[bdangubic]

I love the spirit of your comments but IMO it is misguided

The US used to have values. It was a country that was at least trying to be the good guy.

This really is all wrong. One might think this based on pitches from different times but all Empires are evil by their definition and America has always been that, always

[wredcoll]

> This really is all wrong. One might think this based on pitches from different times but all Empires are evil by their definition and America has always been that, always

Again, the problem with this train of logic is you inevitable condemn everyone and everything as evil, at which point the word completely loses its meaning. Evil is only useful as a term if there are actually things that are not evil.

America has certainly done immoral, unethical and frankly evil things. It's also done moral, beautiful and even heroic things. It's a big complicated entity made up of literally millions of people and trying to summarize it as "good or evil" is pointless.

The reason this nuance matters is that we want, need to encourage doing good and the first step to doing that is to actually be able to distinguish between good and evil.

[bdangubic]

> It's also done moral, beautiful and even heroic things

give me a list of these “beautiful and heroic things” - very interested to read them

[wredcoll]

Ok, I'll play:

> We estimate that over the past two decades, USAID-funded programmes have helped prevent more than 91 million deaths globally, including 30 million deaths among children.

How about that? Or are you going to come up with some excuse that somewhere, somehow, an american also benefitted from saving all these lives and therefor it doesn't count?

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

[bdangubic]

I mean you are making this too easy that I can copy&paste above the fold..:

The core reason for creating USAID in 1961, under President John F. Kennedy, was to consolidate and revamp U.S. foreign aid into a single, more strategic agency to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War, promote democracy and free-market principles, and fulfill America's moral and economic role as a global leader. It aimed to separate economic aid from military assistance and make it more effective in fostering development, spreading U.S. values, and creating stable partners, distinct from the bureaucracy of the State Department.

[wredcoll]

How can you copy and paste from wikipedia but not even read the entire comment you're replying to?

[bdangubic]

didn’t copy and paste from wikipedia (though I can if needed) - wasn’t expecting to read USAID as american spreading goodness out of our pure hearts but here we are, have read crazier things than that for sure

[bdangubic]

1 in 5 children are hungry in America right this moment, we don’t do a single fucking thing because we are “good” - can’t believe there are people (you are probably in majority) that still believe this nonsense. wild wild stuff

[wredcoll]

My point, which you keep missing, is that nobody is actually "good" or "bad". They do good and bad actions.

America actually does quite a bit for hungry children, both within and without her borders. Is it enough? Perhaps not, but that doesn't somehow make what they do bad.