What are the things you love and hate about your own country?

I love the first amendment. I can’t stand sometimes that there are no minimum qualifications and education for people to open their mouths.

I love our national park system in the US. If they could only get more funding…..

I hate the cast from The Jersey Shore. they do not represent. —(or do they? I live in the Midwest.not too sure about that)

I love that what we stand for is hard to live up to.

I hate that we rarely live up to it.

I love the ideals of the USA. All men are created equal, the right to pursue happiness, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, just to name a few. Unfortunately we sometimes fall short, but it is a good goal.

I also love how large my country is with various climates and topography. Mountains, prairies, oceans, lakes, tropical, desert, 4 seasons, something for every one.

I hate being poor can many times mean a person lives unsafely. For that matter I hate that so many people are poor.

I don’t like how poltics has become so divided among the two major parties. No one wants to compromise or listen to each other. Lobbyists have destroyed the system.

I love the diversity here. I hate the diversity can sometimes cause a lot of tension.

Love: The fact we’re this tiny little island that don’t take no shit, repel all borders ya scurvy dogs!!
Hate: The royal family & all it represents.

I love how social (not socialist!) and tolerant toward other cultures we used to be.

I hate that we used to be social and tolerant.

I love that groups like Occupy Wall Street (and even the Tea Party) can exist;
I hate how so few people can control so much.

@whitenoise Is your emphasis on the used to be? That it has changed is what you hate? Or, that the tolerance has allowed the country to change in a way you are not happy with?

@JLeslie I hate the fact that our country has lost its tolerance and is turning into a xenophobic country where everyone is scared to help and accept others. People seem to be feeling more and more entitled and less willing to share the burden of those who are lesser off. I realize I express my emotions, so sorry for the lack of subtle nuances which can be made without a doubt.
Edit: I am talking about my country as in ‘The Netherlands’, not where I live right now.

@whitenoise I see. That is a shame. I touched on a similar thought in my answer. I find the topic interesting, I might ask a question regarding it if I can formulate a decent one.

Australia is the best country in the world in my opinion. We are free to believe as we choose, and to do as we choose (within reason). We have a fantastic climate, and a relaxed attitude to life. We also are aware of the rest of the world, and don’t think we’re world policeman, unlike a particular large western nation (I’ll leave you to work out which one…..........)
On the negative side, we have an idiot as prime minister, the trade unions have way too much power, and our unique culture is being eroded by open slather immigration.

@Harold What does open slather immigration mean?

I love the framework of our government (US). The constitution is an amazing piece of political craftsmanship.

I love our system of higher education. We have so many amazing colleges and universities. They’re a real human treasure.

I hate the importance that money has assumed in our culture and our politics. We love our stuff too much.

I hate our arrogance and exceptionalism.

Love: Clothes, food, people, animals, tourism, northern areas, culture, architecture, mosques, EVERYTHING!
Hate: The fucked up politicians.

I love the beauty that the United States encompasses, the sea coasts, the national forests, the mountains, & even the deserts have a unique beauty all their own. I love the people that you meet when you travel across the US, they are endlessly interesting. I really hate a lot of our history, the genocide we inflicted upon the Native Americans, & the fact that our early history was based on slavery. I also hate that our government has been involved with questionable activities in other countries & I really distrust our government members who voted into existence the PATRIOT ACT & the Dept. of HomeLand Security. And I do not like it that the US gives every indication of becoming a Secret Police State with the increasingly militarized police forces in our cities which is then reflected in the brutal tactics used by these police forces. I hate it that our Constitutional Rights are being stripped away from us.

Love:
– the NHS (I’m self employed and just about earning enough to live comfortably, not least because I cut my coat to suit my cloth, but if I had to have medical insurance too, I would really struggle)
– the range of dialects within the same language – even from one village to the next
– that when I ate out at a restaurant on valentines, there were two teenage boys at the table next to me, very much into each other – I love that that is no longer considered unacceptable
– the BBC
– that even when times are tough, as a nation we still dig deep into our pockets for charitable causes, such as the recent Children in Need night

Hate:
– the price of fuel (I do a lot of driving, and £1.31 a litre, set to rise another 8 pence in the near future is taking most of my income)
– the general lack of discipline in schools feasible now
– that we have children in our country that are in need…..

I wish there were more freethinkers and less conformists since this in itself would make America a much better place to live for most of us. I’m referring to the people that vote (and maybe who don’t vote).

I love the USA because it has everything geologically, and that’s my thing. It’s so beautiful. ALL OF IT. Even Nevada and Kansas and Ohio. There are different little cultures all around and there’s so much history that I find fascinating….the gold rush, the building of the railroads, freeing of the slaves, Civil war stuff….it never gets old. But then, I’m easily entertained.

