Let's be the United States

We're the moderately stupid but popular kids who bullied the smartest ones (when we weren't buying term papers from them) and taunted the even dumber and poorer ones in school. We cheated our way to B's and now run the country. Into the ground.

I'm Clarence Thomas, looking for an argument I can use to overturn Brown v Board of Education

Civil rights are for woke people!

We're the millennials who won't go to the polls unless we can get our student loans erased. We also won't vote for any Democrat who doesn't meet our standard of purity.

I’m organised religion. I’ll be used for a few centuries yet in order to persuade people to vote against their own economic, health and social interests.

I'm the AR-15 rifle. Good luck regulating me, sukkas!

I’m hemorrhoids, not on everyone’s mind right now, but just wait until the burning starts.

I am the despair felt by millions today.

I'm the crazy credit card debt

I’m these fools

I'm the sweet embrace of death. If the horrendous foods you people eat don't bring you into my arms, it will surely be an AR-15, a texting teenaged driver, or a botched coat-hanger abortion.

See you real soon, kids!

I’m the low standard of living:

The crumbling infrastructure.

The dismal healthcare.

The messy homes.

The shabby dressers.

The undereducated, infantile adults who refuse to aim higher.

The guns uber alles.

I'm a Carnival cruise.

I’m orange chicken from Panda Express! TGIF!

I'M PUUUUUUUUUUUURE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm the obesity epidemic.

I'm the antiquated notion of a divided government being effective. I don't like Trump so I'll leave that blank but I'll vote downballot for all of the other Republicans so they can keep that Commie Biden in check!

Meanwhile, absolutely NOTHING gets done.

I'm the Military/Industrial Complex and I've been running your lives since the Eisenhower Administration.

The United States peak was 1946 to 1979.

I'm the ~160 million eligible voters across the nation who take democracy for granted and simply can't be bothered to vote. Far too many of these people also buy into the reductive lies that "both sides are the same," "my vote doesn't matter," yada yada. We Americans are getting the government we all deserve, because half of our electorate doesn't exercise this fundamental right or care to make it their business to understand how federal, state, and local governments work and what their votes empower.

PS: Many of these people also falsely believe that the sitting President is solely responsible for inflation and setting gas prices. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️

I'm Lindsey, Mitch and Ted and we are getting away with EVERYTHING and you fucktards believe it's all Trump!

Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

How 'bout this?

I'm the dipshits who are so ill informed that they blame the abortion ban on Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer.

I'm the dumbest people on the planet!

[quote]The United States peak was 1946 to 1979.

OK boomer

There was an episode of the original Star Trek- these people on a doomed planet were able to use a time machine to go back to an earlier epoch. I daydream about that a lot. I wish I could go back in time to say 1966 or even 1976 and live out the rest of my life there.

I’m imperial units of measurement.

I'm Krazy Larry's Gun Emporium! Come on down and bring the kids! We've got some great specials on assault rifles! No ID necessary!

R24- I'm not a baby boomer. I'm a baby BUSTER. I was born after the baby boom had ended. In 1966 when GM opened it's factory in Lordstown, Ohio the starting wage was $6 per hour. If the average employee worked 40 hours per week- in todays money they would be earning $100,000 per year- before overtime.

That is the high standard of living that some blue collar workers had up until the late 1970's. Our manufacturing began to fall off a cliff beginning in 1980. Those high wage industrial jobs are NEVER coming back.

I’m the Electoral College that will continue to undermine democracy and keep the minority of stupid and wealthy people in power.

I'm the impending low income baby boom, and the attendant boom in poverty and crime.

Don't forget me! I'm the Ivy League. Let's play a game! The Demise: am I part of the cause or part of the solution? Show your work.

bump

I'm Wall Street, the Big Green Dragon that sits on your doorstep.

I was once the Gentleman's C. Now I'm an A- AND a ✯ star sticker ✯ for everyone.

I’m the banning of math text books in schools because the children are our future.

I'm genius George W Bush--"Is our children learning?"

That was the beginning of the downhill slide with the dumbing down of America and No Child Left Behind. Now there's an entire generation of people who lack common sense and basic critical thinking skills (perfect for pressing buttons on a cash register or using social media!)

