, not just the polished historical deep-dives that go soft on their flaws to give the books a veneer of honest and complete truth while extolling their virtues as Great Founding Fathers. They were humans of their time and station.
Again, you are framing their words in your mind today and ignoring the context they were written. For instance, “all men are created equal” was intended to give all white males a shot at “equality” in reference to hereditary white aristocracy, not people of other colors. We have revised that to mean literally everyone.
How many quotes of the Founding Fathers would it take for you to admit that there were a non-negligible number of them who believed in the Enlightenment ideals that were expressed in our founding documents? 5? 10? 100? Perhaps there is no number sufficient, and your mind is made up regardless of evidence. If that's the case, it would be very helpful for you to state as much now.
You offer up quotes to prove how great they were but in the next breath say they were flawed while using those quotes as a rebuttal to my statement pointing out that these men were flawed.
Men can be great and flawed. Men can champion great ideals and be flawed. I don't know why that's so troubling to you?
Please read about these people,
Jesus, fuck. You think I haven't?
The problem here is you’re fighting a battle that doesn’t need to be fought. Nobody here is contesting the effect they had on the formation of this country, yet for some reason you want to argue that point.
My point is that they were flawed, and that we have revised some of their motives and framing to suit both grade-school level and adult levels of patriotism and worship of the people at the helm of the country’s beginnings. People don’t want to hear that, and it sounds like you’re in the same boat. I’m sorry if that’s something you’ve decided you don’t want to discuss but would rather hyper focus on their successes like some kind of founding father Facebook page. You’re making this argument about your views. It was never about you. If you’ve read everything, good for you. Move on.
Feel free to pile on some quotes if it helps you look the other way.
Edit: welp. People like their sugar-coated history. Too bad. It’s amazing how far we’ve come and adapted over time to make things better for everyone rather than “just white males get to vote”; but nobody wants to hear about why we started out that way when a bunch of white males wrote the rules?
Nobody here is contesting the effect they had on the formation of this country, yet for some reason you want to argue that point.
No, the point I'm arguing is against you here:
Those “ideals” revolved around landed white males
Feel free to pile on some quotes if it helps you look the other way.
Sorry that actual primary source evidence doesn't mean anything to you?
“By saying all men were "created equal" Thomas Jefferson intended to abolish the system of hereditary aristocracy, where some individuals were born as lords and others were ordinary.”
Ok. Landed white male aristocracy.
Then there was black people not getting to vote.
Women couldn’t vote.
If you didn’t have enough property you couldn’t vote.
Native Americans weren’t citizens until the 1900s. Don’t forget the awful treatment and suffering they received at the hands of Jackson.
Let’s not bother discussing how long many of the founders owned slaves, despite their “enlightenment”, and how long it took them to free them. If they did.
That’s just off the top of my head. Sure seems like landed white males were still top of the heap as far as the founders went.
E: that’s framing for you. A bunch of (often rich) white guys wrote the rules for white males to still be in charge. Enlightened or not, that’s how the country started. We have improved on their work in many ways, but as I stated originally, we need to take the shiny veneer off and look at who they were and what they really did. None of this is untrue.
“By saying all men were “created equal” Thomas Jefferson intended to abolish the system of hereditary aristocracy, where some individuals were born as lords and others were ordinary.”
Ok. Landed white male aristocracy.
Jefferson also believed in a 100% inheritance tax, so I'm pretty sure you can remove 'landed' and 'aristocracy' from the ideals intended there.
Then there was black people not getting to vote.
Each state set its own requirements for voting, and several Founding Fathers were advocates for total legal equality.
Women couldn’t vote.
This is undeniably true. None of the Founding Fathers were feminists.
If you didn’t have enough property you couldn’t vote.
Each state set its own requirements for voting, and a number of states had no property requirements.
Native Americans weren’t citizens until the 1900s. Don’t forget the awful treatment and suffering they received at the hands of Jackson.
Genocide Jackson wasn't a Founding Father. Citizenship was not automatic for Native Americans until the 1900s due to the strange state of semisovereignity most Native American tribes have.
Let’s not bother discussing how long many of the founders owned slaves, despite their “enlightenment”, and how long it took them to free them. If they did.
Yes, let's not forget the terrible slaver John Jay, who founded the foremost abolitionist movement in the US at the time, or Franklin, who advocated for total integration of white and black populations, or Hamilton, who was instrumental in New York adopting a hard abolitionist stance.
Cherry pick much? You picked exceptions while ignoring the rest. At no point did I use absolutes like “all” founders were idiots or something. Yet you cherry pick and suggest that invalidates my points. Good grief.
Whatever. I’m done. I stand by my point: understand the founders in their time, understand their flaws, understand that we have polished their images while ignoring flaws and context to make them heroic. They were humans. That’s all.
Cherry pick much? You picked exceptions while ignoring the rest. At no point did I use absolutes like “all” founders were idiots or something. Yet you cherry pick and suggest that invalidates my points. Good grief.
I'm sorry for contesting your points with the facts of the matter and pointing out that the literal majority of the Founding Fathers don't fit your claim.
Whatever. I’m done. I stand by my point: understand the founders in their time, understand their flaws, understand that we have polished their images while ignoring flaws and context to make them heroic. They were humans. That’s all.
Yes, they were flawed and human. Flawed and human advocates for Enlightenment-era ideals which are very far from the "White Male Landowning Aristocracy" idea that you accused their ideals of being founded on.
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