Top 10 Things Wrong with the United States
When people think of the United States, many ideas might come to mind: freedom, innovation, diversity. But beneath the surface, there are issues that people from all walks of life feel deserve attention. If you've ever found yourself frustrated by the state of politics, society, or culture here, you're not alone. There's a reason so many have strong opinions on what's wrong with the U.S. - and it's not just about what's happening in Washington.This list is a collection of concerns, reflecting frustrations with everything from inequality and corruption to the culture shifts that leave some feeling like the country is losing its way. These issues range widely in scope - some are systemic and long-standing, while others may seem like recent developments tied to changing times.
I am an American, and I am ashamed to live in this country. There is so much ridicule over things that we have no control over. We cannot decide the color of a person's skin, so why does everyone feel the need to discriminate? Everyone on this earth is equal. Just because you're white doesn't mean you're better than anyone else, and just because you're black doesn't mean you're worth less than anyone else.
Things that have happened in the past are still affecting this world, and it's not in a positive way. We should be using our history and learning from it, not continuing to wrongfully discriminate against our own people. I can't believe that in 2016, we are still fighting this fight. Sure, things have gotten better from where they started, but come on, what is the point of all this?
Each person on this planet has a life just as complicated as your own. Everyone has their own problems to deal with. This is a problem that could so easily be put to rest, but there are ignorant people who think they are better than others, and it's ridiculous. It's 2016. We're all equal. It's time we start acting like it.
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, television personality, politician, and the 45th President of the United States.Born and raised in Queens, New York City, Donald J. Trump received an economics degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania... read more
This is one of the tweets Donald Trump made:
The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!
Hey Trump, do you know why the USA gave Pakistan so much money? It's because Americans are much better than you! I thought America was bad, until I read this tweet. Now, I truly know that America isn't a bad country after all, you big loser!
We've been waging illegal wars on countries since 1950. Do you think it's time we stopped? Drone strikes, bombings, the killing of innocent people in other countries who never did one thing to harm the United States? It's wrong!
I'm sick and tired of this country being at war and sticking its nose in other people's business. America is a danger and a threat to every country on this planet.
We have 5% of the world's population but 60% of the world's mass shootings.
More semi-automatics in the streets are not the solution to this problem. Our founding fathers believed we had a right to bear arms, not weapons of mass murder.
It will always exist, whether people like it or not.
Yeah. White people are trashed on in America too much.
It does not make sense to tax the poor.
We pay taxes for many reasons, and the most noble reason is to lift up those less fortunate than ourselves. As an American, I just want to ensure we are helping the poor in an efficient and effective manner.
This should be upside down, the opposite way. We must stop this. Rich men are being bad to poor men.
I agree, there are too many taxes for poorer people. I live in the United States, and it's just falling apart. I'm moving to England in a month. It's a much better country and the best place to live.
I think the root of all the problems is capitalism. Everyone is money-hungry. The American way of life revolves around money. It's designed that way by the families who run the country. There is no democracy in the States. It's all a smoke screen. The leaders are already picked beforehand. If it were a true democratic election, you would have more than just two people in the final running.
Why is it always just two parties, Democratic or Republican? Capitalism is slavery. The rich get richer off the backs of the working-class people. The people are struggling to get by and resort to desperation to put food on the table. People are thrown in jail and their voting rights taken away while the prison system profits from incarcerating the people.
You need to take your country back from the hands of the corporations before they take all power away from the people. Start taking care of each other rather than fighting one another. Love your neighbor. Pay no attention to differences in race, color, or creed. We are all brothers and sisters. We all bleed the same blood.
We all feel and hurt the same. We all have families that we care about. We are all human. We all have goodness inside of us. We need to feed that goodness with more love so it will grow. It will grow so big it will overcome all the hate in this world.
We need to go back to the roots that made America so great from the beginning. A lot of these values are admired by other countries, but lately, we have lost our way. We need to come back to those core values to make America great again.