I'm the artful advanced chemistry that manages to turn ever more horrific industrial frankenfood animal products into irresistibly tasty and profitable chain restaurant menu items.

I’m aerosol cheese. Squirt!

No one wants to be the fucking USA. On a par now with Afghanistan and its earthquake and Taliban.

I don't know what you're talking about R37.

I'm Herschel Walker's brain, US Senate material.

R39- Our healthcare is like from a South American country- only the rich have excellent healthcare. In the United States healthcare ( The Drug Companies, The Health Insurance Companies, The Hospitals) is a RACKET.

I'm the gun lobbyists/NRA lobbyists very angry that every member of Congress now is asking for more money for their votes. They all cite inflationary costs, but never thought a "nay" would be so very expensive.

I'm 70,000 structurally deficient bridges! Driving across one of me is a real thrill! Will this be the day I collapse?

I’m the American women who didn’t vote for Hillary because we didn’t like her voice.

I’m too big to fail

I'm genius of Hollywood Super Hero Blockbuster Franchises, perfectly concocted commodity that sells to a majority of billions of young people globally.

I’m exceptionalism! Even though I know nothing about the rest of the world, I know that I’m the best! In everything! Better than all those foreigners!

I'm the level of water in Western USA reservoirs.

I am universal healthcare for all...oh wait.....

I'm the XL lips and long dongs on so many young men, nowadays.

I'm the asteroid that can't come fast enough.

I am Mad Cowor Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that r37 help to create in our food supply but you would never know it because it’s never mentioned at all anymore

I am Pink Slime. I am one of the most vile and disgusting things you could imagine, and yet I exist in all of your hamburgers as a food additive approved by the FDA. Most of you have no idea what I am, or if you do you choose not to think about it. Bon appétit and best of luck with your future health issues.

I am the stock of the company that makes Pink Slime. Most of your politicians own large chunks of me. That is why the FDA allows me in you food

I'm stupidity, obesity, and shamelessness.

I'm your rapist. Have my baby. MY BABY.

I’m the dazzling array of condiments at every grocery store.

I entrance all passers by.

And R48, I'm how that hubris and brainwashing has allowed this country to fall, because no matter how bad it gets, the population will keep clinging to the idea: "But this is [italic]America[/italic]! We're better than everyone else and everyone looks up to us and wants to BE us!"

No you're not and no we don't. Never have.

I’m the seventy five flavors of yogurt in the dairy aisle.

I'm the Rust Belt. Getting extra rusty.

I'm the religious minority that somehow controls the majority.

I'm a rich, white collar criminal. I won't get caught, and if I do, I won't pay for it.

I’m 8.5 x 11 inches…

I’m child marriage, making a comeback because being an unwed, preteen mother of a rapist’s baby is a sin.

I'm the defense of genital mutilation - it's awful when those other countries do it, but somehow it's totally fine when WE do it.

I'm one of the many googling Canada's immigration requirements every day.

I’m Salem, Massachusetts, 1692.

I'm Gilead. I'm real in 2022.

I'm Expo 1982 Knoxville, and Expo 1984 New Orleans.

Row was supposed to be sacrosanct. Now it's just gone because some frat boy was placed on SCOTUS?

My hatred for Trump has reached the white hot intensity of 1000 suns at this point.

OP Queens love drama and adore over dramatization

I'm y'all

I’m capital punishment

I'm the greater commonalities I've always had with middle Eastern religious theocracies than with western democracies.

I'm millions of dupes believing that Hillary kills babies and drinks their blood while simultaneously running a pedophile ring from a pizza restaurant basement (which doesn't exist).

I'm a cash drop for children. Wholesome fun!

I'm the big asshole who smugly refers to "all Americans" as being all the same, all 300= million of us.

Fuck you, r23.

[...]

At our top universities, I'm the creme de la creme youth who don't know how to feed themselves, need safe spaces every 200 yards, and trigger warnings so they can refuse to watch Cabin in the Sky in film class.

[...]

[...]

