Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think the criticism of the US's healthcare system and foreign policy are perfectly valid and I'm sure even many Americans agree with me on that. If that makes me "anti-American" in your eyes, fine with me. I think it's funny when Americans keep opening these threads about why the rest of the world supposedly "hates" the US but get offended when people actually respond with their criticisms. What do you expect them to do? Discussions like these are very one-sided because people only mention what they dislike about the US. There may be a lot of things they love about the US but they're not asked about that.
Besides, if I had to base my view of Americans on what I've read online, it wouldn't be too flattering either.
That's true, Linda--many of us do agree, at least in principle, with many criticisms of U.S. domestic policies (i.e. healthcare) and foreign policies (i.e. preemptive military invasions).
What's troubling for some of us, however, is that when these criticisms are offered by outsiders, they usually have a certain air of condescension and moral grandiosity about them, which, in my estimation, stems from the fact that the U.S. and Americans have historically been viewed by many foreign populations (especially European ones) as being inherently inferior in just about every possible human/political/moral category imaginable (I know you don't particularly care to acknowledge that fact, but do try to be reasonable here). I don't believe for one second that this sort of sentiment has at all waned out, and it's thus impossible for me to believe that (most) foreign critics of the U.S. approach this kind of discussion in any sort of objective way--you do it, in my opinion, with the sole intention of asserting moral superiority.
Because of that, I too think it's funny that Americans keep starting these sorts of threads (yes, I've done it myself in the past, and I'll never do it again, believe me), unless, of course, conflict is the objective. There's no longer any point in begging the question of "why?"--Americans should understand that it just is, and there's no solution (and if there is a solution, well, we can all be sure that it involves diametrical change and compromise only from the U.S./Americans).
54% of Americans polled by NBC said that they supported as opposed to 40% opposed. 54% of Finland supports gay marriage, and 52% of Germany does, which means we're on par with those countries. Poland has a 27 support rate, and Italy has a 41% support rate.
Europe absolutely has "race issues;" Angela Merkel stating that "multiculturalism has failed" comes to mind, as does a restriction on young Muslim women wearing hijab in French schools, the statement in French schoolbooks that "we are descendents of the Gauls" which of course has little truth for a French citizen of Senegalese, Algerian, or Vietnamese descent.
I don't think that you're being very fair or judicious in your assertations that we are "more backwards than many undeveloped countries," considering that we are not exponentially worse in the regards you listed than some European nations.
This is true. For some reason, Europe in general has an image of being progressive and secular but that is definitely not true for all - or even most - European countries. Some European countries, such as Poland and Romania, are as religious as any state in the American Bible Belt. Several European countries have dealt with ethnic conflicts within their borders in the recent past (Spain, Ireland, Yugoslavia) and Eastern European countries in particular are well-known for their problems with racism. Some European countries have more socially conservative laws than almost any state in the US, such as Ireland where abortion is still illegal or Poland, Ukraine and Serbia (among others) where marriage is specifically limited to man and woman in the consitution. Some European countries are practically Third World, such as Moldova, Albania, Ukraine and Bosnia which all have a GDP per capita (PPP) of less than $10,000. Most Western European countries indeed struggle with multiculturalism - particularly the integration of Muslim immigrants - although these immigrants have some blame in that as well. European societies are simply not built to be multicultural 'melting pots' like the US, Canada or Australia are but neither are most countries in the world and that is fine.
The representation of Europe as very wealthy, progressive, secular welfare states really just applies to a handful of countries, most notably the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands. The rest are either on par with the US or worse, which is not to say they don't have a lot of great things to offer in other respects
Europe is an incredibly diverse continent and that's why I love it so much!
Some European countries have more socially conservative laws than almost any state in the US, such as Ireland where abortion is still illegal or Poland, Ukraine and Serbia (among others) where marriage is specifically limited to man and woman in the consitution.
To be fair, abortion would probably still be banned by many states in the U.S. if there weren't a Supreme Court decision ruling it legal at the federal level. Also, same-sex marriage remains banned in most U.S. states even though President Obama and Vice President Biden declared their support for its legality earlier this year.
Last edited by BigCityDreamer; 12-09-2012 at 08:34 PM..
54% of Americans polled by NBC said that they supported as opposed to 40% opposed. 54% of Finland supports gay marriage, and 52% of Germany does, which means we're on par with those countries. Poland has a 27 support rate, and Italy has a 41% support rate.
Europe absolutely has "race issues;" Angela Merkel stating that "multiculturalism has failed" comes to mind, as does a restriction on young Muslim women wearing hijab in French schools, the statement in French schoolbooks that "we are descendents of the Gauls" which of course has little truth for a French citizen of Senegalese, Algerian, or Vietnamese descent.
