I would rather not resort to killing people to reduce the population. I would hope to solve the problem by persuasion before that point.
Marriage rights no problem, divorce rights as well (the most painful), but no adoption rights kids have a right to have a father AND a mother - sorry but mother nature didn't plan for homosexual procreation.
Hmm. What is your objection? In the Uk there is apparently a shortage of adoptive parents. You would rather the kids rot in council care? The statistics say it is approaching a guarantee of a life of crime if they do.
I love my country, and I truly believe that the United States is one of the greatest nations in history;
Some friends of mine who are chrisitans once commented to me on a story I was telling them, about someone invoking God to cure the perceived failings in another while missing their own failings. I found it interesting my friends agreed this other person had rather missed the point of christianity. It seems appropriate to mention this, because one of the apparent failings of the US is religious fundamentalism. Something it abhors in others. I suppose if pushed I would say I love my country too, but I would never put it like that. When americans say it, it appears to be the national religion, that the US is better than anywhere else. I certainly do not believe that about the UK. The US seems extraordinarily unaccepting of anything different. It isnt even comfortable about its own variety.
there's no denying that what the U.S. does makes an impact on the rest of the world,
For the last 100 years or so, yes. A small period of time in human history?
and we are indelibly linked with the ideals of democracy and freedom, even if we fall short of those ideals at times.
A country riven by civil war over slavery which has yet to reconcile itself to equal rights for everyone regardless of race, already mentioned religion, sexual diversity, cultural differences? Yes, very proselytising for 'the American way'. Happy to enforce it militarily on the rest of the world.
I am sceptical about the degree of democracy in the Uk, and indeed in the US. The US government is designed to be incompetent, but the way it has turned out now it pays little attention to the majority of its citizens. A democracy is meaningless if it does not represent the will of those people. American democracy was designed to be powerless exactly to prevent it intervening in the lives of its citizens. Such as the right to own slaves, but the right to be rich and the right to starve penniless. In this modern age, no sensible national system of healthcare?
it's going to take decades to undue the damage of the past 40 years of conservatism/corporatism in this country and make us a country that Americans can be proud of again.
Sounds as though you may agree with me. My problem is how can a country as good as you believe it to be do what you say it has done? What makes you think it has now gone into reverse?