I'm Guns and Religion. We both suck but we've taken over the country. It wasn't even that difficult, TBH.

I remain the easiest country to legally immigrate to if you are not wealthy. I remain the most powerful country in the world, economically and militarily. I am mostly a peaceful, low-crime country. I have an incredibly manipulative media landscape that is exploited by anyone with big money.

I have many beautiful landscapes that my citizens should enjoy more but they love self-pity and doom and their phones.

Seriously so many of you are depressing. Roe should have been codified into law as soon as possible. If you're worried about gay marriage start campaigning to get that written into the law of your state and federally. Any right that hangs by the thread of a single court case is fragile. Codify that shit. Be affirmative. You still have the freedom to pressure your legislatures to write your rights into law.

I'm Christopher Columbus, a complete and utter fraud and all in all just a horrible human being. It would have been better that I died while still in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, before I arrived to "discover" America.

I’m the grown-ass men who collect action figures and are experts in all things Star Wars, DC and Marvel.

I’m the grown-ass women who talk like tweens and cosplay as our favorite Anime or Disney Princess.

I’m regional barbecue varieties.

I’m responsible for most incredibly violent arguments.

I’m the decrepit 235-year-old U.S. Constitution. I enable minority rule by white rural conservatives via the Electoral College, the Senate (motto: “Land counts more than people!”) and a whole bunch of blind spots and grey areas that conservatives can exploit to entrench their power, like they do with partisan gerrymandering in the House! Yet, even liberals revere me as a divine document that guarantees liberty and democracy (LOL). They think that if they just vote harder next time, they’ll overcome the structural disadvantages that are baked into me. Haha, those kooks. I’ll ultimately be shredded when the unsustainable system built in my name collapses in on itself after an explosion of political violence. Whoopsie!

r60, I'm the 2 parties you can choose from at the ballot box. Don't even THINK about a viable 3rd party.

I'm the drain we're not circling anymore.

We're way past that.

We're in the pipe to hell and it's a one-way ride.

I am Karen. I feel threatened by your family barbecue (you know who you are) and I am dialing 911. Shrieeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!

I’m the automatic transmission that now comes standard on every vehicle.

I am the 2nd Amendment. Please shoot me now.

I’m the 20 pounds foreigners pack on when they visit.

I’m a worthless bitch r11

I’m Taco Bell’s chili cheese burrito.

You will spend your life driving from store to store, hoping to see me again.

I'm the country where everyone in the Third World wishes they could live.

I am Democracy. I've lived here a long time, but I have listed my house for sale and will be leaving soon.

I am R97 who has no fucking idea about the “third world” and is a perfect example of American parochialism and sensitivity.

I am every country on the planet other than Canada and Mexico - most Americans could not identify their own country on a map, let alone me.

I am the ongoing assault on the English language.

i’m cheese farts.

I am the inability of its citizens to mention a famous global city without including the country in which it is located, for the geographically limited.

I am Paris France, Rome Italy and London England.

I'm r3 ranting against millennials but not the elderly people who vote Republican

I'm r80, ranting against trigger warnings but busy trying to remove LGBT books from school libraries. I also complain about football players kneeling because I want football to be a "safe space" for my right-wing views

I am a Native American. I have no more words.

I am R103, who's a lame European trying to play this game and failing.

I'm an illegal immigrant. Move the fuck over.

I'm R104, a millennial who fails to comprehend that older people who vote Republican has nothing to do with Democratic likely voters. By the way, nothing is ever my fault.

Neither lame nor European, R107, but I do appreciate you so perfectly proving my point.

What point, exactly, did you prove, R110?

I’m this quote by Abraham Lincoln from 1838, about danger to the United States:

[quote]At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I’m footface from Shittsburgh who wrote r108 and other replies showing I hate myself and everyone else too!

I’m the God-given right to free and unlimited refills on soda.

I'm Lipitor. I am taken by 25 million people in the U.S. Keep up with your shitty diets and I will reach even more people with every passing year, you unhealthy fatties!

