Problem there is that the US loudly and fundamentally claims to be a democracy. If we are to accept that, then we have to accept that the government embodies the will of its people. Or, seriously consider that the US is genuinely no longer a real democracy.
It is a real shame, as you imply. American people have done incredible things which contribute to the world in general in a positive way, and the country its self is undoubtedly spectacular and beautiful. But the political atmosphere, the general fear, and the resulting attitudes are a total bar to me. These days I even worry about using US internet services since merely doing so can put me in the sights of US authorities and their insane legal system and laws. Worse still, my own government literally bend over for the US government.
In short, a great people are strangling them selves.
I don't think it's fair to paint all of this as somehow originating with the US. This country doesn't exist in a vacuum and it is shaped by the political and economic forces that surround it. I think people forget that this nation is constantly under some form of "attack" by groups (nation-state and otherwise) who hope to destabilize it or mitigate the power it can wield.
I'm an American and I'm fiercely proud of this country. We screw up all the time, but we've been able to manage a peaceful transition of power and somehow manage to find our way in a difficult and challenging world.
I think it's lost on MANY people who are not citizens or residents that the USA is HUGE, politically diverse, and nearly as varied in customs, socioeconomics, and population as Europe. You can even stretch that to language in some parts of the USA. Try and get around South Miami without at least a smattering of Spanish language ability.
Our legal system has it's flaws. You can definitely find examples of miscarriages of justice without too much trouble. Our bureaucracy is sometimes incomprehensible. Our tax systems are strange and often counterproductive.
What is often missing is that all of these things are the result of a vigorous political experiment in self-government. Below the federal government, there are a whole slew of state, regional, city, town, village, and county governments that have wide latitude to set their own laws and practices. In certain counties in the USA, it's still illegal to buy alcohol. In other counties, you can buy alcohol at a DRIVE THRU.
All of these variations are a result of people determining for themselves which laws they'll live under. It's closer to say that the USA is filled with many many cooperating democracies.
Just remember that in this country, you can still go from dirt-floor poor (not an exaggeration) to billionaire in the span of a single lifetime.
We're far from perfect, but it's the recognition that we're trying to perfect this country that makes us unique and special.
> and nearly as varied in customs, socioeconomics, and population as Europe. You can even stretch that to language in some parts of the USA. Try and get around South Miami without at least a smattering of Spanish language ability.
In my rural county in England we have something like 120 different languages spoken by people as their first language.
Some of those are from historic ties to England - such as some of the Indian languages, with languages merging into English. (Pyjama, Bungalow, Juggernaut etc etc).
> I think people forget that this nation is constantly under some form of "attack" by groups (nation-state and otherwise)
Really? How many mainland terrorist attacks have you had? Because Europe has had a wide range of different separatist, leftist, anarchist, right-wing, etc groups setting off bombs and killing people.
EDIT: you can still go from dirt-floor poor (not an exaggeration) to billionaire in the span of a single lifetime.
Yes, I can go and buy a lottery ticket and win millions with a 1 in 14 million chance. The truth is that we could walk into a maternity ward in the US and predict with reasonable accuracy the children who will be poor and on drugs or in prison, and the children who will not be poor.
I think you're deliberately misunderstanding me. And that's fine. I'm definitely detecting a bunch of do-as-I-say type of sentiment.
But my mother fled a country (her European home country and the country of her birth) that tried to kill her and every one like her. SO...please pardon me if I don't agree to entertain your Europe is oh-so-much-better than the US diatribe. If one persons difficult experience can indict a whole country of 300m people, well...what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
"pardon me if I don't agree to entertain your Europe is oh-so-much-better than the US diatribe"
Read the words again. None of DanBC's comments can be construed as a belief that Europe (or anywhere else) is better than the USA. If Europe has more languages than the US, for example, then that doesn't make Europe better in any meaningful sense. What (it seems to me) he's saying is that the US is less special and unique than you might think. Not less special to you, but less special on an objective, global scale.
From my point of view (British, European), belief in American Exceptionalism has always seemed a little deluded. Many countries around the world have democracy, wealth creation, etc. Many of them are trying to improve (though maybe not "perfect") their society. On the whole, though, they just don't make so much noise about it.
Uh huh. I love the British people. Really. Lived half a year in London and worked down in Mayfair back in the 90's.
But I'll admit that I found the fact that the UK has no Constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech a shock. And I'd wager that any American would find your system of ASBOs to be downright Orwellian.
Speaking of Orwell, you folks have had government surveillance on a scale unheard of in the USA for decades now. How's that working out? Wasn't there a near-simultaneous bus bombing in a heavily patrolled and videoed area?
My point is this: I find the constant US bashing that occurs on HN to be nasty and misplaced. Don't like my country? Great. Don't come here. Don't use US products. Don't use US services. Don't contribute financially to the US. I'm totally cool with it.
