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On November 07 2010 23:05 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote:
European feelings toward the USA are the same as an overbearing parent's feeling about their independently minded child: offended.
The USA is composed of the descendants of people who fled Europe. What type of people fled? By and large, poor people and religious minorities. Who stayed in Europe? Those in powerful positions or those with no desire to make a better life for themselves.
Those who fled were implicitly saying with their actions, "Europe, you are not good enough for me and my family." That is why America's existence always has been and always will be a subtle insult to most Europeans. And, feeling insulted, most Europeans feel a constant but mild contempt for the United States.
Nothing, not even saving the Europeans from themselves (twice), was or will be enough to end the chronic irritation most Europeans feel toward the USA.
That is not quite true. The main reason for the immigration was either that the catholic churche was after you because you were into some odd religion, that you were very poor or when some kind of resource was discovered. Basically the US was composed of the most poor, religious fanatic and greedy Europeans of their time. I wouldn't say living in the US would mean a better life. Rather the opposite. Is that really insulting to us?
Europeans don't feel insulted by America's existance, however most people dislike your actions.
War on Iraq: First Hussein was behind 9/11, then he had the uranium to make WMDs, then he had WMDs, but as it turns out, all he had was oil.. Real classy.. and here i thought stealing and murder were crimes.
Just to be clear, I dislike the US as a nation because of your history of war and ignorance towards any kind of well fair system, which has lead to the suffering of your own citizens. However I'm aware of that most chaps over there are quite likeable. Just as in any country, really.
edit: I've probably fell down into a troll cage.. doubt this guy is serious.
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On November 08 2010 00:04 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2010 10:34 ChinaRestaurant wrote:On November 07 2010 09:30 kzn wrote:On November 07 2010 09:14 Ferrose wrote:
Let's just get rid of SS, medicare/aid, and the DoE. What do we do now? Cut taxes by 20+% The poorest people have no healthcare, Too bad. old people have none if they can't afford it, Maybe they shouldn't be completely retarded and go into retirement with no savings. and our kids have no schools to go to, unless they can afford private school. Yeah, no. If private schooling didn't have to compete with public, you'd have plenty of cheaper schools that would still outperform current public schooling. And its not like people couldn't afford it with 20% more disposable income. So, yeah, sounds good to me. The biggest problem i see with getting rid of medicare etc is that in the end it really hurts the economy. Just think how many people cant work if they cant afford to get their illnesses treated. Im sure thats not a number that should be ignored. I can understand that some people arent really a fan of your new healthcare system, but thats probably just because its so much worse than it could be. Just look at certain european countries (especially the nordic region has superb healthcare), or even canada. If you strictly want to look at it from an economic point of view just think more people working=better economy. You might not end up earning more money but hell at least some people who didnt have the previlege to be born into a family thats not on the brink of poverty get "a chance at life" as you take it for granted (at least thats how your posts sound to me). Lol, does the nordic region has suprberg health care? Its awful. Long waiting lists, poor service, lots of misoperations. Quality is just awful. But at least your in DK able able to pay money to get private health care insurance, which lots of people are doing, well because the public health care is awful.
Your point is that since the money comes from the persons being injured, instead of through taxes, the hospitals automatically fixes all problems with queues, quality and misoperations.. wow.. ignorance if I ever saw it.
The problems seems to be that there are not enough hosptials rather than that the public hospitals are bad. Where exactly do you get your information that public hospitals has less quality than private ones from? Sounds utterly made up.
Now I don't live in Denmark so I don't have a clue how you have it, but big brother Sweden is doing alright 
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On November 07 2010 23:39 Euronyme wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2010 22:57 Promises wrote:
As a point of notice, I dont actually believe there are racist tendencies in the Netherlands. There are tendencies to ban certain ideologies or religions (namely Islam), and that is where the conflict is. Racism as far as I comprehend is is an entirely different beast, and something largely absent in at least the netherlands, and I suspect a lot of other countries aswell. It's the clash of ideologies (christian/muslim/atheist all in a nice big fight) that's setting the stage at the moment. I think Hitler said something similar, but he wasn't racist though.. he was just fighting jews and muslims.. wait..