I don't think that you're being very fair or judicious in your assertations that we are "more backwards than many undeveloped countries," considering that we are not exponentially worse and in some cases much further along in the regards you listed than some European nations.
We do have a lot of problems here - our healthcare system is indeed backwards since it's run as a business as opposed to a social service. We spend far, far too little on public education... again, because there is a segment of the population that has an inability to view public schools as a social investment that benefits us all and instead look at it through the prism of business economics and thus see it as a money pit. However, it's very clear that these attitudes are shifting at a very great rate in the US (perhaps not if you don't live here and are primarily exposed to media that presents us in a negative light). Things are not perfect here, but they're hardly perfect... well, anywhere else, really.
I highlighted the world multiculturalism, europe is way less racist overall, you see people having more problems with groups because being further away culturally-wise than being different racially, I could name several examples, turks in germany, moroccans/turks in netherlands, pakistanis in the UK, all those groups are less wanted than black people over those countries despite being phenotypically less different. In america people blame other groups because how different they look to white mainstream culture, not because of culture, americans talk always about "whites" and "non whites" europeans care way more about culture, not race.
Again I'm mostly comparing the US to developed countries of western europe. Some countries of eastern europe arent even comparable to the US since they haven't been exposed to multiculturalism for any considerably period of time.
Now if we are talking about socially progressivism, I dont see how the US could be seen more progressive compared to western european nations like Germany, France, belgium, etc, let alone scandinavian countries or the netherlands.
The US is a good country to be rich or wealthy, probably better than anywhere in europe, but if you don't make the top of the food chain in terms of economical power then the vast majority of western europe (and even a few eastern european countries we could trow in) would offer you a superior lifestyle and standards of living.
One other point I forgot to mention: the USA is the only country I'm aware of, that writes numbers as: month/day/year. The rest of the world writes: day/month/year which definitely makes more sense, as it's in chronological order. This confuses any outsider who comes to, or deals, with the USA, sometimes making them miss appointments, miss peoples' birthdays, etc.
I will grant you that, changing to the Metric system, would require costly measures such as, taping corrections over millions of USA road mileage signs (although other English-speaking countries made such a change without a fuss).
Not so, with changing the numerical dating system. Just decree that all Americans should do it, starting the next new years' day, or whenever. It's not exactly rocket science - Very, very easy to learn.
Well, Canada also uses d/m/y (no surprise).
Some countries (I believe Japan is one) use y/m/d (today is 12/12/10), actually "correct" in the sense that the most significant digit is first), but the only practical way to avoid confusion would be to eliminate the use of numerals for the month (using 10/Dec/12 in the UK and Dec 10 12 in the US). People anywhere would recognize it as the same day, regardless of syntax.
I saw a neat system in use at a bank long ago. It used two numerical digits for the year, two letters for the month, and two numeric for the day. My account was opened 76FB16, today is B2DC10 (the 2000s being "A" and the 2010s being "B").
I highlighted the world multiculturalism, europe is way less racist overall, you see people having more problems with groups because being further away culturally-wise than being different racially, I could name several examples, turks in germany, moroccans/turks in netherlands, pakistanis in the UK, all those groups are less wanted than black people over those countries despite being phenotypically less different. In america people blame other groups because how different they look to white mainstream culture, not because of culture, americans talk always about "whites" and "non whites" europeans care way more about culture, not race.
The whole issue of racism is controversial and political in the U.S. It's not even agreed upon to what extent racism actually exists in America today. Some point to the lower representation of minorities in the upper echelons of business and politics as evidence of racism. Others point to the mistreatment of blacks by store clerks, taxi drivers and police.
On the other hand, some people point out that a black person has been twice elected President of the U.S. as evidence that racism has diminished or doesn't have much effect. Also, many minority immigrant groups actually have higher incomes and employment rates in America than "traditional" white Americans, etc.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. It's a rather complex issue and depends a lot on individual point of view.
Last edited by BigCityDreamer; 12-10-2012 at 08:13 AM..
I highlighted the world multiculturalism, europe is way less racist overall, you see people having more problems with groups because being further away culturally-wise than being different racially, I could name several examples, turks in germany, moroccans/turks in netherlands, pakistanis in the UK, all those groups are less wanted than black people over those countries despite being phenotypically less different. In america people blame other groups because how different they look to white mainstream culture, not because of culture, americans talk always about "whites" and "non whites" europeans care way more about culture, not race.
Again I'm mostly comparing the US to developed countries of western europe. Some countries of eastern europe arent even comparable to the US since they haven't been exposed to multiculturalism for any considerably period of time.
Now if we are talking about socially progressivism, I dont see how the US could be seen more progressive compared to western european nations like Germany, France, belgium, etc, let alone scandinavian countries or the netherlands.