The mere fact that we have a torrent of immigration applications only demonstrates that despite the nasty border guards, the crazy laws, and the weird politics, that we still remain one of the best places to live a life. We're not perfect; we're just better in a lot of ways that matter to people.
America is a big place. So is Europe. Everybody has something to be ashamed of. Nobody is perfect. National and regional virtues and vices are intrinsically multidimensional, and do not reduce to a single meritocratic scale. Is America "better" than Europe. Bottom. The question makes no sense, because the notion of "better" or "worse" does not apply.
I am from the UK.
Through time, both historically and more recently, my fellow countrymen have engaged in any number of ethically horrendous actions that disgust and offend my sense of what is right and proper. I don't want to be caught defending the concentration camps in 1950's Kenya. I don't want to be caught defending the (recent) off-hand murder of unarmed prisoners-of-war in Afghanistan.
By the same token, I am imperfect too. I don't want to be caught defending some of the things that I have done and said in the past.
There is no sense of righteousness driving this, just a generalised sense that the world is a slovenly place, and that leading a good, moral, conscientious life is beyond the abilities of most of us.
We all have a responsibility, as fellow human-beings, to support each other in our efforts to improve our world (no matter how futile those efforts might appear to be).
You've said that the US is as varied as Europe. You said that we can stretch that to languages. You gave an example of needing to speak Spanish to get around some parts of the US.
Spain itself has Spanish, Catalan, Galician, and Basque. Sure, you can probably just use Spanish. But about 15% of the Spanish population - living in Spain for generations - don't speak Spanish as a first language.
None if this is about which country / continent is "better".
"But my mother fled a country (her European home country and the country of her birth) that tried to kill her and every one like her."
Bad things happen, US has its own sins with wiped-out indigenous populations. The idea is to correct ourselves and to make things better. Apologetic attitudes aren't helpful in this regard.
BTW, which is that European country if you don't mind?
Nazi Germany. My mother was born during the Third Reich. Just lucky I guess.
BTW, my bartender is Croatian. Ask him how he feels about Europe. IN fact, ask anyone who's had a chance to see what the USA is really like and compare it to their home country. I know a certain Italian grad student who is so desperate to stay here he's on his SECOND Ph.D. I visited Italy and it seems nice, but apparently he places a high premium on being able to earn an actual living that he'd rather stay here.
I've had a chance to see the US. From NY to LA, Mississippi and Denver to Hawaii and Alaska. And I am never going back to live there.
And I am an American. I used to be so proud of my country that I even quit working in IT for a few years to join the military (US Air Force). People would ask each other 'Why did you join?' the normal answer being healthcare or university. When they asked me I would just say 'America has been pretty good to me, I wanted to pay back the favor' Nobody quite knew what to make of this as I spent most half of my life growing up around the world (mainly Europe) and my father's side of my family is Cherokee Indian and black.
The US now (since 9/11 basically) is a shadow of what it used to be. Reading headlines about American government actions is like reading about the good ol' USSR back in the 70s and 80s. Except in the 80s Europe tore down a wall, whilst nowadays the US is building walls (both literally and policy wise)
It's a good thing your mother didnt have to try and enter the America of today to escape persecution. She'd probably be turned away at the border.
Good point. It is certainly true that the US is an absolutely, stupendously, incomprehensibly huge place; with a mind-bending amount of variety and differentiation. I loved living there for the (short) period that I did.
Please level up on your reading comprehension and see if you care to reframe your criticism.
And Lloyd Blankfein grew up in a housing project in Brooklyn. In fact, the same housing project that Jay-Z did. It turns out that where hard work and preparation meet opportunity, there is luck to be won.
I was born here as the child of two lower-class immigrant parents from different parts of the globe. Now I'm a one percenter. My wife grew up in a single parent household from the age of three, moved to NYC with $300 20 years ago and is also a wildly successful person.
Rags to riches is not a fairy tale in the USA. It DOES happen but not without lots of hard work. Luck plays a part, but you'd be AMAZED at how many people with the good fortune to be US citizens can't manage to even get out of bed in the morning to take advantage of the amazing opportunities here.
So Europe is shitty because your mom almost got killed by her government? How about tens of millions of native Americans who were systematically exterminated by their government?
While America was founded on some really great and unique ideas and concepts (your declaration of independence comes to mind), the execution is less than stellar. That in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if you wouldn't claim that you're somehow better and more exceptional than everyone else.
You don't believe there aren't other places in the world where people go from rags to riches on daily basis and where opportunities are abound? You think the rest of the world lives in caves and mud houses? The best way to remedy that would be to get a passport and get out more.
Just an FYI if you can stand to look past your own prejudice and ill-informed speculation:
1. I've lived (and worked) overseas in both Europe and the Middle East.
2. I've visited and spent great deals of time in South America, Central America. I haven't been to Asia but that's been mainly a function of time than opportunity. That'll probably change next year with a trip to Singapore.