Hitler wasn't fighting Muslims, in fact he wanted an alliance with pretty much all muslim countries and many black/arab soldiers served in the German military during the second world war. It was just the Jews and Russians he really hated. Jesse Owens said he was treated better by Hitler than by FDR.
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In South America we have powerful reasons to hate the US and everything it represents. During the cold war, the U.S, through the CIA, influenced internal politcal affairs in a large number of countries. The way they executed this influence is even worse than the fact itself. These things have been proved, you can google it:
- Financial support for right-winged dictatorships (Pinochet in Chile, for example).
- U.S instaured a torture school in Panama, where agents from the government of numerous dictators were there to learn torture method applied to communists and socialists emprisoned (that were of course taken prisoners without any kind of trial. Most of these people disappeared).
- The CIA planned numerous murders against left-winged influent polititians.
- The U.S. (government and private enterprises) did an economical sabotage to all the countries that had a left-winged government.
In fact, all the terrible things that happened in the region in the second half of the 20th century were directly promoted by the U.S., because the amercian government feared that the region could have success implementing communism or socialism, which would have been awful for the U.S. in the context of the cold war. Of course, a lot of these things were not known at the time because the media was controlled by guess-who.
Today, I don't believe a single word coming from the U.S. government. I believe the wars that have been carried against Afghanistan and Iraq are pure BS, the real reason behind so many deaths and torture and all is only petroleum.
You can disagree with me, but the history of the U.S don't play in your favor.
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On November 08 2010 00:28 jello_biafra wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2010 23:39 Euronyme wrote:On November 07 2010 22:57 Promises wrote:
As a point of notice, I dont actually believe there are racist tendencies in the Netherlands. There are tendencies to ban certain ideologies or religions (namely Islam), and that is where the conflict is. Racism as far as I comprehend is is an entirely different beast, and something largely absent in at least the netherlands, and I suspect a lot of other countries aswell. It's the clash of ideologies (christian/muslim/atheist all in a nice big fight) that's setting the stage at the moment. I think Hitler said something similar, but he wasn't racist though.. he was just fighting jews and muslims.. wait.. Hitler wasn't fighting Muslims, in fact he wanted an alliance with pretty much all muslim countries and many black/arab soldiers served in the German military during the second world war. It was just the Jews and Russians he really hated. Jesse Owens said he was treated better by Hitler than by FDR.
Yeah well he also had an alliance with the russians until...
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On November 08 2010 00:35 The KY wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2010 00:28 jello_biafra wrote:On November 07 2010 23:39 Euronyme wrote:On November 07 2010 22:57 Promises wrote:
As a point of notice, I dont actually believe there are racist tendencies in the Netherlands. There are tendencies to ban certain ideologies or religions (namely Islam), and that is where the conflict is. Racism as far as I comprehend is is an entirely different beast, and something largely absent in at least the netherlands, and I suspect a lot of other countries aswell. It's the clash of ideologies (christian/muslim/atheist all in a nice big fight) that's setting the stage at the moment. I think Hitler said something similar, but he wasn't racist though.. he was just fighting jews and muslims.. wait.. Hitler wasn't fighting Muslims, in fact he wanted an alliance with pretty much all muslim countries and many black/arab soldiers served in the German military during the second world war. It was just the Jews and Russians he really hated. Jesse Owens said he was treated better by Hitler than by FDR. Yeah well he also had an alliance with the russians until...
It was an alliance of necessity, he had no intentions of sticking to it, from the start his plan was to conquer Russia and end its "evil Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy".
The only reason Stalin agreed to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was because the SU needed time to get its industry going properly to prepare for total war with Germany.