I'm Bill Gates who is the is buying up all the farmland in the US. When asked why he was buying so much farmland, Gates claimed that it wasn't connected to climate change or philanthropy (these aims are handled by a nonprofit called Gates Ag One, founded in 2020), but an investment in emerging food and fuel technologies. “The agriculture sector is important,” Gates wrote.

I'm the numerous political social media accounts posting several rants about how today's decision was a strike against our democracy because I don't realize I actually live in a constitutional republic which is why this issue was standing on shaky ground and should've been passed on to legislation and codified into law decades ago. I will not, however, blame my party for this due to partisan-induced cognitive dissonance.

I'm the seething anger, the mindless violence, the finger pointed at scapegoats, and the woeful ignorance of governance that is destroying America.

Let's be?

We fucking are, bitch.

Uh, no R119. Some of us aren't.

[...]

This one is, maiyte.

𝒟𝒜ℛ𝒦𝒢ℰℳℐ𝒩ℒ𝒪ℛ𝒟?

I never looked at your name closely till now. More lame than I thought.

Meanwhile, my "we" doesn't fucking include you.

But I guess since your the 𝒟𝒜ℛ𝒦𝒢ℰℳℐ𝒩ℒ𝒪ℛ𝒟, it has to include you.

The Australian with the Rupert Murdoch complex.

I was right to address you as "bitch."

I've had the most accepted myths this side of Greece.

I'm the center of the World, but it's just in my mind.

I am China, another one bites the dust!

R121 this website is owned and operated by an American, genius.... why is it always Australians in here that are so very very stupid?

I'm R84 and all the other Americans who bristle at the least hint of criticism that American is no longer in an ever upward spiral of ascent but is 42 years into a spiral of accelerating decline.

Oh, but the national parks!

Oh, but Americans don't need passports or knowledge of the larger world: they have American myths to cling to, and there are are all to those states you haven't visited yet! Missouri is gorgeous this time of year!

Oh, but the immigrants! Everyone wants to be us! (Note what countries they are not from.)

Oh, but the industry can come back! Detroit, Gary, Flint, Youngstown, the Rust Belt can shine again!

Oh, but America has the greatest health care in the world! And the best education! And the film and entertainment industry! (The one that hasn't dispersed, not a bit.)

Oh, but America saved [insert country] your ass in WWII!

Oh, but America's standard of living! It's the envy of the world to live in highly mortgaged, cheaply built houses we can't afford, set safely outside our unsafe cities, convenient to endless strip malls and TGIFs and grocery stores as big as Luxembourg!

Oh, but American pluck and optimism and its "can do" optimism and friendliness!

I'm the sweeping, persistent undercurrent of eugenic ideology!

I am a spoiled American I bitch and complain about how hard my life is when I have no clue how hard life is

I'm the Secession Movement.

Finally, they've stopped laughing at me.

I'm your freedom to emigrate.

I'm the ghosts of the already-forgotten 1 million Americans who died from Covid.

I'm stare decisis.

Please send donations to Legal Aid and the ACLU in lieu of flowers.

I’m the fruited plain.

I'm Murican Exceptionalism

I’m the blood soaked and bullet ridden corpses of children in a primary school classroom and on the floor of a supermarket. There will be a lot of hand wringing in the media about me for a few days and then I’ll be forgotten until the cycle repeats the next time.

I’m King George III. You whined about the tyranny of the Crown, fought to escape it and gain independence, and now you’ve managed to turn yourself into a fascist state. Nice going, you foolish subjects.

I'm doomed.

I’m the high fructose corn syrup.

We are Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Our Territories Beyond the Seas, etc., etc.

Those of you persuaded by yesterday's SCOTUS decision that your former colonial home ain't so bad, after all, will be welcome back with a relocation grant, expedited residential and citizenship status, and a free ticket to next year's Trooping the Colour.

Be young, employable, educated OR independently wealthy.

I am the sacred partnership between US and UK, initialized by our ruling classes merging together at the end of the Robber Baron takeover.

"Aunt" Betty is in the cargo hold of a sinking ship while pretending she on the promenade deck and holding her nose above the third class passengers. She is right beside us as we sink together, based on our commingled capitalist Rentier criminal class's divine and pecuniary rule over the Little People.