I hate it here because we have two options for every election and that is fucking stupid. And not enough people GET IT to change it. People hate weed but embrace alcohol. People love Walmart and hate cooking. Nobody goes on vacation or travels except to the same spot each year (these are generalizations, but where I’m from in PA, it applies to almost everyone)....people would rather spend their time in their parents basement watching a new dvd on their new flat screen tv that cost 800 dollars than putting 800 dollars towards a plane ticket to an exotic place and maybe actually learning something and living a little. I hate that we celebrate Columbus and most people still don’t understand what a dick he was and how much trouble he caused. I hate how so much revolves around OIL. I also hate how people are allowed to ride ATVs on beautiful sand dunes.

I hate how it’s normal for kids to rush off to college without ANY IDEA what they want to be. I wish people here would graduate, travel, then use their experiences to decide what they want to do for a living. Almost nobody does that, and when you tell someone that that’s what you’re doing, or that you’ve put college off for a bit, they look at you like you have 7 heads. But these are also the people who love Walmart and frozen meals.

I’m not into politics, so I don’t know the half of it. If I were more into politics, and less in my own little bubble, I’d probably already have moved. Except that it’s so beautiful here.

I pretty much go with whatever @harple said. To add to the loves, I love British humour.
To add to the hates, I’d say all of the abused people out there who aren’t getting the help they need.

Love The opportunity for individuals to reinvent themselves, that social class is not restricted to income.

Hate American sense of entitlement at home and when traveling abroad.

@deni Nicely put. Well said. Especially about the use of 800 bucks for a TV than a plane ticket or even a bus ticket!

@mazingerz88 Oh I could go on forever. It’s infuriating….ever since I moved I’ve been trying to convince all my friends to come out and visit me, ya know, whenever they have the time. “IT’S TOO EXPENSIVE, I CAN’T” is what they all see. Then I look at their pictures and they have a new x-box, and just bought a pure bred lab or some other obnoxious and immature waste of money. It’s been 2 years and aside from my family, only one friend has come out. Isn’t that unbelievable? And it’s Colorado, just about as gorgeous as it gets, but I suppose they will never know that. :)

I love the freedom.

I hate what some people choose to do with it.

Canada; I love Canada, can’t say that much negative stuff about it. However, I live in Québec, and I’m not a fan of how racist and xenophobic many of the people here are. I also lived in Winnipeg, a very different world. (but the Indians sure get treated like shit…maybe not so different after all)

France; I love the culture and the arts, but that leads in to what I hate; social hierarchy. I only lived there for six years of my life though, so wtf do I know. XD

What I hate about this country,
• The hypocrisy that gets applied to just about everything.
• The bastardizing of the Constitution.
• The only real votes you have is for the party of Twiddle Dee, or Twiddle Dumb.
• So many fat people complaining about food, when they eat enough in one sitting to keep 2.5 Ethiopian families fed for day and a half.
• The nations doesn’t understand biology over ideology when factoring adulthood.
• The nation legalizes abortion but not euthanasia (stupid)
• Torture is OK so long as it is on those people.
• About every aspect of US foreign policy
• The fact that the US is the boot lackey of Israel.
• The fact that the US is the Saudis bitch, but not to the point of pissing off their master Israel.
• Once you go into the system of corrections, you never really stop serving the sentence because you can’t get a decent job or housing setting you up to fail.
• People (way to many) are so misguided over corporal punishment they will let the butler have the keys to the mansion (let the kids dictate policy).
• Chuckleheads still walk around with their pants sagging half off their butt as if I want to see their nasty skid marks.
• There is no autobahn.
• That the US will spend billions keeping some puppet dictator in power while the many in the nation struggle and do without.
• No free education or health care for all.

What I do like,
• Is the physical county, the national parks are great.
• The money system, you have every opportunity to make wealth (be it easier foe some, but never impossible to all)
• The right to bear arms.
• Freedom of religion.

@JLeslie – we have very strict entry requirements for legal immigration, but you can just turn up on our shores in a boat and be allowed to stay. A illegal immigrant who committed a violent, unprovoked double murder of an innocent young couple has just been released from detention into the community. We have racial ghettos in Sydney where it is not safe for an Australian to walk the streets. I have no problem with immigration (my wife is an immigrant)- we just need to be more selective about who we let in.

@Harold Interesting. Anyone can float to your shore and get asylum basically? From any country? We have that Cuban immigrants, and probably a few other countries (I seem to remember we use to do it for the Chinese and Russia in the past. There would be no reason to do ot for Russia now I am thinking, maybe we still do it for China?). We have plenty of ghettos where it is not safe, that’s for sure, but I did not think of Australia as having much of that. Ironically isn’t part of Australia’s history the UK releasing a bunch of prisoners back in the day, which helped populate Australia? Not that it has anything to do with present day, I have no idea what the people in the past had been imprisoned for who were released to Australia.