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On November 08 2010 00:35 trulla wrote:
Today, I don't believe a single word coming from the U.S. government. I believe the wars that have been carried against Afghanistan and Iraq are pure BS, the real reason behind so many deaths and torture and all is only petroleum.
You can disagree with me, but the history of the U.S don't play in your favor.
IDK about Afghanistan, but invading Iraq was about oil. The entire American society is so built and designed to be run by oil that it's scary.
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On November 08 2010 00:41 don_kyuhote wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2010 00:35 trulla wrote:
Today, I don't believe a single word coming from the U.S. government. I believe the wars that have been carried against Afghanistan and Iraq are pure BS, the real reason behind so many deaths and torture and all is only petroleum.
You can disagree with me, but the history of the U.S don't play in your favor. IDK about Afghanistan, but invading Iraq was about oil. The entire American society is so built and designed to be run by oil that it's scary.
I think another thing to add to that is that we completely betrayed Saddam. In the 80s he was our friend (even the city of Detroit gave him a key to the city), but after 9/11 we're like "omg he has nukes and is gonna destroy America."
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@trulla
Don't forget the Nicaragua vs America case in ICJ, CIA explicitly supported an insurgency to throw down a leftist government, they trained the insurgents and even supplied them with manuals on how to torture! America was found guilty and sentenced to pay compensation, but they did not pay it and they stopped involving with ICJ after that. Guess what happened later? In the hostage crisis in Iran during the Iranian revolution, the America didn't have any choice but to bring action against Iran regarding the hostages in American Embassy.
Kinda cool to dismiss justice when it's not in your favour huh? America is a bully and noone likes bullies.
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I haven't read anything else.
BUT THAT VIDEO HOLY SHIT
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Earlier this year it was discovered that there was huge mineral deposits in Afghanistan, worth almost 1 trillion dollars. It wouldn't surprise me if the US knew about it all along, and wants a piece of it.
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On November 08 2010 00:20 Euronyme wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2010 00:04 Hider wrote:On November 07 2010 10:34 ChinaRestaurant wrote:On November 07 2010 09:30 kzn wrote:On November 07 2010 09:14 Ferrose wrote:
Let's just get rid of SS, medicare/aid, and the DoE. What do we do now? Cut taxes by 20+% The poorest people have no healthcare, Too bad. old people have none if they can't afford it, Maybe they shouldn't be completely retarded and go into retirement with no savings. and our kids have no schools to go to, unless they can afford private school. Yeah, no. If private schooling didn't have to compete with public, you'd have plenty of cheaper schools that would still outperform current public schooling. And its not like people couldn't afford it with 20% more disposable income. So, yeah, sounds good to me. The biggest problem i see with getting rid of medicare etc is that in the end it really hurts the economy. Just think how many people cant work if they cant afford to get their illnesses treated. Im sure thats not a number that should be ignored. I can understand that some people arent really a fan of your new healthcare system, but thats probably just because its so much worse than it could be. Just look at certain european countries (especially the nordic region has superb healthcare), or even canada. If you strictly want to look at it from an economic point of view just think more people working=better economy. You might not end up earning more money but hell at least some people who didnt have the previlege to be born into a family thats not on the brink of poverty get "a chance at life" as you take it for granted (at least thats how your posts sound to me). Lol, does the nordic region has suprberg health care? Its awful. Long waiting lists, poor service, lots of misoperations. Quality is just awful. But at least your in DK able able to pay money to get private health care insurance, which lots of people are doing, well because the public health care is awful. Your point is that since the money comes from the persons being injured, instead of through taxes, the hospitals automatically fixes all problems with queues, quality and misoperations.. wow.. ignorance if I ever saw it. The problems seems to be that there are not enough hosptials rather than that the public hospitals are bad. Where exactly do you get your information that public hospitals has less quality than private ones from? Sounds utterly made up. Now I don't live in Denmark so I don't have a clue how you have it, but big brother Sweden is doing alright
You sure you have taken economic classes? Obv. the problem is socialism, since government cant estimate demand, and do not produce in an efficient way like the private companies does. This leads to higher prices/quality. You really have to be an extreme socialist to deny that.