Only nation in the civilized world not to give everyone health care, yet the richest. Behind in child care, maternity leave, sick leave, vacation time, and no free public college. I don't see how we can't come out on top!

I am the backs of 45 million African American descendants of slaves on which this country was built -- ya know, those people from West Africa who were kidnapped, tortured for four months, worked in brutal conditions and whose women were raped by white men in the days when the US was a capitalist-agricultural economy. Yeah, them. Currently existing as a permanent underclass to whom a few bones are thrown every now and then and whose history is shoved under a cover as shameful to "oppressors."

I’m Tex-Mex, and I’m delicious.

I'm the inevitable racist response to R144 by a fragile white person, something along the lines of "But Africans enslaved and sold blacks too! It wasn't just white people! Why isn't that ever discussed? Shrieeeeeeeek!!"

[...]

I'm Republicans. I like to drink beer, cheat on my wife, look at porn, steal from my job, and curse at my kids. But I pretend to love Jesus to "own the libs".

[quote] You still have the freedom to pressure your legislatures to write your rights into law.

And watch them go down in flames because of the filibuster.

I am “as an American” - I am not aware that nobody else gives a flying fuck.

I’m the clueless rubes who don’t see the end coming.

I’m the Confederates, ready to try again! Hee Haw!

[quote]“The agriculture sector is important,” Gates wrote.

I agree!

"Take your foot off my neck!"

R152 One must issue a correction:

We do not rule: we reign.

I'm obsessive concern with what other people get. I've stopped wanting for myself (because I know I can't ever produce the life I want and I know deep down the government doesn't give a shit about me) and my focus is making sure other people don't have things they want or need.

I'm FAKE IT TIL YOU MAKE IT.

I'm gray wood grain laminate flooring.

I'm White Collar Crime.

I'm America, in the form of every angry white person who couldn't come unfused from the sofa cushion without the help of a crane and 8ndusyrial lubricants, "I blame it all on them immigrants and welfare mothers."

I’m Thanksgiving and the genocide it ignores.

I'm the advertising team that came up with the Thanksgiving feast imagery we know today.

I’m Hillary Clinton, who is so out of touch didn’t realize what was on the line and instead of touching down on every state while campaigning during the most crucial election in modern history, overlooked the working class and then publicly hurled insults at them! I can think what I want of the people I govern but as a politician, I should at least keep it to myself in order to save the country. No matter though, the country will still not blame me nor the constant failings of the Democrats but instead turn on each other! Aren’t they so stupid! Well, in any case, the rest is history. Oops!

I’m the white person who has zero people of color people in my contacts list blaming everything that happens on white people! Im sheltered, stupid and I play it safe. My lack of experience in the world and white guilt drive everything I think and post online!

Diversity is our strength.

The Homeless Industrial Complex that leads cities to give these dubious nonprofits tens of millions of dollars for...nothing?

Cities taken over by able bodied young males who don't want to work and erect tent cities and frighten the populace to give them money and other freebies.

R164 has a point. Why is that the some of the militant anti-racist white people have never lived in a POC neighborhood or ever really been around POC?

I'm armchair experts - about everything, from pop culture to politics. America is filled to the brim with us and the elite love that we're distracted with our huge amount of social media commenting, outrage, and hot takes, which usually amounts to little change.

Because they secretly are uncomfortable around us and hate themselves for it, r167. They also erroneously assume every other White person feels exactly the same way as them, so their decries of "fighting to be an antiracist" are pure projection.

Their grandparents were probably definitely in the klan.

I'm the desperate rallying of a bunch of white countries from the other side of the planet to gang up and rape China again (Opium War 3). I'll add vassal Japan for cover.

I'm the lack of truly walkable cities.

You wanna know how bad America is now? I came upon a thread on reddit yesterday with Indians living in the US, many with well paying jobs, sounding off about how they are now planning to move back to India where life is better than in the US nowadays.

