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Apologetics for America
I'm a big fan of the United States. It's a big country. It's a safe country. The people are wealthy, kind, industrious, and have done more than their fair share of upholding the Pax Americana under which the majority of the world prospers, including those who would tear it down.
I would go so far as to say that I'd be significantly happier if I had been so lucky as to have been born in a counterfactual universe where my parents had emigrated there, even keeping all my myriad flaws like ADHD and depression.
It's a country that holds multitudes, and has had such a good track record of making good on its promise of embodying:
And then achieving the minor miracle of making the vast majority of them upstanding proud Americans regardless of caste and creed.
(To such an extent that it has lost the memetic immune system needed to assimilate some of the people who meet that criteria but are resilient to anything but force)
It is gorgeous. Even after the visiting the UK, a nation that even in its sclerosed and ailing state is significantly better than India, I found myself grossly disappointed at how small and dull the place was, compared to what I've seen of the States.
I count myself lucky to still have the memories of when I visited as a toddler, some of my earliest, a period I enjoyed so much that I came back home speaking English with an American accent when I hadn't even been conversant in the language when I left.
I stare at the reels and pictures posted on Insta by my friends studying there with ill-concealed envy. It looks so huge, so clean, so vibrant, so picturesque and unspoiled. Still a land where someone with innate talent, having landed with but a penny to his name, can ennoble himself through hard work, or at the very least his descendants.
If it were not for the fact that I'm currently ineligible to give the USMLE today, for no fault of my own, I'd bid adieu to my current aspirations for practising and settling in the UK. The latter is still better than India, but do you really need me to tell you how low a bar that is to beat?
I'm about as pro-American as it gets without driving a pickup truck with the stars-and-stripes hanging off it!
The people eat great food. They live in huge houses that appear outright intimidating to the rest of us. They can afford to waste gigaliters of water on a modestly appealing perennial grass and mostly not begrudge the expense.
They can travel visa free to most of the world, and act the fool there (can, not necessarily do, the worst I can say about most American tourists I've met is that they were rather underinformed about where they'd ended up), content in the knowledge that none but utter pariah states would dare raise a hand at them out of fear of Uncle Sam.
They earn salaries that make us all look like paupers. The median wage for a doctor in the US is $250k, fresh out of residency, whereas a senior consultant in the UK might be content to make half that. Indian doctors can only weep, especially lowly ones like me. Even my father, so talented in his surgical field that he'd be nationally famous if he was more fluent in English (instead just being regionally famous), makes only $50k PA at the very peak of his career, after a life of suffering and hustling so his sons would have to suffer and hustle just a bit less.
Even that seemingly colossal sum of money does not achieve the QOL a naive purchasing power calculation would suggest. Even billionaires here must be content to have their money only buy quick trips with their windows rolled up from only upper class enclave to the next.
The world, somewhat more multipolar than it once was, still wobbles unsteadily if you try and make it rotate around an axis not centered on America.
I'd give a lot to be there. I really would.
That is why it so severely vexes me that my girlfriend, a smart, intelligent and hard working woman who makes for an enviable partner to have at my side, holds a view of it so jaundiced you don't know whether to cry or laugh.
Like many Americans, she has had her perception of the States clouded by sheer propaganda that is more interested in cherrypicking out all of America's real problems, and when even all the real ones no longer suffice, concoct ones out of half-truths and whole-cloth to terrorize a broken primate brain that only notices the bad and becomes inured to the good, such that it no longer bears a resemblance to how fucking good they have it.
She stares at me like I'm mad when I tell her I've always wanted to live there, and the few warts on the face of the nation can't hide its timeless beauty.
She believes that abortion has been banned. When I protest otherwise and say that it's only a few states putting restrictions on it, and even then, just a few, she shakes in existential terror at the idea that there's a seething crowd coming for the rights of women, eager to snatch them all away. She thinks racism is a serious concern for hardworking and talented immigrants who speak fluent English, whereas you could put me in a room with a Confederate flag and I'd find a way to end up drinking beers and shooting AR-15s before dawn.
Did I mention she's terrified of gun violence, even if she could live a dozen lives in parallel and not get shot?
