What is America?

Why don’t you try interviewing people face to face instead of being lazy and coming here for answers?

I'm a high school student too but I have some free time, so I'll answer.

I consider myself American because I am a US citizen, I love my country, and I value freedom.

I admire America's freedoms. I admire the ideals our founding fathers stood for (equality, rights, liberty, opportunity and democracy) and the system they set up.

I think America would be better if it were more conservative on economic issues (economic liberalism) and more liberal on personal freedoms. I think the role of the government (especially the president) should be reduced and follow the guidelines established in the constitution more closely.

To me, an American is any US citizen, whether by birth, derivation, acquisition, or naturalization who values individual freedom and opportunity. This question is kind of the same as the first one.

I consider myself to be a patriot because I am proud of my country and would fight for it if necessary.

Demographic information: white, 17, born in Chicago, have attended international schools for most of my life (father works for the State Department), and my only work experience is a summer job doing Finance at the US Embassy in New Delhi.

Thank you for your answers!

Self selected sample -> useless data

Find 100 random people from random backgrounds, random geographies, random ages and random economic backgrounds, and then you will have something useful.

Additionally, your questions are leading. Your bias in the phrasing of these questions is obvious.

I agree with you that self-selected samples do not lead to results that would help understand the opinions of the specific race, place of birth, age or ethnicity group that the person is representing because the sample is simply too small to draw conclusions of a bigger population. I think the purpose of this assignment is to encourage people to talk to people that are different from themselves and represent different backgrounds and opinions.

That is why I wanted to ask the questions here so that I would get a lot of different answers from different kinds of people. If I only conducted these interviews in the state and city where I live, I would probably get a lot of similar answers since the area represents certain opinions and attitudes.

This is not a scientific study, rather an experiment and a way to get a sense of what different kinds of people think about the given topic.

I would like to understand better how are these questions leading. If you can explain to me, I could talk about this with my teacher and help her improve her assignment and interview questions.

I’m an English teacher. Here are my responses:

1. Yes, I was born in the United States.

2. I admire our ability to experiment with a government system that had never been attempted on its current scale.

3. I often wish the United States would break into multiple sovereign nations. I have a hard time believing that policy decided in Washington can be applied equally to California, Minnesota, Alaska, and Alabama.

4. Americans are born in America or naturalized into it. Is this a trick question?

5. I would not consider myself a patriot. I would never go to war for my country. I do not understand why anyone would. We certainly could learn from the example of other countries in how to improve, but our leaders tend to be fairly arrogant and stubborn.

1.First you will need to define what is an “American”, also are we including the entire Western Hemisphere

Based on my experience an American is a lazy self righteous hypocrite with insatiable appetite for things. To answer, I hope not.

2.This presumes there are admirable things.

3. America should take control of its own money supply, abolish the reserve. Slowly scale back and dismantle the military.

4. Refer to 1. This questions should be first.

5. Again, define patriot. I’m not lining up for scrimmage every Sunday. A patriot has a country and believes in dead concepts like honor and duty and integrity and thus are themselves dead. The United States is not a country. There is no unity no cohesion, it’s a motley held together by corruption and general greed.

First answer the question: what is a country? Then you'll have something to compare the answers to.

Country/nation, same thing.

HSStudent wrote:

Do you consider yourself American? Why or why not?

What about America do you admire or appreciate? Explain.

What about America do you think should change or be better?

To you, what does it mean to be an American?

Do you consider yourself a “patriot”? Why or why not?

1) Yes

2) It's an incredibly large, wealthy, stable country with friendly people.

3) Lower military spending. More holiday and/or vacation time

4) You have American citizenship or have lived here for a while.

5) Somewhat. I'm not proud to be an American or anything like that. I'm just a guy who happened to be born here trying to get through life like everyone else. I really like living in the US. I think the USA gets way more crap online than it deserves.

Thank you for your interesting and thoughtful answers. The thing that I’ve realised is that feeling that you belong to certain group or community comes mainly from sharing the same values, attitudes, and history as the others. I think you have to have at least one of those three similar to others to feel “home” in a certain community. So if someone has only been born in America and the her parents are from here, but she does not appreciate the history of America and share the same values and attitudes as other “Americans”, does she automatically feel American?

Do you consider yourself American? Why or why not?

Sure I do.

But I think "American" is a loaded word for US Americans who think they own this word while it stands for actually two continents.

What about America do you admire or appreciate? Explain.

I admire the melting pot it has created.

What about America do you think should change or be better?

Embrace emigration more, especially since most emigrated to the US anyway at one point unless you are native American.

To you, what does it mean to be an American?

You live in the US of A.

Do you consider yourself a “patriot”? Why or why not?

Absolutely not. This is also a loaded word with a lot of things you don't want to be associated with.

This video should help you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zNaeo8nPOo

race. Asian American

age. Over 50

place of birth. Asia

ethnicity. Asian

work background. Corporate America

Nationality. US citizen (naturalized)

Do you consider yourself American? Why or why not?

Yes. I am American by virtue of legal citizenship status and by subscription to “Americans” values

What about America do you admire or appreciate? Explain.

Americans have the ability to determine one’s individual outcomes, via the preservation of individual freedoms.

What about America do you think should change or be better?

America / Americans have a tendency to believe the US system of democracy to be superior to other forms of culture and governance, and try to superimpose the American system on others, rather than allowing other people’s to determine their own course.

To you, what does it mean to be an American?

See the US constitution. Freedoms and rights accorded to individuals, while sustaining a governmental system that strives to promote and preserve those rights and freedoms.

Do you consider yourself a “patriot”? Why or why not?

Yes. By virtue of dedication and loyalty to the nation state and the American culture and values.

This is America

Don’t catch you slipping

Uh

America is cencorship and fear.

Two of my posts from this thread were reported and removed due to someones insecurity.

Which movie is that?

Do you consider yourself American? Why or why not?

It doesn’t matter to me either way.

What about America do you admire or appreciate? Explain.

I admire the founding principle of individual rights

What about America do you think should change or be better?

The founding principle of individual rights has been TOTALLY LOST and replaced with mindless collectivism. We have a giant, out of control, parasitical government that sucks us dry and uses our hard earned money to trample our rights and make our lives shorter and harder.

To you, what does it mean to be an American?

The term means nothing to me.

Do you consider yourself a “patriot”? Why or why not?

A patriot is someone who wants what’s right for his country. I’m one because I support liberty and oppose tyranny. The people who are voting this country into collectivism and socialism are the traitors.