All governments are experiments in how we organize and order society. Some experiments (governments) lead to greater flourishing than others, like socialism and communism (in theory). We’d have better evidence that those forms of government actually bring what they promise if oligarchies didn’t shut that shit down as soon as it takes route (see South America).
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chunes@lemmy.world 3 days ago
“American experiment” I hate that phrase. It’s just an arbitrary area on the ground that we happened to be born inside. It’s not a fucking experiment; it’s five corporations in a trench coat pretending to be a country.
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
itsprobablyfine@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
This is what people mean by that:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
In its conception is very much was an experiment. “A republic, if you can keep it” so to say.
chunes@lemmy.world 3 days ago
They’d already failed the experiment before the ink dried: 34 out of 47 founders owned slaves. I guess the natives weren’t too equal, either. Oops!
itsprobablyfine@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I mean, I agree, but that’s what people mean. And the perception of a thing is (like it or not) often just as important as the reality of the situation when it comes to how people make decisions. I’m not arguing that America was some shining city on a hill, I’m arguing that people perceived it that way. That said, I think the republic was a step in the right direction and the DOI and constitution had some really forward thinking stuff in them. I think several influential Americans really did care about doing the right thing. Nuance can exist