Author:
Source: Washington Blog
Publication Date: May 10, 2015
Link: Americans Have Less National Pride than Yemenis, Mexicans, Libyans, Rwandans, Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Moroccans, Kazakhstanis, Tunisians, Qataris … and More than a Dozen Others
Stephan: This is why I am worried about my country. I have written extensively about the founding of the United States particularly the roles of George Mason and Benjamin Franklin, who is probably the only Founder who could suddenly appear in the 21st century, and easily adapt. I have spent a long time listening to their voices, through their correspondence and other writings, produced at a time when the physical act of writing a letter and posting it, was a non-trivial event. Or reading contemporaneous accounts of these events, and these men.
There can be no question: they did not all hold the same views or have the same values in some areas. But none of them anticipated or wanted the country we have become. Quite the opposite. And this disconnect between the public image we project, which is their vision, and the reality of who we really are, is creating an existential crisis. This report is fact-based. These poll figures, and click through the many links to see the data on which the report is based, describe our state of fugue.
The red arrow on the left of the chart marks the U.S. position.
Americans’ pride in our country is legendary … or at least it used to be.
The World Values Survey – a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life, led by an international team of scholars – finds that the percent of Americans who are “very proud” of the U.S. fell from 77% in 1999, to 71.1% in 2004, 62% in 2009 and only 56% today.
That puts Americans’ pride behind the national pride felt by the Yemenis, Mexicans, Libyans, Rwandans, Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Moroccans, Kazakhstanis, Tunisians, Qataris … and 13 other countries:
Another recent poll finds that Mexicans are now happier than Americans.
Other recent polls find that Americans believe that 75% of all politicians are “corrupted” by campaign donations and lobbyists, and 70% percent of politicians use their political power to help their friends and hurt […]
Well, I certainly agree with this. I do feel that most in congress are crooks. There was a fine quote buried in the comments…
“They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen.”— Huey Long, 1932
We do need a reasonable third party. A Founders party. A party for the rest of us who want the ideals of the founders brought back to the fore. Maybe call it the “Independence” Party.
Unfortunately, like the old Ten Years After tune, “I’d love to change the world…but I don’t know what to do.”
Thank you for the blog Stephan. I appreciate your work distilling all of this information…
Pete