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Comment by y33t | Hacker News Reader

There's the idealized America that we learn about in school, then there's America as it is.

I guess ideals are a nice tool to compare something against to measure something's relative value. But they can also be used as a whitewash. Maybe the difference is how engaged an informed citizen body is with the government.

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Ideal or not, it's propaganda. We're lead to believe only other countries use propaganda to control their citizens, shield them from truths, and paint foreign countries as "lesser than" or, worse "the enemy". All the while, we're doing the same thing. Maybe I've had the wool pulled over my eyes my first 4 1/2 decades, but it seems pretty clear now.

They don’t pay teachers enough to challenge the norm and deal with the fallout. Whether that’s by design or not… probably? The idea here being to incentivize teachers to do the bare minimum.

Teachers are expected to teach the norm. Or at least somewhat within a range of it.

It’s literally their job.

Exactly government controlled and mandated education = you will be "appropriately" indoctrinated with framing assumptions while being educated. State schooling = statist schooling.

If you give after the fact, its a "Gratuity" and allowed.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop...

> There's the idealized America that we learn about in school, then there's America as it is.

I strongly dislike this take.

There is the idealized America that we wish America was, and there is an entire continuum from that point all the way to "no functioning state at all Mad Max hellhole". Treating all points that are not exactly at "idealized America" as equivalent discards a massive amount of nuance and effectively makes it impossible to advocate for incremental change.

Yes, America is not perfect. But that doesn't mean that the America we had before Trump's massive corruption is identical to the American we have today.

> Treating all points that are not exactly at "idealized America" as equivalent

> that doesn't mean that the America we had before Trump's massive corruption is identical to the American we have today.

I don't know how you got that out of my post.

To be fair, taking bribes for your presidential library has been apart of American politics for a while. Also, sorry, I forgot we don't call it "bribing" anymore, it's called "lobbying" now ;)

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/shining-a-light-on-...

(also I absolutely love your interpreter book - you single-handedly got me a perfect score for my bachelor thesis, sorry had to sneak this in)

you only need the "lobby" cover for levels under president. you can note how the meta donation doesn't have to be called as such.

> "no functioning state at all Mad Max hellhole"

This is exactly the track we're on, if you hadn't noticed the last week. The train has left the station. We likely are arriving a lot sooner than you may think.

America rides eternal, shiny and chrome!

For the past 40 years one party in particular has lectured me about how they are the ones who instill the values of this idealized America you mention, how they are the ones who are the real patriots, and how they only can interpret what the founding fathers intended.

From this post I'm not sure which of two parties is the one.

Are you joking? Democrats cannot resist pointing out that the founding fathers owned slaves, while the GOP basically treats them as saints.

It’s not called the American Dream for nothing

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