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Like it or not, you're a superpower.
What you do, and how you do it matters to the rest of the planet.
We have no choice but to watch, and what we see isn't encouraging.
Also, everyone loves underdog. The inverse is true. No one likes updog.
What's updog?
Ligma balls
Okay, Arin
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A single country when it's convenient, 50+ semi independent governments when it comes time to deal with criticism?
No, it's just like that all the fucking time. I'm not your strawman.
The United States is a country. You don't get to pretend that it's not just because it's internally chaotic. The United States is the parts that make it up. Explaining why it is dysfunctional doesn't stop it from being dysfunctional. And it is dysfunctional...
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Except the one government at the top is the one that interacts with every other nation on the planet and is usually the one making policies and taking actions that piss everyone else. And like it or not, these policies and actions are decided by the congress and the president, which everyone in the U.S. is responsible for electing the people there. And when you look at that federal governmnt, well let me tell ya that it doesn't reflect very well on Americans.
No, it reflects just fine. We’re just fucking awful.
If you want to go on foreign policy, sure. The federal government is usually the lead. However, there are a lot of things handled at the state and local level that Europeans love to extrapolate to all the USA when it doesn't go that far.
Outside of Vermont, New York, Colorado and California, there really aren't a lot of places in the US that seem normal to the rest of the world. And if you go at the county level, it gets worse it seems.
Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine. And then large parts of most other states. You do realize more than 50% of America is very in line with most of western Europe... right?
In line with Western Europe?
Not even close.
Heck, even Canada isn't even in line with Western Europe. You guys are so far right, even your most left-wing party is considered conservative in Europe. And your right-wing party are literally Nazis.
I always forget that it's just a liberal utopia of sunshine and bunnies over there and America, and Canada apparently, are knuckle dragging fascists. Literally every single person.
Sounds like someone missed the fucking point and is doing exactly what I said makes you a smug prick.
op mentioned political parties and politicians, not the general population.
are you ok?
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From an American point of view, maybe if you squint a bit. From the rest of the world that is a laughable statement.
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Yes unlike other countries that dont have any sort of local government whatsoever.
Like the UK is one big monolith government. Definitely not 4 individual countries with their own parliaments that have counties with their own local governments and those counties have local councils with their own councillors and bylaws.
Germany only has the German government, not seperate states.
Spain doesnt have regions that are trying to gain independence.
France doesnt have regions on the other side of the atlantic with their own local government.
Canada doesnt have provinces
Nor does Autralia have states
etc. etc. for literally every country except like the vatican.
America is just so special and different
Special and different enough that it should be wearing a helmet and have childproof caps on the paste.
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Honestly though, America is different and special. We have states the size of the some of those countries, and states with GDPs that eclipse most of the countries you listed. Local government is a completey different scale at some levels than any of those countries you mentioned. It's important to remember we are all different, and that's not a bad thing.
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The US is really like the EU both in scale and differences between individual states. National laws are generally just high level and very broad, with the laws most people directly interact with being state, county, city, and other local levels.
The EU is more diverse than the US. There's literally a language barrier everywhere you go. E.g., a Hawaiian and a Texan are more alike than, say, a Finn is to a Cypriot.
I went to Georgia recently, and they're definitely speaking a different language down there. I could not understand a word
There is more to diversity than language... Race, religion, socio-economic status, and political beliefs are just a few other dimensions.
If you broaden your definition for diversity beyond language, the US isn't as homogenous as you're implying.
Is there? No matter where I go in Europe, it doesn't seem to be a big issue to find English speakers. It feels like the urban parts are settling on a second language now that trade and travel borders have vanished.
If the EU sticks around for a generation, I wouldn't be surprised if you start seeing European nations reflecting the same demographic oddities that you see in the US regarding age of residents.
Yeah but tell that to the Texans.