@JLeslie – almost anybody, it seems. Some are put in detention for a while, but very few get sent back, it seems. The ghettos are largely in Sydney and Melbourne, as they are our two largest cities. I work next to one of the Sydney ones, so am very familiar with it. I don’t think many of us date back to convicts now- My maternal grandparents were free English settlers, and my father’s side were free settlers from Scotland in the 1850s. Many of the convicts did terrible things like stealing a piece of bread because they were starving…...............

@Harold I guess since your country is surrounded by water, there is probably less concern of people sneaking in? Immigration is the most difficult it seems when a third world country borders an industrialized one.

@JLeslie – I see your point, but a lot of coastline is difficult to patrol as well!

@Harold No doubt. We have the same problem here, especially in Florida. Cubans still float over a lot. But, it is a dangerous voyage, Cubans also die trying to reach the American shore. We have many more problems with people running accross our border with Mexico. My geography is not good enough to know what countries are likely to have people desperate to leave their countries that are in floating distance of yours. For us, Cuba is only 90 miles from the US southern most point, although their trek is usually a little longer than that usually drifting in north of our southern most islands off our coast. It all depends on the current.

@JLeslie – We have people smugglers based in Indonesia, who pick up refugees and drop them on our shores for a price. Most come from Sri Lanka or Pakistan or Afghanistan originally, but have found their way to Indonesia somehow. I am sure your border with Mexico is a problem, though.

@Harold Are you saying they stow aboard on an Indonesian ship for a fee, and then they drop them in the water just off shore? I wonder if that happens in the states? It must I guess. I don’t here about that sort of thing much, but possily it is more likely on the Pacific coast from Asia? Not sure. Believe it or not a lot ofnthat sortof thing is reported locally, and not picked up by the national news. People in our northern states would not likely have any idea how often Cubans come to sure in Florida, unless they are specifically interested in it and keep track of such things.

@JLeslie – Not quite. The people smugglers have specific boats, which are largely old and unseaworthy, and they overcrowd them with paying passengers, and then deliberately sail into our waters, where they know that the navy will pick them up. Some of them don’t make it, and somehow it is construed as being the fault of Australia that these people drown. One boat a few years ago was doused in fuel and set alight by the “refugees” on board when they found out that they would be put in custody. Several navy officers were hurt in that incident.

We all know about it, because it is a political hot potato at the moment.

@Harold Wow, settng the boat on fire, creative. In America they have to reach our shore, being in our water does not count for asylum, we send them back. Altough, a few years ago they were talking about changing the rule to a certain amount of feet off shore, something like that, not sure what the actual law is now if it has been altered slightly. There also is a big to do about Haitians not getting aslym in America, but Cubans do. Both come into FL in large numbers. People suggest it is racial, because the Haitians are black, but Cuba’s history with us for politcial asylum has a very specific history and reason. Still, the Haitians live in horrid conditions of poverty and a basically non-existent government as you probably know, so I think we probably do more for them. People who come in illegally to our country typical come in either smuggled through or running through the Mexican border, or come in on tourist or student visas and then never go back home when the visa expires.

@JLeslie People who come in illegally to our country typical come in either smuggled through or running through the Mexican border, or come in on tourist or student visas and then never go back home when the visa expires. It seem the media always gloss over that fact. Every now and then, they remind us of the people who come in by way of container ship. Those who come on work or student visa and never go back are never made the bane of society, or accused or stealing American jobs, they ARE working somewhere.

@Hypocrisy_Central I think most people are annoyed with gang activity, which is not typically found among the college educated. People who come in on tourist visas are usually adults already, and probably statistically not likely to be doing any illegal activities. I grew up in the DC area, a place that is so very diverse, and the only racist comments I hear is really about the crime related activity, not weather they are illegal or not. Doesn’t matter what political party, no one wants that crap going on in their neighborhood. If they are illegal, throw them out of the country I say. We can’t strip a citizen of his citizenship, even if he is a violent criminal, but we can deport illegal immigrants, I say do it. I also say give papers to those who are here, and aren’t going anywhere, who work hard every day. But, the business owners, and in turn the government, want to keep the system as it is, in my opinion, because they could easily round more people up and they don’t.

There are Americans who just hate new immigrants period, what can I say, legal and illegal. They are bigots, ignorant to their own history (unless they are Native American and have been here since before the Europeans) and need to blame others for their own troubles. These same people hate blacks who were likely brought here by the families of the racists themselves in an ironic twist.