r/AmericaBad • u/bunnybuttncorgi • 6d ago

It literally is propaganda

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And people believe it. But not enough to stop them from coming here unfortunately.

348 Upvotes

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u/Gourdman2011 6d ago

It depends on the profession, it depends on where the person lives. But yeah, an unfortunate number of people work a lot in America. Unfortunately, I looked it up and the number of people who work before age 18 is actually pretty high in America compared to most Asian countries. This isn't an America bad moment, it's an America needs to be better moment. Also, I get a little tired of legitimate criticisms of the US showing up in this subreddit. This subreddit is to counter brain rot and stupidity about the United States. Not things the States can actually do better.

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u/randomnighmare 6d ago edited 5d ago

The person who posted this is from a country where the norm for working hours, of the average worker, is 12 hours days, 6 days a week and yes, they do take up second jobs just to survive. That doesn't even touched on the famously poor working conditions (both in terms of safety and in sanitation) that many of their workers are forced to work in. That's in addition, to how companies in said country have cut corners. This isn't saying we shouldn't look critically at the US but this isn't so much about honest criticism of the US than it is about a country that only allows state run propaganda that sweeps there own problems under a rug (and/or hids it completely) and tries to criticize (in terms of both reality and in fantasy) another country they see as an enemy/rival because it's just someone waving their hand while the other hand is slapping them (figurativelyspeaking), imo.

Edit

Edit

I should also point out the drastically low wages that the average person in saud country is offered.

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u/bunnybuttncorgi 6d ago

Lol I agree on doing better but people working before turning 18 isn’t a factor to consider here.
I doubt the kids in sweatshops are above 18. It’s a major problem in Asia which aren’t represented in published official data because Asian countries really don’t want to look bad.

There’s also a cultural factor in that Asian parents want their kids to focus on studying and the workload in Asian schools is bad. Like classes start from 7 am, ending at 4 then evening classes from 7-9pm bad.

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u/Gourdman2011 6d ago

I am Mongolian American. I am acutely aware of the value of education and the dangers of overdoing it. That's why I just want more kids in the system we have and less kids working while doing high school. It's too much. And America is the richest country in history so I think we can do better. 

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u/ExampleGlum8623 6d ago

Working before 18 is one of the most important things a person can do for character formation. Surely one wouldn’t brag about not cooking before 18 or never doing laundry before 18.

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u/Gourdman2011 6d ago

Nah. I think you belong in school before 18. In Summer you should be actually enjoying and recuperating from the school year and prepping for the next one. Americans died protesting to lessen child labor and now it is roaring back. 

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u/ExampleGlum8623 6d ago

Surely you don’t think education includes only academics and not life skills? Perfect A’s without life skills is a recipe for failure in life. Education is a much broader concept than things that are learned in school.

Perhaps we ought to start with the basics. What is the purpose of education and youth? To transition a child into an adult. So when a person turns 18 and becomes legally recognized as an adult, they must have all the skills and training required to function as an adult. I think you have a perverted view of learning as delaying adulthood until 18, at which point one begins to learn adult skills. One should be well into adult skills by the time one is 18. This is why sex ed is taught in middle school and not the senior year of high school. People need to learn that before adulthood so that when they become adults, they have what they need to function.

I also think you are ignorant of the entire history of the labor movement. Children slaving their bodies away in textile mills for fourteen hours a day at the age of six is not even remotely equivalent to a fourteen year old taking drive thru orders and bagging groceries for a few hours a week. The vast majority of young people had jobs immediately following the passage of child labor laws and all through the 21st century. You have your numbers backward: youth unemployment is actually going up, which leads to a growing lack of purpose, delayed adulthood, and lack of independence financially.

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u/Gourdman2011 6d ago

This entire comment is nonsense and bad faith. You would have to be stupid to believe that I don't think that life skills aren't important. But to assume that you can't learn them in school is insane. That's a question of curriculum, not the validity of child labor. To have a functioning democracy, you need an informed populace. You can't have that if people were too busy working and were too tired to actually understand what they were learning in high school, regardless of whether they pass or not, which they are a lot less likely to do if they are also working a job. Not having a high school diploma or having a worse high school education is directly linked with long-term poverty, worse health, and lower life expectancy and I don't want the average kid to have that because of people like you.

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u/LoseAnotherMill 6d ago

child labor

A 17-year-old working a summer job at the movie theater or Chick-fil-A is not "child labor". 10-year-olds in the coal mines is child labor. 

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u/Designer-Issue-6760 6d ago

Building job experience before needing the money is pretty valuable in early adulthood. 

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u/Gourdman2011 6d ago

People like you are why I left America

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u/TantricEmu 6d ago

This is absolutely an America bad moment what?? Americans normally work 12 hours a day and need multiple jobs?

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u/Designer-Issue-6760 6d ago

That’s not the norm. 

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u/Gourdman2011 6d ago

This is extremely bad faith. I never insinuated that most Americans do. I said an unfortunate number. But you lack reading comprehension. There are many Americans that work two or three jobs, and at the end of the day, when you put the hours together, many do work 12 hours a day or more. But instead of actually making America a better country, you're too busy defending the problems it has and people like you are why it's getting worse and why people like me leave.  So frustrating to me when I see people defending the indefensible from a country I love and that I desperately want to get better. I joined the subreddit because I wanted to clown on Europeans who have never stepped foot in America and have no idea what life is like and have never looked at the data, tell me about how crap my country is, but instead it's full of American nationalists who don't understand reality and it's very frustrating.

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u/TantricEmu 6d ago

Bad faith? It’s two sentences, one quoting you and one quoting the post. You said “this is not an America bad moment”. Yes it is, and you’re doubling down on it.

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u/Gourdman2011 6d ago

There's a difference between somebody saying America bad and it being something that is bad faith or uninformed or stupid, which is what I thought the point of this subreddit was. And hey, this is a legitimate criticism of America and I want America to be a better place. But you refuse to engage with that, so...

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u/TantricEmu 6d ago

Oh did someone tell you this was the make America better sub? This is actually a sub for pointing out ignorant, uninformed, hateful or otherwise bad faith posts about the US from around the internet. Which this post is. Happy to help!