Are people honestly still proud to be American when things like this come to light?
Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things like this routine? (honest question, I don't understand)
Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things like this routine? (honest question, I don't understand)
Honest answer to the honest question: I want to live in this country[1] because I consider it my home. The government? That is the part I don't care for. I feel absolutely no loyalty to it. When another victor inevitably starts writing history books, those books will not be kind to the modern American government.
[1] Where "country" is both a chunk of geography, a loose-knit culture (perhaps best described as a culture of loose-knit cultures), and the place where most of the individual people I like also live.
Yet you are enforced to be loyal to it. Try not paying your taxes, for example, and they will deprive you of your freedom.
I would say this is better described as "obedience" than "loyalty".
Should I move to another country and pay a different government my tax money instead? Arguably. It is not clear to me which government I should instead be forced to pay, and my options are very limited as I am ill-equipped to live in most other countries. Five Eyes rules out the most obvious answers.
I'd say any government which does not have a standing army killing innocent people overseas is a better choice. At least your taxes would then not be used to produce bombs and guns. I agree with you that no country is perfect and you can find flaws in every of them, but still. There are some levels of differences.
Moreover, you can get out of paying US taxes. You just have to leave the country, renounce your citizenship, and pay an exit tax (after all, it would be rather absurd to allow someone to profit off the US legal system and business environment and then leave before paying the bill)
I think you are playing with words. The government expects you to pay your taxes. It is counting on your money. On your loyalty to feed them constantly, until you die (and even after, actually). Since people don't wait until guys with guns and uniforms come to their door to pay their taxes, I would say everyone is pretty loyal to the State and do not wait for threats to comply. If that's not loyalty, then I don't know how you call it. And many citizens do think taxes (no matter the amount) are a GOOD thing, and will defend the Right of the State to steal your money in a significant manner. Isn't that loyalty ?
Are there any countries that do not take punitive actions when citizens decide they do not feel like paying their taxes?
Probably not, or very few at least, since there is no pure libertarian country example in the world so far. Even though, you may decide where you pay your taxes - depending on how much you agree with the policies of the country where you pay them.
You can't keep feeding the Dragon and then complain the day it burns another village with its inhabitants. Don't feed the Dragon in the first place.
Care to elaborate?
Or is your contention that we need to motivate the government to actively steal from the commons rather than persuade the commons to give it money?
Countries without taxes. They tend to have other problems with loyalty though.
I'd prefer an American empire to a global caliphate, but that's not really the a likely decision. What is likely is a hegemonic US empire vs. some kind of decentralized system with autonomy and freedom at different levels (individuals retaining a lot, local governments and companies having some, provinces some, nation-states other, regions other, and global some). That would be a pretty clear choice, and I don't think you can say opposing a US empire is opposing the US overall.
At you can, at the same time, be completely critical of certain aspects of US domestic and foreign policy -- and even certain aspects of US culture.
I think the US is a better place because of people like Mary Harris Jones and Joe Hill or Dr. King and Rep. Lewis. If they (and countless others) had adopted your philosophy things would be much worse for people living in the US who lacked the financial mobility to emigrate to another country.[1] If you think the US is on the wrong path now imagine how much worse the situation would be if the only people left were individuals who supported all of the policies and programs you find so heinous.
Can you imagine how much worse life would be for some people in South Africa if Nelson Mandela said "screw it, I am out of here"?
[1] I did not want to belabor the point anymore but suffice it to say I think there is a serious "class/privilege problem" with this philosophy.
Second, if you had extrapolated out your premise, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that almost nobody could continue to live in their countries. See: Germany, Britain, Italy, Russia, France, Spain, Japan, China, and on it goes. There isn't a single major country on earth without a sordid history. Whether we're talking various European states that massively supported the slave trade or used military expeditions to conquer territory, or the Communist era in Russia or the Fascism era under Putin, or the tens of millions Mao murdered through famine and gulags, well, you get the point.
Third, America has 300 million people. What do you think they're all going to do exactly, immigrate to Canada? If they did that, Canada would become America. It's about the culture of the people: the American people elected this mess, and continue to allow it to happen / support it.
Overall your questions don't really make any sense. Your intent seems to be nothing more than to drive guilt and passive aggressively bash the US. What's the point of that on HN?
Humans have an amazing capacity to hold contradictory views.
> Why would you want to continue to live in a country that seems to make things like this routine? (honest question, I don't understand)
If you disown your government, you relinquish any hope of fixing it through democracy.
Because I know it best. If I'm going to contribute to fixing a system, it's going to be this one.