She categorically refuses to follow me if I wistfully make plans to find some route to make it there, be it fighting tooth and nail with my med school and the ECFMG to give me the right to at least try my luck, so that I can show them I meet even their high standards.
I'm at the point that I am seriously debating abandoning clinical medicine as a career, to upskill myself in medical ML, so that I have an easier route to the States that isn't gated behind a professional licensing exam I'm not allowed to give. I am still young. I am allowed to dream.
She's rather be middle class in the UK, unable to afford air-conditioning, living in a tiny house, watching our salaries erode into nothingness, and then, if Sunak successfully makes doctors into a thin wrapper for GPT-5, potentially resign ourselves to a life of mediocrity, or worse, come back to India with our tails between our legs where we'd have to settle for working shit jobs with longer hours and worse pay.
She's scared of paying the medical bills, when the kind of comprehensive coverage that two professionals making 500k together buys care beyond the dreams of the NHS. Perhaps not value for money, but value.
I criticize America all the time, but only because I love it. I want to gorge myself on cheeseburgers with ridiculous portion sizes, because even if I die fat, I die happy.
I cherish what the Founding Fathers built, a shining city built on a hill of negentropy and abundance, rising out of a swamp wherein dwell the majority of us, only a generation or two removed from near-Malthusian conditions. I would die to keep the barbarians away from the gates, if only because I want to cross them myself, as an esteemed guest if nothing else, hopefully to be one of their own.
I set out to write a post somewhat glorifying (fairly) America, and to invite others to submit arguments that would let my girlfriend see reason. It would seem I've inadvertently done all the heavy lifting, if not for the fact that I've marshaled all these arguments before her and still found them wanting.
I don't want to jump to the conclusion that the two of us are moral mutants who can never reconcile our preferences. I prefer to think that she's wrong about her fears, or weighs the wrong facts too heavily and the right ones not at all.
Help me convince her. I will find it hard to live with myself if I fail.
Oh, and Happy Fourth of July to you all, ye sons and daughters living several decades in the future, hailing from the nation from whose physical and mental toil most of the good things in the world come.
Wait, is it a bit late for that? Um, I blame timezones, pernicious and insidious things that they are.
Don't think I don't see the cracks in the pristine facade, the erosion of the meritocracy that made your country glorious. I simply think that if America wakes up and patches a few holes, it can earn the right to slumber again in peace for centuries hence.
Obviously her perception of the US is off, but there are states which in fact banned abortion, full stop(Texas being the largest) and others which have such restrictions as to de facto ban it, gun violence is a serious problem even if it doesn't generally look much like she's picturing, the rednecks you describe are unlikely to provide a particularly warm welcome to even the most English speaking and talented Hindu(they'll resort to interpretive dance to befriend Jose the undocumented day laborer long before they offer to share their non-bud light beer with non-Christian H1Bs), and healthcare costs are legitimately insane with actual healthcare outcomes being not much better than the rest of the rich world except for cancer patients.
However, a lot of that is contingent on the US being huge. It's literally half a continent. If she wants partial-birth abortion there's states that allow that. If she wants guns tightly controlled there's states that have gun control regimes well within the Euro average(which includes Austria as much as it does Germany). On a doctor's salary you'd probably have to specifically seek out rednecks or violent neighborhoods. Oh and did I mention that a doctor's salary buys you in-practice immunity from the majority of America's problems? You could live in a palatial house in a nice suburb in a blue state, have someone else come and clean it, take a vacation twice a year, and still save more than you would in England.
Have you ever met any rednecks? Because this sounds more like a San Franciscan or New Yorker’s extremely stereotyped mental image of a redneck than it does my many experiences with them.
If an Indian guy showed up to any of the gun clubs I’ve been to, brought some beer, and was happy to talk shit about Democrats, I’m willing to bet he’d be welcomed with open arms.
I am a redneck. The fact of the matter is that Indian immigrants are basically imported foreign over educated aristocrats and everyone knows it. Yes, rednecks are in general much less racist than the urban elite think them to be, and a sufficiently American-conservative East Indian bringing a case of kingfisher to your average bbq can probably secure an invitation to the next one(of course, eating brisket and bitching about democrats is strong evidence of not being like the other Indians). But everyone knows what the typical Indian immigrant is and overcoming that initial impression is likely to take some work, because Americans who don’t have an incentive to pretend otherwise are perfectly aware of which immigrants tend to get along well with the red tribe when language barriers go away.
