> Both things are in most cases essentially the same
Lol, no. Not at all.
A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future.
A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
> you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people
I don't love to generalize - but it isn't untrue, and I didn't pretend not to be generalizing. I could point at any number of statistics to back that up, but here's the main one: 98% of American voters decided arming genocide wasn't a red line.
> So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid,
Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
> Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems.
I speak as someone who has traveled and lived in both. And America's racism and social problems are on a different level. I never claimed Europe or anywhere else was perfect; just that America is exceptional. And it is.
> feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line. "Israel!" ... Ok, that one was too easy. Name one other.
> it also ... at least until the current orangutan came to power ... has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Lol. I don't know where you've been the past 24 years, but that's an extremely ahistorical statement. The kids in cages, which you saw, during the Trump admin, were built by Obama and persisted under Biden. Obama laid the foundation for Trump's "Muslim ban". It's weird how people forget these facts, and get real stroppy about it when they're brought up.
> Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
You keep saying that, but it isn't actually true. The world has considered America the number one threat to global peace, stability and democracy for the past 22 years, and they are 100% correct to do so. There are countless reasons why - bombs dropped, dictators funded, climate damage, global propaganda, surveillance, wilful torture and other abuses of international humanitarian law, and so on.
To ignore all this because "generalizing bad" is what's actually absurd; and it's absurd that Americans can't grasp that. It's ridiculous to see them work themselves into a whataboutist lather when called out on any of it. Take a shred of responsibility for the national character which the whole world can see and which is threatening life on this planet in seven+ ways.