3. I've run out of pages in my passport, buddy. I'm likely better travelled than you are. Last month, I did three transatlantic crossings back to back. I've driven from Paris to Milan in a 5-series. I was at the Berlin Wall while there was still a Berlin Wall and I've been back to see it's disappearance. I've even got a picture of myself in East Germany from BEFORE the wall came down.
Before you go off talking trash about how dumb and untravelled Americans are, you might consider that the person on the other end of that screen you live your life on had a Passport and exposure to the world before you were born.
Now that you've got this out of your system and let everybody know how awesome your life experiences are, would you like to address the individual points in my reply or would you like to brag a bit more and hurl some more insults?
While it was unfair of me to bring up the passport thing, you completely missed the point of my post.
No, I didn't miss the point of your post. I understood it completely amidst the insults you hurled MY way and the way you misread what I was trying to say.
I will however accept your apology and reward that with this little gem:
You can get rich in a place called China or in a place called Russia, but you can't criticize the government there AT ALL or you will end up in jail or dead. Or alive and wishing you were dead. Americans, rich and poor, criticize the government all the time, and don't worry about this (much).
There are western countries (like France) where you can get rich and live (mostly) free, but you'll be constantly hounded by the taxing authorities to support their ever-grander uses for the money you earned. Like political elites? Like enclaves of power you can't ever penetrate? France has 'em in spades. In America, you can go to a crappy school and still become President. We've had Presidents with only a high-school diploma. Some had no formal education.
You can live in some Middle Eastern countries like a sheik, but you'll be dependent on a ruling class that holds power via a system of socially acceptable corruption and religious oppression. But hey: LOW TAXES.
You can find examples of places that have individual things that are better (sometimes a LOT better) than we have in the US.
What you can't find is a nation anywhere in the world that has the same level of disparate groups living in more-or-less peaceful coexistence to keep the country moving forward. We have every kind of person from every kind of place with every crazy religion you can imagine. We have so many choices that people make up their own religions. We have so many mixed nationalities in offspring that we have almost lost the idea of what it means to be from-somewhere-else.
It's not any one thing, but the combination of things that has made this place great. We are more cacophonous than many other places but also more resilient. It's tough but we manage. We make mistakes but the people course-correct. We elect bad leaders and then elect good ones.
But if you ask me if I would rather live anywhere else, the answer is NO. I still think the USA is the best place.
But seriously dude, you need to THINK before you attack: You might just learn something. Not all of us older types are terminally fuddy-duddy.
> You can get rich in a place called China or in a place called Russia, but you can't criticize the government there AT ALL or you will end up in jail or dead. Or alive and wishing you were dead. Americans, rich and poor, criticize the government all the time, and don't worry about this (much).
While this might've been true in the past, America has become pretty authoritarian recently. Dragnet surveillance, excessive use of police force, one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, people being imprisoned for writing the wrong thing on Facebook (look up the kid in Texas who got in enormous trouble over a joke), police departments taking bribes from i-banks and then beating protesters up etc.
It's a sad thing because America was founded on some really great principles and now you're just throwing it all away while still claiming greatness and refusing to take a hard honest look at yourself. I don't dispute that China and Russia are shitty places. I am disputing your claim that America is the absolute best country in the world. It might've been for waves of immigrants a hundred years ago. I seriously doubt that's still the case. I for one wouldn't want to live there.
> There are western countries (like France) where you can get rich and live (mostly) free, but you'll be constantly hounded by the taxing authorities to support their ever-grander uses for the money you earned.
America is known to have one of the most vicious and unforgiving tax system in the world where people routinely end up getting serious jail time over tax issues that could easily be resolved with a simple conversation. Then there is the issue of global taxation. I work with a number of Americans colleagues and they all complain how unfair it is that they have to keep paying taxes on their income here despite the fact that most of them haven't been home in years and have little intention of returning. One of my colleagues was unable to fly back home for a period of time because he would've been detained and arrested at the airport over a tax misunderstanding he had with the IRS. Couldn't go home until that got cleared up. I can't imagine something like this happening in my country unless I was wanted for murder or something.
Now granted, taxes in Europe are high, but my country doesn't tax me on my global income. Additionally, many countries have great social safety nets and medical treatment is usually completely covered by national health insurance. This causes our taxes to be slightly higher than in the US, but at least I know that if I or people close to me ever go bankrupt, they won't be sentenced to die on the street just because they can't pay their medical bill. I was pretty sick this summer - total expense: 30 euros. My father got a pretty bad case of cancer a few years ago and the treatment was completely free, from the surgery to the hospital expenses. I looked up online how much the same procedure would've cost in the US and the figure was around $100K. Since my dad doesn't have that kind of money and he's retired, he likely would've died if he lived there.
