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Its interesting how this suddenly went from a friendly discussion to a confrontational one.
Much of the European view of America is probably true. Deep down most Americans probably know this and this is why we tend to become defensive about ourselves. We remain intensly proud and patriotic of our country despite all of its flaws.
Americans feel that we, as a nation, have generally done good throughout the world (although there are things we would like to take back). America sent her sons across the Atlantic to die twice in the last century to save Europe from itself. We then remained to protect Europe from communism (Europeans like to brag about their superior social health care system. It must have been easy for European governments to pay for this while the U.S. paid for a large part of your defense from the Soviet threat.) No wonder Americans take it personally when we hear Europeans refer to us as fat, lazy, ignorant, less educated, less sophisticated, less cultured, etc. Europeans would do well to take a step back and ponder where your "superior" European society would be if the U.S. were not around in the last century.
Is America perfect? Of course not! Americans will be the first and loudest to tell you that. We have made mistakes. Americans probably do look across the Atlantic and see a European society that is better than ours in a lot of ways. Its just that we feel we are owed some gratitude, not disdain, for making that possible.
Is it too late for America to recuperate from all the bad that it had gone through with Bush and all that, so that it can be at least half-decent in the world's eyes again?
Is it too late for America to recuperate from all the bad that it had gone through with Bush and all that, so that it can be at least half-decent in the world's eyes again?
But another question is, is Europe so far gone culturally and intellectually and in terms of courage against evil after decades of leftism dominating, so it can not be seen as half-decent in Americans' eyes again?
KGR..you are the man for what you said..in addition to that i would like to add a second point. I seems Europeans always criticize us yet many work hard to come to America. They want to enter our colleges and become part of our workforce. They say we lack intellect, but we have the best college education system in the world and thousand of Europeans apply to them every year. They say we are fat..well yeah some of us are, but we also have more food then they do. We produce more food then anybody in the world. In fact, we provide food for many of those European countries that look down on us. What I find is really funny is that I don't think Europe as a whole could survive without the U.S...I know that sounds far fetched..but look, America as a country is genius in its making. We spread our armed forces around the world, we have a coalition of the willing..we then spread our media outlets around the world..from movies to fast food chains. You see the reason Americans can be fat, lazy, and whatever anybody wants to say is because we produce the most food, provide protection, and keep the world Americanized..Its sounds kind of pompous, but I'm simply just stating the facts.
Is it too late for America to recuperate from all the bad that it had gone through with Bush and all that, so that it can be at least half-decent in the world's eyes again?
Well seeing that Bush was at least 10 times worse than Hitler and Stalin combined, and neither Germany nor Russian have any decency left, your answer is an obvious no.
Well seeing that Bush was at least 10 times worse than Hitler and Stalin combined, and neither Germany nor Russian have any decency left, your answer is an obvious no.
I don't think it's fair to compare Bush to Hitler or Stalin; both were very terrible people who did VERY bad things. Bush is just lousy.
I'd say it's not very enlightened to say "Europe did this and that" either. When did Sweden kill people in the WWs? Or when did we kill people "all over the world"? We're part of Europe, but we're not EUROPE.
Please notice the HUGE diversity between different European countries.
Interesting, here's a country , like Switzerland , claimed neutrality , but opted for materialism over principal. Sweden made huge fortunes by helping the Germans, but that's for another discussion.
We're never going to have a society like Europe. We simply don't have the racial, ethnic and social cohesion being a genuine ethnic-state brings. Japan puts even the EU down in terms of lack of crime and social decay. But guess what? It's 99% Japanese and extremely, disgustingly racist. I don't want to live in a society like that.
When you're a european, you have something in common with your neighbor. Language, food, history, sports, arts, social mores, etc. There is a shared bond between Germans, French, British, Swedes, Italians, etc. This contributes to social cohesion, which is a factor in reducing crime and social alientaion. People naturally care for people who are like themselves, weither intellectually, lingustically, socially, physically, personaliy, mentally, etc. America is a place where no one person is like another, so in essance we have no bond, and therefore no reason to care for one another. The things we do try to hold onto, like freedom and economic mobility, are being attacked by Leftist politicans and further rotting away our society.
Explain to me why I should pay for another American's health care? Why should I pay for someone like a Pastor Wright or David Duke follower who spew hate and venom. Why should I submit my will to someone else who could care less about what happens to me?
Europeans like socialism becuase it's a saftey blanket. I've met alot of Europeans, and they're disgustingly lazy and decadent. Socialism supports that lifestyle. They are extrodinarily nice people, but still. I can see why the British tube bombers thought Britian was sinful.....
I think if you look at history the country that was dominating the world was hated by many. Why should it be different for the USA.Europe is largely socialist so they look at things with that view.The USA is anti socialist and communist so they look at them with distrust especially after WWII.You also have to remember that many americans that returned from WWII had little nice to say about europeans.
Interesting, here's a country , like Switzerland , claimed neutrality , but opted for materialism over principal. Sweden made huge fortunes by helping the Germans, but that's for another discussion.
In all fairness, we did not kill anyone, we did not go around the world killing people. Were we not as neutral as we would have wanted to be? No, we were not. But, had we tried to stay neutral, we would have been invaded and occupied, and all the jews and other "non-wanted" that fled to Sweden from the continent would have been taken to the concentration camps. We did not do it because of greed, but because we stood no chance at all to keep the Germans out of our country (we had no defense). I'm sorry, but I do not believe what we did was wrong. We saved lives by not being 100% neutral. We chose the less bad alternative.
The article is nothing more than propaganda (funny, since it's saying the same about ur media. Sorry, but I haven't even heard of the documentaries it talks about, and I mainly watch TV4 and have recorded ALL 9/11 documentaries shown on Swedish TV) and I don't see what it contributes to the discussion.
Are we discussing whether "Europe" hates USA, or are we discussing the WWs?
No, I still do not believe "Europe" hates USA. MANY dislike CERTAIN things, but we dislike things in our own countries. Can't we dislike things without having it turn into a "you hate us, you bastards", if this really is a "free world"?
Let's just face that we dislike things about each other. I don't like eveything about the US, but neither do I like everything about Norway, or England, or Germany, or Lithuania, or Albania, or Russia, etc. I don't like everything about Sweden either.
I don't believe anyone likes everything about anything.
Everyone dislikes something about his or her own country.
We can go on about it for hours on end together with another fellow countryman. But, very few would say it to people from other countries. You don't have to be extremely patriotic or even patriotic to not want to say negative things about your own country. It's simply how we work. We get defensive when it's about something of "our own". Just think about your own family- you hate how your sister or brother or partner or child does something, and you tell your other family members about this, but you say nothing to your friends or co-workers or neighbours, etc.
(I just want to point out yet again, that "Europe" is not a continent of "neighbours" who share languages and history and art and food etc. We're far more different than that. If I go to Finland, I can't talk to them, and they are my neighours. If I go to Russia, I cannot talk to them, despite them being our neighbours. If I go to Germany, I cannot talk to them, despite them being just a few Swedish mil away from my southern boarder. We have completely different arts, history, language, culture, etc.
It's not the same thing between a country and a state. Nationalism was "founded" in Europe, and believe me, it's still alive and kicking...)
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