by CMay | 2026-01-27 14:46:40+00:00
Yes. It isn't without failings, but it's also important for morality to be contextualized.

If the US truly does something horrifically wrong, we're free to report on it in our own country. Even with the Vietnam war, we reported that we were explicitly killing women, children and babies as a result of some realities on the ground. Just a few years ago the Biden administration drone striked a vehicle of school children on accident and admitted it. We waterboarded known terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. For a country the size and influence of the US operating all over the world, you can find many examples of problematic activity. Sometimes the "why" we did it helps it make sense, and sometimes it doesn't.

One case where the why made sense, is when we nuked Japan. Nukes weren't the most deadly option and it was done during horrific times that even seeing film of the war you cannot fathom. Other methods were already killing far more people. Nukes were devastating in a different way, but the benefit of using them was to try to stop the war to save millions more. Back then, precision strikes were barely a thing so collateral damage was an accepted and understood aspect of war.

Now we have enough sensors in space, on ships, in the air and so on that we can be more precise. We're much better at avoiding casualties like that now, but our adversaries also know that we try to avoid them so they use innocent people as human shields. Now, many of our strikes are so precise that they're just labeled as assassinations now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_by_the_...

Russia and the CCP can't even admit the things they've done which have killed millions in their own countries not to mention other countries, so they can't improve and their populations can't press them to be better. Instead they shame, attack, arrest, assassinate and execute their own people to try to justify to their countries that their tough authoritarian control is necessary.

In Ukraine, Russia has been attacking apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, power plants, police stations and so on intentionally and repeatedly. Iran just mowed down thousands of protestors. I don't doubt that some were armed or that there was violence, but it looks very much like they went far beyond any justified level of force. Venezuela was arresting and torturing people with opposing political opinions, sometimes gunning them down openly in the streets.

Much of our popular media still encourages kindness and the preservation of life.

People talk about inequality in the US and injustice, but poor people in the US are better off than most other countries. Most of the poor people I know still manage to have large TVs, hot showers and eat Taco Bell, which is not the kind of absolute poverty you see in countries where people are eating out of the trash and washing their butts with water trapped in potholes in the road. Many people DO get free healthcare and actual real healthcare costs are often much lower than the numbers people publicize since those are pre-negotiated. There are also free food pantries all over the country. There are places that offer free clothing and much more. People donate stuff all the time. Our philanthropists have invested all around the world to stop diseases and improve access to education.

Our military members regularly risk their lives in dangerous situations to fight back against criminal pirates, actual terrorists (not just mislabeled ones), violent dictatorships and so on.

Whenever we are in a country and doing business, people's lives are generally better. Venezuelans were better off when the US was there. Under Chavez and Maduro, who are supposed to be directing resources to the people, they have been worse off. This is just one interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cylfhA8pNgY

There is a basic logic usually at play. Are we killing someone who has better morals than we do? How would we compare the morals? Most of the people the US goes after have clearly worse morals and a history of evidence that backs it up. We're not out in the world killing nice Thai people or rounding up Canadians to put them in mass graves. It's generally people who already don't respect the lives of others. Look at Singapore. It's a dictatorship, yet we're not over there wrecking them.

You should start asking yourself if the US is so bad and a giant evil empire, why are we not in the places that we're not in? What are the people inside the US actually like? You know, it is the people who end up becoming the government. So who are the people? Almost universally in my entire life in the US, my encounters with people have been kind and positive. Not just surface level, but giving and considerate. Someone who didn't even see me and doesn't know me bought me breakfast recently just to be nice.

Social media and emotional entertainment comedy news programs are not reality. There is an information war happening against the US, because it is a vector they have a numbers advantage on and you can make a lot of noise there without needing as much money. There are bots ALL over youtube now spreading lies in comments. It's tricky to figure out exactly how to handle it without censoring real organic opinions. The CCP seems to identify inconvenient news and spread the link to a network of people that bombard a story. There's no way the algorithm would be recommending these stories to an overwhelming majority of people who have these negative opinions and you wouldn't get a giant pile of these comments within the first 50 minutes of it being posted either.

Just have to make up your own mind, but first you have to get good at making up your own mind. If you don't, someone else will make up your mind for you.