Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Americans, we passionately believe, are a humane people. We showed that in restoring wounded economies abroad after World War II, even those of our enemies, Germany and Japan.
We Americans have a sense of ourselves as a moral people. We have led the way in the fight for human rights in the world. Mistreating prisoners makes the world see our moral claims as hypocrisy.
In a world of inhumanity, war and terrorism, American citizenship is a very precious possession.
There are many respects in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world.
The United States is the only civilized country in the world to class its teachers at the bottom of the social scale.
We Americans are a primitive people... Americans seem to have little respect for the law or the rights of others.
America has to act. But, when America acts, other nations accuse us of being 'hegemonistic', of engaging in 'unilateralism', of behaving as if we're the only nation on earth that counts. We are.
The quality that defines us as Americans is the courage to respond to being hit. The courage to root out and destroy the killers. And, most importantly, the courage to hold on to our values and protect our hard-won freedoms while doing it.
We, as Americans, do our level best to avoid being cruel to one another; we're led out of a diverse nation to come together and learn how to live with one another in a way that elevates everyone and our way of life. We've tried mightily to renew and imagine - imagine anew what it means to be free, what it means to be fair.
Americans have always had an ambivalent attitude toward intelligence. When they feel threatened, they want a lot of it, and when they don't, they regard the whole thing as somewhat immoral.