Ever seen The Purge? That's what every day would be like if there was no government.
One need not look further than the US corporate boardroom to see the issue. Just start counting the number of women sitting around the table. Not only are the numbers dismal, but they tell a dismal story.
It's a story of corporate billionaires, bankruptcies, legal staffs, and their billionaire families. Sounds like something all of us can relate to, right?
Women are still just used for being sexualized in the media, and there are also feminazis everywhere who claim they want equality but really want female supremacy.
It goes both ways.
100% agreement on hip hop/rap. It often consists of simplistic music with uninsightful, dumbed-down lyrics, originating from the less admirable parts of black culture. However, it is misrepresented as "black music." If you point out how simplistic, harmful, and juvenile it is, people may label you as racist.
In contrast, real black music has influenced all genres of music, including Blues, R&B, Soul, Jazz, and even Rock, which are equally black in their origins. Choosing artists like Eazy-E, Lil Wayne, Kanye, or even Tupac as "voices of black people in music" over Marvin Gaye, Muddy Waters, Al Green, Prince, or Jimi Hendrix is indicative of a larger problem. It promotes the glorification of negative aspects of the black community.
Political Correctness is a dangerous practice that weakens America because it effectively acts as a new, advanced form of censorship. America was founded on the bedrock of freedom of expression, and the proponents (liberals) of Political Correctness have developed a practice that targets and punishes those who express opposing viewpoints.
The Constitution guarantees us protection from arrest and imprisonment with the Right to Free Speech, but the method of punishment used to suppress citizens' expression of a differing opinion is moot. All that matters is whether it's effective or not. Presently in America, people are afraid to openly express their honest beliefs out of fear of reprisal. The reprisal may no longer be arrest, torture, or capital punishment as was the case centuries ago. However, suppression out of fear of public shaming is an equally effective tool to threaten the disgruntled citizen with, to keep them from voicing their true opinion.
The Newcomers
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from... read more
Sexist indeed - only men get drafted. Also, there are some people who don't want to protect our country.
As a country so concerned about healthcare, one would think our focus might be on the obesity issue. True, we are not leading in numbers anymore, but I think we are third.
In my philosophy class, we proposed an idea: in order to motivate people to become healthier, make fatty foods more expensive. If you wish to order a pizza, it will cost the price plus however much you are overweight.
But that's not a real solution. Let's face it, Americans would lose it. But America, you are not looking good in terms of weight. And don't say it's stereotypical because it's a fact. We are the third most overweight country.
I feel as if some people don't understand what this means. The children of the new generation, Generation Z, have started to grow up very differently than the past generations.
There is more crime than ever, and with issues such as mass shootings increasing in the United States, there is also a lot of danger that Gen Z was thrown into, with little to no guidance. So, yes, I'd say at least a large portion of today's youth are troubled, and that will be an issue for the future of our country. Thank you.
While I don't like Trump at all because I feel he is tearing America apart instead of bringing us together, I also could not vote for Clinton because I know how corrupt she was - I worked on Whitewater.
My question has always been, with 323 million people in America, were those two the best we had?
Idiots... idiots everywhere. Just happy I am in Canada.
Don't even bring this up. That was one fest too many.
Our current economy is in shambles. George Barlow poses the question, "What is wrong with America?" He states, "Americans can tell something is wrong, but they can't put their finger on what the problem is." He answers, "Our country was once a leader in productive manufacturing, but now we have been relegated to a 'service economy' where we make nothing of value."
Our current economic state is an utterly terrifying prospect. That's why we keep on ignoring it. As seen in the government shutdown, we only keep raising the debt ceiling, pushing the problem onto the next generation. We must do something now to stop the debt from piling up.
When we engage in diplomacy during wars such as in Iraq or Afghanistan, we should consider the broader implications, including our post-war relationships and what we gain from them. In Iraq, we gained absolutely nothing except death and sad stories. To be frank, I cannot believe we even intervened to start it! Since we had gone, we should have at least taken the oil that was there and set up a stable government. We should have used our eleven aircraft carriers and a bit less than half of our military during the war. We weren't very committed to it, as it seems. We changed nothing and have only worsened the situation and how everyone views us. We need a strong leader to make the right decisions in the future.