Indian Americans have a tendency to overcompensate to try and "fit in" to the vogue but it backfires and they just come off as jarring, that's how you get the Mindy Kaling types going over the top woke than anybody else that even her white liberal comrades had to keep their distance after Velma. And then you have the constant race warring on twitter between mainland Indians and Black Americans... yeah after that if someone told me the "real" founding members of the KKK were actually Indian, I'd believe them. There were some LARPers but more than a handful of handles that I follow and know are actually Indian (usually HinduNat) were spitting slurs I doubt any Klansman has heard since the last century.
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I’ve had to put up with my share of snooty Brahmins before, so I definitely understand where you’re coming from. I just don’t get the sense that self_made_human would be nearly as insufferable and off-putting to the red tribe as some of his countrymen. In my experience, as long as a stranger makes a good-faith effort to fit in, most rednecks will welcome him no matter his color or nationality. Shooting, drinking, and badmouthing Biden are probably the quickest ways to gain acceptance in the red tribe. I don’t think self_made_human would have a problem with any of those three.
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If it makes a difference to you, I have online friends I'd call rednecks, and we've shot many virtual guns together in relative harmony. They're almost always deeply surprised when they learn I'm Indian, half of them need to check my IP on TeamSpeak. I don't even sound Indian for one, people think I'm Nordic.
I think I can finagle the difference if I ever meet their equivalent in person, the initial barrier doesn't seem as insurmountable, and they'd at least be touched to see me try.
I certainly won't be lying if I minge about the Dems, and I'll just keep mum on the parts of the Republicans I dislike too. Easy enough.
Hmm. I think that you might find acceptance among rednecks in the Northern US, but in the South I am not so sure.
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Is gun violence a "problem"? Yes.
Is gun violence a problem worth losing sleep over? Not in the least. The numbers don't allow it.
The majority of those who die from it die at their own hands, with a gun in their mouth. A large chunk of the remainder are ganbangers who are busy killing each other.
Avoiding a few neighborhoods largely insulates you from any serious risk. I have no plans on working in an inner city ER if I can help it, and I can help it.
Is that a serious barrier to anyone not living off food stamps? You can just drive across state borders the few times this is a concern.
I'm simply built different. Semi-unironically. I know how to operate a gun, and I'm confident in my ability to be friendly and charming to win over anyone who isn't a card-carrying KKK member.
(Nor am I a Hindu, if one is allowed to shed the religion of one's ancestors)
In most plausible worlds, we can afford health insurance. In the rest, we can fly to neighboring countries like Mexico to get a sweet 80-90% off.
More of you guys should try it, at least for conditions where you don't need constant ongoing care or acute emergencies.
Like you said, it's a trivial problem to insulate ourselves from most of America's problems while enjoying the benefits.
Now, if only there was a way to live in the Bay Area without fighting junkies and opioid zombies..
Coming from a Southerner in a medium-sized college town, I think your impression is pretty spot on and if I had dictatorial powers you and the GF would have a green card yesterday, instead of my annoying third worlder south Asian (from where and how they got papers, I have no clue; I'm guessing it has something to do with the local university) upstairs neighbors who don't grasp basic concepts like "Don't do your laundry in the bathtub, leak water all over the place, and fuck up my ceiling.". You and the girlfriend (She could bond with the car-hating ex-pat professor from the UK.) would do well socially at the bar I work at and I'm sure that the local hospital or doc-in-a-box could use your help if you're not inclined toward opening up your own practice.
I'm drunk and not overly energetic at the moment but I'll say a few things: Concerning gun homicides, you're absolutely correct. It's a non-issue outside of a few hotspots if you're not an underclass criminal type or suicidal. Concerning abortion, Plan B is like $20 at Walmart, and if you fuck that up Illinois isn't that far away; it isn't as if abortions were overly accessible within Alabama to begin with. As for food, if you can cook or like lowbrow American cuisine (which includes Americanized Chinese and Mexican, maybe a Thai or Indian place if you're lucky.) you're fine. Otherwise, good luck and don't expect to find good Italian food here.