The US is a good country to be rich or wealthy, probably better than anywhere in europe, but if you don't make the top of the food chain in terms of economical power then the vast majority of western europe (and even a few eastern european countries we could trow in) would offer you a superior lifestyle and standards of living.
This is true, racism is actually not very common at all in Europe (except for a few EE countries as I mentioned). Europeans are far more concerned with cultural identity, as defined by religion, language or dialect, nationality, etc. and some people do discriminate on that basis. This distinction becomes clear whenever there are threads about how African-Americans would be treated in Europe; the response from Europeans is invariably that they would be treated just as any other American and no one would mistake them or compare them to Africans because culturally speaking, they are simply Americans. The concept of hyphenated identities (Irish-American, African-American, Italian-American, etc.) is also something most Europeans do not understand or agree with, especially if it is used by people who were born and raised in the US. Europeans generally do not consider you "one of them" if your great-grandparents happened to come from Europe because you were raised in a different culture. This is even true if both of your parents are born in Europe but you were born and raised somewhere else, as some people on this board (such as Robert) can testify. The fact that you are 100% European 'racially' speaking doesn't mean much to most people here.
The clash between Europeans and certain Muslim immigrants has nothing to do with race, it is entirely due to incompatible cultural identities (for those Muslims who refuse to integrate into the culture of their new homeland). Notice you never hear about the clash between Europeans and, say, Chinese immigrants (there are millions of them here as well) even though the Chinese are racially more different than Arabs or Turks.
This is true, racism is actually not very common at all in Europe (except for a few EE countries as I mentioned). Europeans are far more concerned with cultural identity, as defined by religion, language or dialect, nationality, etc. and some people do discriminate on that basis. This distinction becomes clear whenever there are threads about how African-Americans would be treated in Europe; the response from Europeans is invariably that they would be treated just as any other American and no one would mistake them or compare them to Africans because culturally speaking, they are simply Americans. The concept of hyphenated identities (Irish-American, African-American, Italian-American, etc.) is also something most Europeans do not understand or agree with, especially if it is used by people who were born and raised in the US. Europeans generally do not consider you "one of them" if your great-grandparents happened to come from Europe because you were raised in a different culture. This is even true if both of your parents are born in Europe but you were born and raised somewhere else, as some people on this board (such as Robert) can testify. The fact that you are 100% European 'racially' speaking doesn't mean much to most people here.
The clash between Europeans and certain Muslim immigrants has nothing to do with race, it is entirely due to incompatible cultural identities (for those Muslims who refuse to integrate into the culture of their new homeland). Notice you never hear about the clash between Europeans and, say, Chinese immigrants (there are millions of them here as well) even though the Chinese are racially more different than Arabs or Turks.
The thing is, in the U.S., "cultural" discrimination is considered to be simply a euphemism for racial discrimination. It might be even taken as being more insidious.
For example, if you say "I hate black people" then at least someone will definitely know where you stand. On the other hand, if you say "I am not that comfortable with African American culture" then you might be taken as a hypocritical kind of closet racist - and therefore more dangerous in some people's opinions. Of course, both statements could get you fired from your job.
Also, the U.S. is just like Europe in that some ethnic groups assimilate much better into the mainstream culture than others do.
The clash between Europeans and certain Muslim immigrants has nothing to do with race, it is entirely due to incompatible cultural identities (for those Muslims who refuse to integrate into the culture of their new homeland). Notice you never hear about the clash between Europeans and, say, Chinese immigrants (there are millions of them here as well) even though the Chinese are racially more different than Arabs or Turks.
No offense but the fact that you differentiate between racial problems in Europe ("that's because of culture") and racial problems in the US ("that's because of race") illustrates how you (and many outsiders) misunderstand the dynamics of this question in the US and how segregated the US is even today. Take a look at any racist remark on this forum (they're easy to find on many regional subforums or on the P&OC board) -- they are ALL based on something along the lines of "they don't have the same values as we do", i.e. racism in the US is culture-based too. There are only few stupid lunatics who will attribute their ideas to skin color or genetics, the story will almost always be one of cultural differences.
Well, Canada also uses d/m/y (no surprise).
Some countries (I believe Japan is one) use y/m/d (today is 12/12/10), actually "correct" in the sense that the most significant digit is first), but the only practical way to avoid confusion would be to eliminate the use of numerals for the month (using 10/Dec/12 in the UK and Dec 10 12 in the US). People anywhere would recognize it as the same day, regardless of syntax.
I saw a neat system in use at a bank long ago. It used two numerical digits for the year, two letters for the month, and two numeric for the day. My account was opened 76FB16, today is B2DC10 (the 2000s being "A" and the 2010s being "B").
Year / Month / Day is the best, for true.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