Maybe the issue is just that you don't realize how much we hate each other? Like America is dysfunctionally divisive at this point, there would probably be some offense at the idea that the two are alike. Republican-led states definitely don't want to be compared to Democrat-led ones, and vice-versa. Maybe I just dunno how much you hate each other on the continent, but I'd bet a Finn would be nicer to a Cypriot than a Texan would be to a Hawaiian.
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The US is really like the EU both in scale and differences between individual states
Bwahahahahhaha! No.
Americans always love to think this is true, but it's nowhere remotely true. The US has an actual federal government. The EU does not, all EU members are sovereign states.
Secondly, difference between individual states? Rofl-fucking-mao.
No your slight change in accent (not in dialect), and slightly different local delicacies are nowhere near comparable to Europe.
The US has a few hundred years of history and most come from the same dozen or less groups from Europe.
The difference between just the top of my country and the bottom of my country is larger than aany state differences in the US. Well, except for, idk, state laws. But language, customs, cuisine. The modern European states have formed all from several distinct groups. The modern nation-state only started being a thing a bit more than a century ago.
All modern European states are made up hundreds and hundreds of previous, hundreds of years old groups.
No offense, but the comparison is pretty ridiculous on most levels.
The EU isn't a federation. (Yet.)
I'm talking about laws. Differences like being able to freely open carry in some states while others barely allow anyone to even possess a gun. Or how some states have universal state healthcare and other do not. Or how drugs are handled, with many states ignoring the federal prohibition.
Sure, we share a lot of language and a generic background identity of being 'American', but the legal differences are massively varied from state to state.
I'm talking about laws.
I can promise you that the sovereign European states which have their own constitutional laws and practices differ more from each other than US states do.
You have state laws, sure, but you also have federal laws. We don't. There are EU regulations, and through those regulations, the sovereign states synchronise their own laws if it suits the situation.
Do you think the laws for guns are the same for us Finns as they are for the Greeks or Spaniards or Swiss?
Do you think the healthcare systems are federated in Europe? That everyone has the same system? The systems often vary from state to state within the member states. (I could tell you horror stores of our country trying to integralize our systems.)
Th EU decided everyone should have universal healthcare, because it's objectively just good. So it was agreed and then they make the regulations on what it should achieve. Not how it should be done or anything.
So each sovereign state gets to find their own way into the solution.
The U.K. has the National Health Service (NHS), a government-operated system. One also finds public systems in Italy and Spain, while France has a public/private system. But the system in Switzerland is a privatized system, with subsidized insurance. The Swiss system is, in some respects, comparable to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, but with much stricter regulations and much more comprehensive coverage. Obamacare pales in comparison to the Swiss system, although it’s much better than the “let the sick, lowly peasants die in the streets” approach of the Republican Party.
Uhm, about drugs? Cannabis is still schedule 1 federally, but it hasn't stopped the states from doing their own de facto thing. I wonder... A few years before the first state legalised recreational marijuana, if you wanted to have a holiday in a place you could smoke weed, where'd you go?
Aaaahmm... Aaaaaaammmm... Amsterdam. Or Prague.
The drug practices vary wildly by country.
but the legal differences are massively varied from state to state.
Sure, but I think you might agree that actually from country to country it might vary even more, seeing as your states all started from the same common law system and history of the system a few hundred years ago. Whereas there's hanging rocks and churches older than the US on my way to the city.
The point being that while we regulate our international unions systems and try to synchronize them despite most having been apart and developed into their own (from roman systems, over the course of two millenia), you have a federated system and want to set your own systems.
It's like. The opposites.
I may be on an ambiem or two currently. But it was a fascinating thought.
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You're being very Eurocentric about who America is which is another classic smug and quasi-racist thing to do. You're ignoring that we have populations, heavier in some areas than others, of Native Americans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and other East/South-East Asian nations. Then there's South Asian, Pacific Island, Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and North African, sub-Saharan African, and last but not least, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. We have all those plus your so-called "several same" European countries, which is horseshit unless you're talking about the first 100 years before America was even created. Then we have the rest of Europe. The entire planet lives in America, literally every nation is represented here. Some more than others, of course. And there are dialects between states and counties as well as accents especially if you want to include ethnic dialects then we have countless amounts.