Sample post i read there- Fellow Bay Area Indian here! I do think a lot of people in my circle seem to be moving back. People say pollution, corruption and all of that with India but honestly even the US does have its fair share of problems (homeless people,gun violence, anti vaxers and now Roe V Wade). India maybe a slow developing country but at least it’s not moving backward like the US. I earn six figures here and I have no time for myself. Laundry, cleaning, cooking and all that takes a good chunk of my time. In India, that stuff can be taken care of with house help and stuff. Quality of life often differs from person to person. To some it could mean time with family and friends, to some it could mean a shit ton of money. For some, it could mean striking a balance between both.

I do think working for someone in India is a bit hard because of the culture. You could work for your company in the US but stay in India. They’ll move to paying you in INR because of tax reasons. It’s an option to consider. But you can definitely check out opportunities within your circle back home and sense the vibe of what you maybe getting into as well. Or maybe you can start your own thing if that’s something you’re interested in. There are decent options if you do want to move back home! Good luck!

🎵You’re having my baby🎵 🎵What a lovely way of showing how much you love me🎵

I'm the overblown melting pot. We're the only Western nation without a homogenous population. This is the root of 90% of our problems. That and slavery.

Haters gotta hate^

The Fall of the American Empire - it was bound to happen sooner or later.

I’m the absolute cluelessness of posters such as R174, who know nothing about the world.

I’m the ability to quote long paragraphs of movie dialogue.

Dumb fuck R174 is a troll who is too stupid to realize that slavery brought Black people to the US in the first place. We wouldn’t have an America as we know it without their forced labor. The dumb shit! Go back to your sister, you inbred toothless wonder!

Indian expats at r173: “America is moving backwards so we’re moving back to India where we can have servants on the cheap.”

I'm Gavin Newsom's pendulous dong...

R179, I'm black and truly was not trolling. I was trying to be satirical and funny. That is truly where I think most of iur problems arise and will continue to manifest in devasting ways in this new age. And yes it is the FAULT of white people but the burden of HUMAN NATURE.

I'm the stench of Kimberly Guilfoyle's cooter that tragically can never be completely removed from Gavin's huge schlong.

All that Reddit crosspost at r172 says is that California has become more of a 3rd world shithole than India in the opinion of actual Indians.

Speaking of India...

I'm the [bold]designated shitting streets[/bold] frequented by the surging homeless population within the state of California. I never ran out of toilet paper in 2020.

R182. If you are a troll, your comment was not satirical because many, many RePukes are dead serious of what you just said.

[quote] California has become more of a 3rd world shithole than India in the opinion of actual Indians.

I'm the Californian who's actually been to India. San Francisco at its most appalling is still lightyears cleaner and less chaotic than Mumbai, Calcutta and Varanasi (Benares).

well the problem with California is that its SO overpriced for what you get. Manhattan is the only place more overpriced but at least there you don't have expense of car.

No one is saying it's third world. Of course it's not. But the gross and dangerous problems in the cities, the $7 gas prices, and the hostility to any type of business that is not Big Tech. Oh my.

I'm the six-figure salary, the reward for having done everything right in American: I kept my nose clean, excelled at school and university, landed a job with a Fortune 500 company, rose in the ranks to make a niche for myself, achieved the recognition of peers. My salary is greater than the median cost of a house in the U.S. ($374,000 in 2021).

And yet just this year and after years of complaints at enlightened employer Google, the minimum number of employee days off a year was raised from 15 to 20. But try using them all at once if your family lives halfway across the world. Or try using them all spread out over the year, maybe not at Google but at a lot of firms where unspoken pressure exists to take vacation days off one or two at a time and then with trepidation that the boss will look askance or the bi-monthly report won't get done on time.

I'm the six-figures that buys a shitty house a ridiculous distance from my job, that makes me think Covid and Work From Home was an unexpected godsend, except that now there is talk that all of that will be undone and we'll be back at our desks? But hey, there's free breakfast and lunch and good thing because everyone works long days. And discounted pet insurance.