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On November 07 2010 22:57 Promises wrote:
As a point of notice, I dont actually believe there are racist tendencies in the Netherlands. There are tendencies to ban certain ideologies or religions (namely Islam), and that is where the conflict is. Racism as far as I comprehend is is an entirely different beast, and something largely absent in at least the netherlands, and I suspect a lot of other countries aswell. It's the clash of ideologies (christian/muslim/atheist all in a nice big fight) that's setting the stage at the moment.
Overt racism isn't culturally acceptable in any community here except for the most rightwing ones, but there still is something like racism. I read an article in the newspaper once that when some testsubjects were asked to approach another person, they instinctively keep more distance to the foreign-looking one compared to the caucasian-looking. The time where any support for discrimination based on race was feasable has been gone, but there's still enough people around that are scared and hostile of "others", and that will continue to influence politics.
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He is not talking about all-out communist plan-economy. In scandinavia we have long used a mixed economy, which has provided us a steady, but strong growth. it has also proved resiliant to international crisis.
Another strong point is that Norway, if Im not terribly wrong, has been named the best country to live in several years in a row. a social-democratic way of doing things cant be that bad.
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The HDI is a statistical index which has no true bearing on the quality of life. Quality of life is such that it cannot be quantified.
Much more satisfactory would be direct inquisition- simply asking people how their lives are. There are several subjective surveys, but they too are artificial tabulations when they attempt to model their results into a linear index. There are many dimensions to happiness; including the deepest paths which traverse despair and suffering.
It would also be wrong to attribute the relative stability and virtue of Scandinavia to a successful economic or political model, whose conception is barely seventy years old.
What is astonishing, and almost completely unremarked amidst all Scandinavian stereotypes is the continuity of her bourgeois culture in the midst of a hypothetically progressive ideology. The truth is Sweden was already one of the most egalitarian nations in the world prior to her Social Democratic governments, and much prior to her conscious efforts to reinvent herself as a progressive prototype in the eyes of the world during the post-war era. It's questionable whether an official nation-brand ideology has contributed more to her enviable situation than her traditional racial virtues of frugality, self-restraint and privacy.
There is no question that Sweden under any political ideology would still be better off than Italy as a paradigm of stable political life. It's those who are truly attached to bourgeois values- safety, security, privacy, concordance, who hold Scandinavia up to be role models. For hot-headed adventurers and egoists, the land of Machiavelli and Gabriele d'Annunzio would probably seem a more exciting place.
That is not quite true. The main reason for the immigration was either that the catholic churche was after you because you were into some odd religion, that you were very poor or when some kind of resource was discovered. Basically the US was composed of the most poor, religious fanatic and greedy Europeans of their time. I wouldn't say living in the US would mean a better life. Rather the opposite. Is that really insulting to us?
Europeans don't feel insulted by America's existance, however most people dislike your actions.
You really cannot tie together the puritans and pilgrims and the wave of immigrants which entered America between the Civil War and the First World War. The former rejected the Old World and attempted to create their own cleansed society in the new. The majority of the latter intended to return to Europe after earning some money, but incidentally never did.
The Catholic Church had little to do with it; the majority of religious exiles were dissatisfied with Protestant regimes; the only extensive group I can recall who emigrated due to Catholic persecution were the Huguenots during the 17th century.
Outnumbering all religious migrants were those entering the country during the late 19th century, who were economic migrants for the most part. The one large exception were the Jews, who were fleeing the illiberal policies of Alexander III.
The point remains untrue. There was and remains an American inferiority complex vis-a-vis Europe, and particularly vis-a-vis the British in the realm of culture and intellect. This used to be widespread a hundred years ago, today it's more or less restricted to American Bohemians.
