Is America Really That Bad?

Cannizzaro@feddit.ch to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 313 points –

Been seeing a lot about how the government passes shitty laws, lot of mass shootings and expensive asf health care. I come from a developing nation and we were always told how America is great and whatnot. Are all states is America bad ?

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Our tap water is in crisis. What hasn’t been privatized is either being operated with outdated technology, or being polluted, and EPA protections are being weakened by the Supreme Court.

And, in most of America there aren’t freely available public restrooms. They are all located in businesses that will outright deny you access, or force you to make a purchase. Their policies allow them to discriminate against the unhoused, and the disabled.

I am an American, but I’m not going into I get into the broader discussion here, just had to respond to your two points, as they don’t seem grounded in reality.

You just walk into a starbucks or a gas station. They're all in businesses, but saying you have to make a purchase is straight up false.

Even when you CAN do this, it's usually because the employees are either kind enough or inattentive enough to let you do this. And if you are clearly unhoused or poor, your chances of being able to do this are much, much lower than if you can fit in in a middle class white area. (Restaurants with predominantly poor clientele or many homeless people nearby tend to be much stricter about this.)

Starbucks is iffy but I've traveled nearly every state and never once have I been to a gas station that required a purchase to use the restroom.

In Switzerland, you have to pay $2 to use the restroom in gas station. But I totally prefer using those compared to the sanity standard of your average american gas station. I can be picky.

Fair enough, gas station bathrooms in the states range from really good to don't fucking touch anything.

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