I'm the time for social life with friends that I don't have and family that I don't have anywhere near me, but just as well, I barely have an hour now and again anyway and I'm too tired. I'm the neighbors who are the only people I see except work colleagues, and they are always running around as if being chased; I'm not sure I ever knew their names to forget them. I'm the house that's too big and too expensive but built of flimsy construction materials to start falling apart within 15 years and with a life expectancy equal to that of the mortgage: the engineered wood floors will not last a decade, the Tyvek wrapped wood framing and clumsily stuffed insulation will bloom with mold before then; the roof will last 15 years tops; and the kitchen and bathrooms will have to be pulled down to the studs and redone every three years to keep up with whatever the neighbors and the Property Brothers are doing.

I'm the credit card bills and the mortgage and utilities and subscriptions to 8 television streaming services and tuition if I have kids and the car insurance and the expensive crates of wine in the cellar and all the things many Americans have and a few more. I'm all the credit cards bills for stuff that is unreocgnizable when I read the itemized statements: we bought what? From where? Why? Don't we already have two of those in the spare bedroom that's so overrun with stuff that it would take a crane to get it ready for actual guests?

Yes, I'm the American dream of being rewarded for doing everything right, I have an expensive house, and expensive car, I spend money right and left... and yet I am deprived of all of life's real pleasures in friends, in family, of time to read or for individual pursuits, of time to enjoy oneself without a looming schedule of being in a mad dash to pilates class or pick the dog up from the groomers.

If the dream rings hollow for me...

Many Xennials are walking away from that rat-race. Of course, you already knew this.

I'm the tens of thousands of migrants trying to break into the US which, oddly, seems so much more attractive to is than you lot paint it here.

That goes for that horrible place on its way to sinking into the other side of the Pond, the UK, where "asylum seekers" who refuse to file for asylum in delightful France where they are actually sittyated (as the Scots say), are willing to risk their lives to get to.

Perspective is always personal.

R191, scavengers gravitate to carrion. If I'm a maggot in a dung heap, I'd wriggle my way to a rotting corpse.

R192 Very picturesque, but sophistic.

If London is a dung heap, what is Somalia?

Friends in NYC renovating their home have, of course, a Mexican contractor. He's still "unofficial" although his wife isn't, but he started out life, as he said candidly, sleeping under bridges and singing on buses.

Now, he has a thriving business, built his own home in a nearby suburban area, employs dozens of subcontractors, and his two children are attending decent schools, and he drives a hot car.

Yes, that poor old maggot gravitating to that dung heap.

You need to get out more and go see life in Afghanistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and a few other places.

I'm Darfur Oprhan, still dreaming of America, even with everything that's been said. "Shitting streets" in California? I'd be thankful to have enough food so I could shit regularly.

R194 Not!

R189 underrated post. I can see so much of this around me and it's so sad. Americans don't really live.

[QUOTE] the minimum number of employee days off a year was raised from 15 to 20. But try using them all at once if your family lives halfway across the world.

MARY!!!

I'm the felch queen who's grateful to eat that shit off the streets.

I'm Putin eagerly awaiting the return of my stooge in 2024. How he flatters me and called me brilliant. I figure the US will be easier to take over than my misguided adventure in Ukraine.

We're the people who live in a blue city in a blue state that the MAGAs portray as a murderous hellhole. We had a great Pride barbeque yesterday with all our neighbors, took advantage of early voting only blocks away and have multiple Covid vaccinations that were easily obtained. We live within our means. Life is good but for the MAGAs at our door. Soon we'll be welcoming an influx of women seeking legal abortions

^ I'm the very blue city of Detroit.

I'm the Weimar Republic.

We're the schadenfreude.

I’m abortions. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

[quote]and the hostility to any type of business that is not Big Tech. Oh my.

R188 Well just for the record the biggest industries in California are agriculture, the film industry, and tourism/service.

r197, I enjoy a well-timed, apt "Mary!" Yours landed outside of those two things.

r189, Your post moved me. Part of me has always suspected that "upward mobility" is also downward immobility; a mirage created by the Gods of Capitalism and Things.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"- Kris Kristofferson, "Me and Bobby McGee".

There is something to those words.

At your request, Bon Amie:

I'm Canada watching you and thinking "Thank God, we didn't rise up against the Crown and have instead evolved into a high functioning Western democracy."

Let's not.