The U.S. was founded by hypocrites who didn't want to be enslaved to a regime, so they killed off the natives, and enslaved people of color then called it freedom.

Hypocritical idealism from the U.S. should probably be expected. Though at times the U.S. was probably the least evil option.

You really have this backwards. The slaughter of Aboriginal Americans was done under the flags of multiple European Empires, long before independence was even a catchphrase in the colonies.

If we want to play the historical blame game, both Europe and the USA need to STFU. Along with every other country on Earth, each of whom have a litany of abuses and atrocities they won't own up to.

No, I do not have it backwards. The persecution of the Native Americans and Africans continued well after U.S. became a nation. Just because abuses started before the U.S. was founded, doesn't excuse the hypocritical foundation the U.S. was built off of.

No doubt that other European countries have their own bloody histories. However, the ease with which history is glossed over, and propaganda is spread regarding the supposedly democratic freedoms the U.S. ushered in, seems predominantly a U.S. issue.

Hypocracy implies no desire to change. The US did, eventually, deliver on its promises. That says to me that the ideals were aspirational, not hypocritical.

>Hypocracy implies no desire to change. The US did, eventually, deliver on its promises. That says to me that the ideals were aspirational, not hypocritical.

Did it though? Or was it just forced to change some things due to mass protests or because it found other ways to get the same conveniences?

I mean, who needs slave labor when you can have an industrial revolution, factories and tractors? That doesn't mean that the old slaves are not equal -- you then have Jim Crow laws, segregation, 70% of prisoners being non-white and other methods of control.

Plus have you talked with native americans, say, in the South Dacota? They have some interesting things to say about the country "delivering on its promises".

If I may add something to my original comment: it, of course, wasn't meant to show that US people are bad in general. I just wanted to take apart a country that praises itself as kind of the pinnacle of civilisation, to show that it isn't so.

The same could be said for any country -- though the US, by it's sheer power and constant warfare over its interests and for its economic benefit, plus it's bizarro half progressive/half medieval internal landscape is one of the more dangerous examples.

That said, most of Europe has similar atrocities in it's past and/or present -- and some other countries too (e.g. Japan and their occupation of Manchuria).

Now, civil wars and intra-country badness one can understand, even wars with neighbouring countries over some dispute. But what is especially dangerous and hideous is when countries exploit or invade peoples and countries that have never done any harm to them.

Kind of like the British Empire ruling over India, or France over "Indochina". Or the african-american slavery. And what's more dangerous is being hypocritical about it, in the "yes, but we built them an infrastructure", or "yes, but we brought democracy to them" sense.

And one last thing that's extremely dangerous is to thing that those things are "of the past", and now "we have progressed above them". Not so. For example, segregation might be in the past, but 70% of prisoners being non-whites still holds. The massacre of the native indians is in the past, but that doesn't mean that they have their lands back now. Or for Europe: colonisation might be past, but that doesn't mean that old colonial powers don't interfere constantly in their old colonies, pushing specific politics and politicians. An example: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-france...

That is not even close to US specific, especially with respect to Europe.

Yes, other atrocities have occurred at the hands of other countries. My post was mainly in reply to a critique specifically about the U.S.