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remember when there used to be all these articles about how people in europe live longer than americans because they drink red wine and eat more olive oil or bullshit like that? turns out it was universal healthcare the whole time
US history as it is taught in US schools is rather hagiographic, suggesting at most we borrowed a few ideas (e.g. the two-house congress), but otherwise were dismissing all that was feudalism. Even our elected officials dressed as officials and not as aristocracy.
So yeah, we also discarded a notion from classic peonage that serfs belonged to the land. Rather we had slaves and waged workers (not that we treated them particularly well.) The American Dream before the California gold rush was an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay and we were crap at that even then.