When you coup the capital, I'll be wiring you five dollars for moral support haha.
One of the chief drawbacks of recognizing the stochastic and uncaring nature of the universe is that I have no one to blame for my plight. I'd never have thought that a tiny checkbox next to my med school's name on a directory of medical schools would have locked me into the current trajectory of my life.
I'm unusually unlucky, at least in this one regard. I've very blessed in others!
I like my Italian food hot, greasy, and in large quantities. I hope my standards are low enough that I can bear it haha.
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I'm honestly not sure if this is a joke or not. But if it isn't: you don't have to do anything special to avoid that in the Bay Area. If you're in the areas frequented by street homeless people, there's a lot more of them than there were a decade or two ago, but you can just ignore them.
On the other hand, the cost of living compared to the salaries in the Bay Area seems like a pretty bad deal, so I wouldn't recommend living there if you don't have a good reason to do so.
I used to be homeless, smack dab in the Bay Area. If you don't want to worry about security or law enforcement sweeping you off the streets, you can move nearer to a homeless encampment and buy yourself time before you setup your next box to curl up in elsewhere, 'if' you're willing to tolerate junkies and opioid addicts. But at that point, you're trading one risk assessment for another. That said, I definitely agree with your last statement.
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I could be succumbing to bad advertising myself, not that I seriously think you need to go out with a spiked baseball bat to get your groceries. California still looks like a great place to live, and I for one hope I don't need to rely on public transport where the worst happens.
I do think it does still have a serious homeless and junkie problem (which largely overlap).
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The nearest abortion clinic to the actually populated parts of Texas is in Kansas. This is a 6-7 hour drive from one of Texas' main population centers and a 10+ hour drive from the other two. That's the high water mark for difficulty getting an abortion; a three day round trip(one for each leg plus a day to actually get the abortion) from Houston(Americans would drive that distance, although they'd fly if going to New Mexico instead because Texas' population centers have reliable air service there, so you could substitute airfare to Santa Fe or Albuquerque one a two day trip). And of course even when abortions were widely available in Texas, they weren't exactly free here, so you'd add in another thousand dollars. A thousand dollars, plus 1-2 nights in a hotel(women seeking abortions are not going to sleep on the streets, even if they can get away with it), plus either air fare to New Mexico or gas to Kansas, plus missing time at work- you'd exclude a pretty substantial chunk of the working class from being able to get abortions even allowing for their credit limits.
Now in other states which have banned abortion things are substantially easier for poor-but-not-impoverished women, although if they miss their window under state law in eg Florida they might be somewhat harder.
(Nor am I a Hindu, if one is allowed to shed the religion of one's ancestors)
I won't dispute your self assessment, although unless you convert to Christianity rednecks will probably reckon you a Hindu despite your lack of belief or practice.
Yes, you can afford health insurance on a doctor's salary, and if you work for a hospital can afford really comprehensive health insurance. It's still probably more expensive than you'd expect even if you come out ahead on the whole compared to Britain.
You are of course correct about gun violence; don't stick one in your mouth or head into the neighborhoods the locals tell you to avoid and you'll almost certainly be fine.
I could have sworn that I wrote a lengthy post in response, but I'm already sleep deprived so it could all have been a dream.
Thank you for elaborating, I didn't consider there were actually some parts where abortion did get that difficult to come by.
I'm all for abortion rights, so far in fact that even some abortion rights activists would run screaming in terror. So you can imagine I sympathize with their plight, while still thinking that it's unlikely to be an issue for me and mine.
For anything not acute or that didn't need ongoing care, I'd fly to another country and get it done cheaper. Mexico is quite literally across the border.
If it was a more intensive issue, then I'd just move to a place where it was cheaper for the interim.
Makes little difference to me since I don't think they're being malicious. I don't think the initial barriers will persist when they see that we share some common interests, and I think at one point they'd be calling their buddies over to get a load of this funny Indian dude who knows about guns and how to shoot them.
This is probably correct if your self assessment is accurate.
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