The only reason why we aren't in Greece's situation is that we are a "Super-Power." We have lost almost all of our hegemonic influence, and we are struggling to keep hold of what we have. To reiterate, we need a good leader to take us out of debt and to act intelligently when we enter wars and diplomatic messes.
We as a country need to do better in almost every aspect I can think of. I am fourteen years old, and from what I can understand, we are a collapsing country. If we continue down our current path, countries such as China and India may soon become the new economic and military powers of the world. We can do better than this. We just need a better leader and a good chance to show ourselves that we can persevere, even though right now we are seemingly in duress.
I've been homeschooled almost all my life and am more and more baffled by American educational standards each day. I much prefer British English over American, and American government education continues to push mostly unneeded subjects, like algebra and quantum physics, on students that might never need them.
This is done in a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter environment of animalistic herd mentality. Additionally, there are plenty of school shootings and gun crime everywhere, and student loan debt because all the jobs are outsourced.
Not to mention, the people FEAR the government. It needs to be the other way around!
When the government fears the people, then America will have true freedom.
Do you think that's just in the United States? I don't know a single country that isn't that way.
The government gives money to the rich and none to those who need it!
The problem isn't "liberals." It's progressive fools, which is what I think the original poster means.
While the racist left-wingers slinging slurs at white Americans keep their posts at universities, disaffected moderates and proper liberals are driven to the far right. The rise of Donald Trump and the Alt-Right has been a direct effect of the regressiveness of the modern "progressive left," with their war on free thought and Enlightenment principles, as true liberals move to sections of the political spectrum that do not censor.
The modern movements of BLM and Third-Wave feminism have disaffected moderates and liberals on both the left and right. Donald Trump and partisan politics are the backlash.
Um, other countries have done this. North Korea, Nazi Germany, etc.
Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other countries have this problem too.
They have control of the Republican Party and are disgraces to their own religious faith. Plus, they want to wind religion back a few hundred years or so and drag the rest of the world with it.
Their ideologies impede social progress because of the religious right's desire to control everything around them in a way that Jesus would be totally and utterly disgusted at.
Religion and patriotism are two of the biggest issues in the USA. They contribute to many of the problems listed here by turning people into ignorant "sheeple" who are incapable of thinking for themselves.
Many just wait for their priest, president, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, or some other right-wing figure to tell them what to think and which group of minorities to hate next.
I mean, really, go play Scooby Doo or something. Jeez, let the big kids have their fun. Go to the park and be a kid for a day.
So true. It always bugs me.
I don't think they should even be playing big, violent games like Call of Duty, which they think they are good at. Like seriously, get out of here and go play some Paw Patrol.
Mainly in Call of Duty, but yeah.
Lobbyists are no more than legalized bribers. Not only should the lobbyists go to jail for influencing the politicians, but the politicians should also go to jail for taking the bribes and not listening to their constituents.
Lobbying is probably the thing that destroyed America in the first place.
You don't need to spend so much money on the military, America. The world is advancing, and fewer wars are happening.
And the advancing part doesn't apply to you, America.
Let the world figure out solutions to their own problems. The Middle East and East will never be America, and be fine with that conclusion.
They claim they are better than everybody else. I may be American myself, but...
Many Americans think they're the only relevant country on the planet and have somehow managed to saturate every single thing. It's irritating since I feel like Americanization is shoved down my throat. To make things worse, many of them also believe that the only other place out there is Europe. That's completely insulting considering that there are a number of countries attached to the North American continent alone. Of course, the majority of Americans do not know that.
They are a propaganda machine that fuels the idea that they are the greatest and most relevant, all the while portraying many other countries in a negative light. I'm horrified at how my country is portrayed in American media, especially when we're really not that far away from them.