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Marco Arment

America was founded on the promise of freedom and equal rights for all.

In reality, this has always been unevenly applied. Freedom is a constant battle, and everyone’s rights are FAR from equal.

The most American thing we can do is to keep pushing hard for freedom, liberty, and truly equal rights for EVERYONE.

@marcoarment no it was not founded on the promise of freedom and equal rights...

In fact, it literally enshrined the continuation of slavery until at least 1808...

youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iot

@kkarhan @marcoarment It’s a longstanding American ideal. Give Marco’s sentiment some thought instead of pedantically correcting it.

I'll stop it when it's being canceled from the constitution.

Not amended, or overrriten by it, but literally cut out of it.

Germany did that several times already since 1949...
@NathanKing @marcoarment

@NathanKing @kkarhan @marcoarment it's not pedantic at all. Americans seem to be continuously baffled when confronted with reality of a law system enshrined 250 years ago by a bunch of white men in their 20s and 30s. Ideals do not govern.

@NathanKing @kkarhan @marcoarment I don’t actually think that’s purely pedantic. Just about 20 years after the US declared independence from its European overlord in favor of liberal self-governance Haiti attempted to do the same. The US gave no support to the revolution so directly inspired and preceded by its own, and found themselves supporting the white colonial governments and providing refuge for slave owning French rather than siding with the black Haitians seeking liberty. Pretty damning

@guitargabe @NathanKing @marcoarment

Precisely...

the purposeful and systemic impoverishment of #Haiti and #LiteracyBans against Black people came around in the 1830s.
youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iot

@marcoarment if only we could get people to realize that equal rights for all doesn’t mean lesser rights for others.

@marcoarment just think about how it would have been if you’d lost. You’d have freedom, AND healthcare. Like Australia.

@matthealey @marcoarment as an American, I sometimes think Independence was a mistake

@DrewNaylor and that’s worse than their current situation…. how?

@matthealey Because in the UK, you can be arrested for making fun of rich British people.

@marcoarment Freedom is not free. We in Ukraine are now paying a high price. Thanks for your help, Americans.

@marcoarment what can anyone expect from an 18th century constitution with dozen of amendments that are interpreted by partisan courts.

@marcoarment sure you aren't mixing up american revolution with civil war?

@marcoarment As a black person who has studied this as a sad and desperate attempt to come to terms with the mistreatment of my people over the course of history and the life threatening discrimination I’ve personally experienced growing up, I can tell you that America was absolutely NOT founded on any promise of freedom and equal rights for us all. That would have been nice but it is just not historically true. Working to change this is necessary pursuit none the less.

@marcoarment
The USA was built on free labor (slavery) and no government regulations. 🤔

@marcoarment

As far as I can tell from our history, it was founded by British oligarchs living in a colony pissed about taxes. It enshrined the rights of these white, male, slaveholders and left everyone else out.

After the war was decided, they stole the rest of the continent through genocide.

The same class of people are now rolling back the few rights we were able to wrest from them after WWII because people sat on their asses thinking it was all decided.

It's never over.

@marcoarment @Gte
The Constitution and Bill of Rights are aspirational, yet to be realized.

@marcoarment Erasure of the fact it was founded by and for genocidal slaveowners is not going to bring about equal rights. American exceptionalism is counterproductive.

@marcoarment the American flag already represents everyone

@marcoarment it's a stolen land built by slaves to worship greed and corruption. Dress it up however else you want but.....

@marcoarment I mean, at the time America was founded, people still considered other people "not people" based on their skin tone, so even that's kinda a stretch...

@marcoarment
These are wonderful and nice ideas, but it’s horribly historically inaccurate.

In reality that very document that we “celebrate” today called my ancestors “merciless Indian savages’ and was written by a major slave holder.

America was founded on the idea that this freedom was only for white landowners.

@marcoarment Women could not vote. Black people were slaves. Non-white immigrants were shunned openly. Some white immigrants were also shunned.

But, white male landowners... They were the lords.

@marcoarment wow, you got a lot of pushback from that first sentence. 🥂 To never stop pushing for the betterment of all people, regardless of origin or heritage, were all humans.

Also, I'm jealous of that flag set up. I'd love to fly both, but have to choose as I only have room for one, and today I think it'll be Pride, there are plenty of US flags up today.

@marcoarment The Founders wrote a check they couldn't cash, & each time subsequent generations have tried to cash it, the forces of darkness have fought back viciously. I hope one day, if we work hard, that check will clear.

@marcoarment while America was founded as basically "more like under new management" we need to make its ideals real

@marcoarment THIS. In American schools we are expected to recite "with liberty and justice for all." If they expect us to keep saying that, then the country better act like it!

@marcoarment Freedom is messy. When successful is like a truly successful marriage. In such a marriage you never think of yourself but always try to please your partner. It's a constant give and never take. It requires this attitude from everyone, which happens less and less these days. If everybody truly gave what they can, this country would indeed be the paradise the Founding Fathers envisioned.

@marcoarment Only those who are wealthy enough to purchase politicians and lobbyists are represented in our system. Our system is far more dire than your post suggests.

@marcoarment equal freedom for everyone is the worst kind of freedom. It's a utopian world structure that is impossible to achieve.

The question itself is formulated badly. You can't provide anyone with an equality. No one is equal by origin and no one ever will be, whatever the constitution of your country says.

We are born different. We live different lives. What is equal about us—we die. We can't expect being treated the same way as someone else. That's just foolish.

@marcoarment This is called retconning reality to avoid looking at systemic oppression, there is no promise of equality in the American colonial settlement. To actually achieve equality between all people it would require undoing the foundational institutions of the US. It would bear no resemblance to the historical US, and so this kind of liberal patriotism is insultingly naive at best and protective of empire at worst.

@marcoarment Nah, it was founded on genocide of the _actual_ Americans and which continues to this day. The whole premise of a 'USA' is built on the notion that the actual Americans had no claim to this land and that they were savages suitable only for slavery (or simply wiped off the face of the Earth because we gotta let white people have the land, right?).

@marcoarment I always find it fascinatingly hypocrite when I see the word FREEDOM in the background of conservative events where all they do is to advocate for removing the same freedom for trans people.

True freedom is the same for everyone. The most basic freedom is the one of being.

@marcoarment
How long before we start seeing signs in store windows, "No LGBTQ+ allowed"? Or a wedding photographer refusing to take an interracial couple as clients because of sincerely held religious beliefs?

Get out the vote! It is the only way to stop the autocrats.

@marcoarment We also MUST remember that freedom is not free. It is purchased with the blood of our young.