> Like political elites? Like enclaves of power you can't ever penetrate? France has 'em in spades. In America, you can go to a crappy school and still become President. We've had Presidents with only a high-school diploma. Some had no formal education.
Political elites like the Wall Street banksters who gave massive "donations" to the NYPD around the time of Occupy Wall Street protests? Political elites that get into Congress and Senate and then lobby and try to change laws in the favor of their multi-billion dollar businesses? Political elites who instigate wars to keep their sponsors and donators in the oil-military-industrial complex happy for the next campaign just so they could remain in the office? You know what I'm talking about here.
> What you can't find is a nation anywhere in the world that has the same level of disparate groups living in more-or-less peaceful coexistence to keep the country moving forward. We have every kind of person from every kind of place with every crazy religion you can imagine. We have so many choices that people make up their own religions. We have so many mixed nationalities in offspring that we have almost lost the idea of what it means to be from-somewhere-else.
I am not convinced. While there is this illusion of multiculturalism and acceptance in America, the moment you scratch under the surface you realize racism is still alive and well. A lot of my American friends tell me they would never raise their kids near a black neighborhood. A friend of mine from San Francisco was amazed by the fact that there are no homeless people here and that you can walk anywhere at any time of the night without fear of getting mugged/stabbed/shot. Oh and... there are no ghettos here. Most of the population is uniformly upper-middle class and ghettos are nonexistent. You could fall asleep on the street with a wad of cash sticking out of your pocket, wake up in the morning and it would still be there. I have seen it time and again (literally).
Anyway, this is turning into a rather long discussion so I'm going to leave you with this. My point is not to belittle America, but to say that there are plenty of amazing places in the world that would objectively rank much higher in terms of livability. Just look at any list of the most livable cities in the world, most are either in Europe, Oceania and Canada (haven't found such a list for countries):
C'mon man. You just belittled America with four paragraphs. You don't like America? Fine. Stay where you are. I find it LAUGHABLE that you devote pages and pages of prose to tell me why my country isn't awesome. Seriously, you're an expert right? You DEFINITELY know how things are here.
I know it's fashionable to bash the US on HN, but really, why do people just keep coming here? Why is immigration such a contentious issue? Why do I continue to see posts from people on HN trying to find a way to live or work here? Why is some group trying to anchor a boat off of San Francisco for startups to get around the US immigration system? Why?
Take a look in the mirror. Everything you hate about HERE you have over THERE without the benefit of CHOICE.
> You don't like America? Fine. Stay where you are.
It's not that I DON'T LIKE America, I am just disputing your claim that it's the absolute best place in the world. Your claim is ignorant, arrogant and full of hubris... even offensive to non-Americans.
> Take a look in the mirror. Everything you hate about HERE you have over THERE without the benefit of CHOICE.
Again, I don't HATE anything about America, I am just saying that there are places where a lot of issues that your country has don't exist.
Anyway, I'm done trying to have a rational discussion with you since you seem to be incapable of having one. You keep creating strawmans, moving the discussion goalposts and putting words into my mouth while deliberately avoiding addressing my points. Have fun.
> Problem there is that the US loudly and fundamentally claims to be a democracy. If we are to accept that, then we have to accept that the government embodies the will of its people. Or, seriously consider that the US is genuinely no longer a real democracy.
North Korea also claims to be a democratic. Self entitlement is meaningless.
>Voting choices in the US are much like religion choices and football team choices
This is only true because people fail to vote (or even pay attention) in the primaries.
By the time you get to the general election you get two terrible choices produced by the establishment. The result is that there is no difference between the two party candidates. Sure they're made to sound different, but policy and execution is the same.
This is only true because people fail to vote (or even pay attention) in the primaries
... which is only true because they don't really care who the candidate is as long as they have the R or D after their name.
More than most people want to think about problems and their solutions, they want to feel like they belong to a family, a tribe, a team, or an organized religion.
After getting deeply involved in politics for about five years, I'll pick "no longer a real democracy," at least at the federal level, and my state's pretty shaky. Local's still good.
"Problem there is that the US loudly and fundamentally claims to be a democracy."
That is part of the overall problem currently in the US. It is not a democracy; it is a constitutional republic. The representatives are elected democratically, but the whole point of the constitution is to limit to the powers of the government. It seems that 99% of the government has neglected or forgotten that, and sadly most of the general population has as well.
It is a real shame, as you imply. American people have done incredible things which contribute to the world in general in a positive way, and the country its self is undoubtedly spectacular and beautiful. But the political atmosphere, the general fear, and the resulting attitudes are a total bar to me. These days I even worry about using US internet services since merely doing so can put me in the sights of US authorities and their insane legal system and laws. Worse still, my own government literally bend over for the US government.
In short, a great people are strangling them selves.