The other historical belief which has become an article of faith among Americans, was that though they were in many ways backward vis-a-vis Europe, this was an advantage, rather than a curse. Americans who believed that they were behind Europe culturally and intellectually believed by the same token that they ahead morally; they were freer, less corrupt, more virtuous, more innocent, and "better off." Sophistication and overripe civilization, like in the world of Elsinore, breeds corruption and wickedness- this puritan strain was echoed by the anti-federalists, romantic agrarians as well as by the rhetoric of contemporary populist slogans.
There is a dualism in American attitudes toward Europe that comes down to the present day: those who see America as the antithesis of Europe, and those who see her as Europe's prodigal child. Populists generally emphasize the former, and progressives generally emphasize the latter, although these ideas overlap in most minds to different degrees.
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On November 08 2010 02:33 Undrass wrote:
He is not talking about all-out communist plan-economy. In scandinavia we have long used a mixed economy, which has provided us a steady, but strong growth. it has also proved resiliant to international crisis.
2.2% average growth over the last ten years is not "strong". Its barely sufficient. The only reason Scandinavia has escaped this crisis with limited pain is because, frankly, Scandinavia doesn't matter in the worldwide economy.
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America is now #4 in human development index worldwide:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
Pretty good for a country of 300 million people. Beating most of Europe. When will your countries catch up to America's quality of life?
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On November 08 2010 06:10 skurj wrote:America is now #4 in human development index worldwide: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/Pretty good for a country of 300 million people. Beating most of Europe. When will your countries catch up to America's quality of life?
Since over-simplifications seem to be your thing, let's review that data and compare it with my country - Germany. So we're pretty even regarding life expectancy and schooling, and the GNI in the US is higher than in Germany.
But what's that? In gender inequality has Germany a way better spot (especially your rates for teen pregnancy and mortality when giving birth). Same for sustainability (carbon dioxide emissions, protected area, adjusted net savings). Add the robbery rate, which is more than twice as high as in Germany.
In total, I'd say that rank is unjustified - and I'm pretty happy I'm on this side of the great pond.
But then again, the best thing would be to stop said simplifications and to stop bickering and going "nananana, my country is better than yours".
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On November 08 2010 06:38 Shockk wrote:
But what's that? In gender inequality has Germany a way better spot (especially your rates for teen pregnancy and mortality when giving birth).
wtf? How does either of those statistics reflect on "gender inequality" o.o
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On November 08 2010 06:38 Shockk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2010 06:10 skurj wrote:America is now #4 in human development index worldwide: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/Pretty good for a country of 300 million people. Beating most of Europe. When will your countries catch up to America's quality of life? Since over-simplifications seem to be your thing, let's review that data and compare it with my country - Germany. So we're pretty even regarding life expectancy and schooling, and the GNI in the US is higher than in Germany. But what's that? In gender inequality has Germany a way better spot (especially your rates for teen pregnancy and mortality when giving birth). Same for sustainability (carbon dioxide emissions, protected area, adjusted net savings). Add the robbery rate, which is more than twice as high as in Germany. In total, I'd say that rank is unjustified - and I'm pretty happy I'm on this side of the great pond. But then again, the best thing would be to stop said simplifications and to stop bickering and going "nananana, my country is better than yours".
Well I have been beat over the head with the HDI by europhiles for years, so I consider turnabout fair play. Of course, now that America is kicking ass, the europhiles will probably switch to some other metric to feel superior.
In a perfect world we would acknowledge that the quality of life in the Western world is pretty similar between countries with only small variation in some areas. In the United States some things are worse and a lot of things are better than Europe, even after sacrificing a large part of our wealth to maintain an insanely huge military.
But then again, a perfect world wouldn't have so many self-righteous leftists. It seems like the young passionate left can't imagine that anyone would ever have a good reason for disagreeing with them.
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EPT