Ignorant. Smug.
So does Europe, which I gather you've never visited.
- "several same" European countries"
No, you really don't. The majority of the American population is of white, Anglo-Saxon / German/Dutch descent.
That's a fact.
You have barely a few hundred years of history.
I need only go 100 km inland in my country, and the genetic diversity between me and an average person will be greater than that of an average white New Yorker vs an average Floridan.
But you wouldn't know shit about that, because you are ignorant.
Do yourself a favour and actually go abroad some day, my friend. Learn a language. How many do you know? Because I knew three before the age of 10.
AAVE, that's barely a dialect, if you look at the difference of language between std American English and AAVE. The distinction is so huge in the Nordic countries, with Scandinavian languages and Finnish, that there's an actual concept called "book language". Look it up, see what it means. If you're not... ignorant of it. ;)
Say what you want and cry how much you want, the US is not nearly as distinct as Europe. Sorry.
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I can appreciate that some states are better than others, in a similar manner to being able to appreciate that some EU countries are better than others. I've visited the USA and so I've seen first hand the good and the bad.
It doesn't change the fact that globally, you are represented by your federal government and not your local state ones. As an Australian I might expect a foreigner to know our Prime Minister but never a state premier.
From overseas we just see a lot of the insane shit. Politically, the whole world is interested your federal elections because that is what has a chance to affect us. I don't care who the governor of a state is really because they aren't going to be able to declare some insane war or fuck over or save entire countries.
Even when we see state x legalizes y or outlaws z it just blurs together from out here. Much easier to see your own state doing good things when you're inside it.
And yeah, USA doesn't get enough credit for craft beer!
Bet this guy says "not all men" too.
I bet I say black lives matter, eat the rich, kill all billionaires, fuck the police, ACAB, hugs not bombs, no pity for the majority, and once or twice occupy. Def no not all men though. But I thought yes all men was poorly thought out.
If you want my pedigree of the things I believe from far left groups and ideologies and just things I might say at a rally you can't have it because you're a douche.
as someone who considers themselves left wing, you certainly fit into the right wing ideal of 'american exceptionalism', even going so far to generalise a whole part of the world.
racism usually isnt a tenent of the left, but i guess i just 'dont understand' how you guys do it over there :)
pot, meet kettle
I thiught you guys are united or something. It's in the name
That's kind of like saying "I thought the EU was a Union".
OP's point is that the federal government mainly exists to regulate interstate issues and foreign affairs, but what occurs within the confines of a single state isn't in the purview of their authority most of the time.
As usual, the answer is "It's more complicated than that."
I'm sure the masses on social media with their 7 second attention spans and endless propaganda will get to the bottom of it.
To sum up, nobody likes being generalized.
And, apparently, when Americans say we don't like being generalized, literally everyone else will take offense, and then generalize us.
Damn near everyone commenting is missing the point
Is this poster’s argument feigning ignorance of distinction between local vs. federal laws?
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Yes I am having a bad day.
I hope your day improves our the next day is better.
I also hope your governments improve or the next are better, but frankly all your governments suck.
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Given the diversity of 50+ states, find me one that values human life of fellow state members with centrally provided healthcare so they're not left to choose between bankruptcy or life, views education as a public good and access to it has a low barrier to access it, doesn't have for-profit prisons or has a network of public transport infrastructure that relies on a system of trains or trams?
My country had wars with it's neighbours from single digit centuries. Comparing differences in Europe to the US states is like comparing McDonald's differences with local cuisine refined over centuries.
With so many differences where can I find social values that are comfortable with pederasty as in ancient Greece?
Knowledge is almost free nowadays. Reading history of countries offers a fascinating perspective of how we got here. For better or worse, the US is pretty homogenous in its value system, religious beliefs, political beliefs and language.
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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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