What do we, in the U.S., get RIGHT and WRONG?

What country are we talking about here?

@chels
Sorry about that. I’ve edited my question. Thanks for asking.

Not using the metric system. That’s just plain wrong, and forces everyone to learn a bizarre barely-standardized series of measurements that nobody else uses.

Wrong, wrong wrong.

Right : Patriotism
Wrong : Eating habits.

I realise of course a large portion of generalisation has just been served, something to bear in mind no doubt.

Right: Shopping malls.
Right: amusement parks.
Right: entertainment.

Wrong: Health care for all citizens
Wrong: infrastructure. Do we really need to have construction active on the same road for ten years? Could we pick up the pace a LITTLE?
Wrong: Imperial measurement.
Wrong: substance control laws and enforcement.
Wrong: FEMA

Right:
• Freedom of speech
• Representative democracy
• Music
• Computer tech
• Progressivism

Wrong:
• Imperialism
• Free-market worship (often tied into imperialism)
• Racism (though, getting better)
• Acceptability of violence to affect political change, from the revolutionary war to continued worship of Southern Civil War figures like Robert E. Lee, to our violent interventionist foreign policy in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan
• Whitewashing our history of genocide (“Manifest Destiny,” which was every bit as appalling as Nazism)

@Qingu I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean by free-market worship. Would you explain?

Right-Epic movies.

Wrong-MacDonald’s.

@MissA, I mean the idea that the market can take care of itself (i.e. that “government is the problem,” as Reagan said), that the market left to its own devices provides the best possible service, that any problems caused by companies/products will be ironed out because consumers are rational and will choose better companies/products.

Whereas, in reality, the market left to its own devices has a tendency for monopolization and fails to account for externalities (such as pollution), and consumers are rarely rational.

Wrong:
– Health Care
– Lack of Religious Freedoms
– Native American History
– Capitalism (to this extreme)
– Maternity/Paternity Leave – Family Rights
– Breastfeeding Laws (two states still don’t support nursing in public, but you can smoke in public?)

Right:
– The freedom to state what we believe is wrong. That’s pretty big in my book.

@Qingu Thank you. For some reason I hadn’t tied “the market” to worship. You make valid points, for sure.

@RedPowerLady What do you mean when you say “Lack of Religious Freedoms”? I was under the impression that the US is pretty well at the head of the pack on that one. What am I missing?

Right:
Freedom of speech
Women’s rights (though we still have a ways to go… equal pay would certainly be nice)
Representative democracy

Wrong:
Lack of focus on family issues (day care, paternity/maternity leave, etc)
Lack of universal health care
Policing the world / war
Lack of equal rights for homosexuals