Can you name an "American" value?

No. It’s just nonsensical ramblings for people enjoy a good myth. I am not even sure what it could possibly even mean? Genocide of the native population? Slavery? Anti-communist hysteria? Military power?

Seems to be designed as a way of demonizing people who disagree with you. The mere existence of the term “anti-American” should be a sign that things aren’t well in the critical thinking department.

Fidelity. pfffft

Shooting & shit, the right to “teddy bear” arms.

War, wrath, greed, gluttony, torture, misogyny, xenophobia, nationalism, national chauvinism, imperialism, social darwinism and racism.

I can’t think of any that are exclusively American and the values Americans rate most highly are the ones they have lost.

We’re number oneism.

~

Greed Entrepreneurship, Capitalism

Five dollar, love you long time.

Cynics.

Do unto others before they do unto you.

I was,(about ten minuets ago) thinking about how we value people in this country based on their physical beauty and their financial success. Many of the people who have those things have some sort of superiority complex about it. The idea that a person is superior because they make more money, or because their body and features are symmetrical is pretty ludicrous when you really think about it.
I makes me saddest that the people who seem to espouse the value of financial success the most seem to be evangelical Christians and that is so contrary to Jesus’ mission.

Fast Food-ism

Freedom of opportunity. Free enterprise. The freedom to own property and start a company and keep some of the money you make. The American eagle symbolises this.

Opportunity. Wide open space with land you can take over and do whatever you want with. This is a lie, since we can’t do what we want now that we have so many neighbors who don’t like dogs barking all day or something.

A value is anything that you expend some of your finite energy and limited lifetime to gain or hang onto. The American Founders reasoned the the most fundamental values were individual life, and individual liberty, and that the fundamental virtue is the pursuit of happiness. These they regarded as Universal, so I suppose they would not be uniquely American. But Americans certainly, and most other Westerners, seem to be more tuned in to these values than some other peoples.

Americans as a group also seem to value mindless consumption which may or may not be what the Founders had in mind.

Innovation

An American values Freedom above all else, Family, God, Country. Read the Constitution, it pretty much lists the values our forefathers prized.

What makes it American? Well our ancestors, all of us, came from other countries to a wilderness and tamed it (good or bad) and made new lives where we could worship, marry and live as we wanted. We have strayed from those values by imposing govt on others (ie: Obama imo) rather than allowing the people of each state to decide what rules we want to live by.

Colorado is a good example. They are breaking Federal law by legalizing (State) marijuana for medical puposes, and are trying to pass recreational use and be the ‘test’ for the Nation. The Federal govt says they have bigger fish to fry and are leaving them alone.

It’s kind of a cool reminder of what America is about, for the people by the people.

Growing up in the 60’s I was taught that our values included diversity, tolerance, synergy, and community. Those pretty much gave way to self sufficiency and rugged individualism in the ‘80’s

In general terms, the kind of values that encourage and enable a site such as this to be developed and to thrive. Volunteerism. Individual accountability. Responsibility. Entrepreneurism. Equality before the law.

Which is not to say – as I agree with @josie – that these are not values that are held and desired by many others in the world, but those values are (or at least “have been”) specifically and directly encouraged in this country.

As always when people congregate and form exclusive groups of one kind or another – including countries – nationalism, jingoism and chauvinism are traits to beware of. But those traits are more or less universal human traits, and not at all restricted to the USA.

So it irks me when an obviously anti-American, flip, sarcastic and not-really-responsive answer is (so far) the most popular response to the question, but I’m an American, so I have to defend the right of the speaker – however misinformed or misanthropic – to have her say. That’s an American value, too.

I think what the values are supposed to be is each person being able to be an individual and make their own way free of family name and social class. Each person gets to make their own way, if they work hard they can climb the social ladder, judged on merit. I think this is what American freedom is, and freedom is a big value of ours. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That all men are created equal. This the ideal in my mind of what American values should be, but of course America does not always live up to that.

When America was first created we were rather unique. Other countries had religious rule or royalty rule, or a combinations of both. Other countries were not full of immigrants from many different places, but we were a country of immigrants, in a way creating a new concept. Other parts of the Americas also had a lot of immigration, but they did not have separation of church and state in the way we did. Since the beginnings of America, other countries now have had many changes in government, changes in immigration, changes in religious and racial make-up, changes in social strata, and so America is no longer unique as it was 200 years ago.

International regime change. The US has quite a tradition of deciding who other governments are.

Anti-intellectualism and overconsumption.

“Liberty and Justice for all” comes to mind.

Generosity. Americans give, whether it’s aid to a country in need, or money for some stranger’s surgery, our wallets open.

What our values are supposed to be (liberty and justice for all, for instance) are not what they really are, sadly.

@augustlan I dunno, we’re doing a pretty good job considering how screwed up everything is.

Justice for all, my ass. Not if there aren’t gay and lesbian rights.

Agreed, Mama C, great point!!!

@Mama_Cakes Agreed!

@Nullo White men probably felt exactly that way when black people and women didn’t have rights. Guess it depends on your perspective, and your sense of who “all” means. For me, all means ALL.

@Mama_Cakes They have the exact same rights as everybody else. You’re looking for special rights.
I think @Savoir_Faire has a lecture on the difference between civil rights and inalienable rights, and either he or somebody else bothered to point out that not all civil rights are right.

@Nullo care to expand on why you believe these are special rights?

Yes, @Nullo, please do.

@Nullo, not the right to survivorship, not the right to tax free insurance for a spouse, in many places not the right to adopt, not the right to joint tax returns….

@Nullo That is utter bullshit.

@rojo @Mama_Cakes Rights that treat some differently than others.
@Judi The right to marry a person of the opposite sex, the right to make other arrrangements…
@augustlan I love you too.

@Nullo You know I do love you. It’s your beliefs I dislike. :)