I feel the need to quote myself.... from the vent forum....



(If you are going to quote my quote, please remember that it was a VENT, not a carefully put together argument.)

Most people don't fit the stereotypes of a "fat ugly american". Just chill out, you really have no reason to "lose faith" in your country. If you really expected it to be the perfect paradise with only saints from above living here, sorry to say this, but that's your problem.

Was that to me? Sorry I wasn't replying to you but to Miko09, but I forgot to say. Guess I'm just a lazy Aussie. Which is a joke-I'm being stereotypical. I wouldn't know about the protests, I don't watch a whole lot of news and I'm from country Queensland so I guess I'm just a yobbo. Seriously though just because people protest that doesn't mean every one of them hates American's. They may be against army/navy in general or against pollution from battle ships or maybe they are against whatever mission it was on. I've only been to Sydney a few times and don't know anybody from there, so I really can't say I know the general mindset to make any kind of judgment. I do think people from the cities think differently to those of us from the country. Which is why every few years we have the whole debate and yet another vote on day light saving. They mostly vote yes and we mostly vote no.

Heh - I didn't know about that, PiggyPeach - Thanks for pointing the thread out. I missed all this drama and it really gave me a belly laugh. (I'm not laughing at you, don't worry, but at the guy whose knickers were a bit too tight.)

I just went to look at that thread and also the other posts that guy posted, seems like he sat on a pole.

lol - Because there's such a huge difference between ALL and the VAST MAJORITY. What's left over when you subtract the VAST MAJORITY from the total population. The itsy bitsy minority?

I don't know anyone who hates American's. Where has the idea that the VAST MAJORITY of us do? Hate is a pretty strong word. I've heard people refer to American's as "a bit crazy" but certainly not with hate.

I would agree with you, except that my family once hired an Au Pair from Brazil who thought that the people here were going to be "cold", because she and her family just thought that about Americans. Not quite sure why. (Of course, she decided that her family's idea was absurd once she got to know the people in our area.)

Not really "hate", I'm with you about that, but it just seems like a negative thing to say.

Y'know, I've never understood the "America sucks because y'all don't have free health care!" argument. As far as I know, NO country has free health care. The citizens of those countries with universal health care just get taxed out the wazoo for it. In America, we aren't. Simple. Generally, you're expected to use that "tax break" to purchase health care yourself and your family instead of having Uncle Sam take a cut out of your paycheck to pay for it. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it does allow you the freedom to choose the insurer/health care provider to fit your specific needs rather than having a government entity do it for you. And it helps that standard employers have group policies that employees can buy into and that cut down on the cost to individuals.

Frankly, I, personally, would rather have the freedom to make my own choice about health care than to put that kind of decision into ANY government's hands, even though I don't have a regular job with a standard employer, so I have to pay a lot of money for health care for me and my family. I would RATHER do that. In all honesty, I'm not sure that I'd want to live in a country with universal health care, which is why I'm leery of the whole current situation here. I suppose I'm just too "the government better damn well keep its hand out of my wallet" for my own good. I guess that's the reason I'm a Libertarian. I'm all "small government = good government." I need to buy myself an island or something and live on it all by myself. It's the only way I'll ever have a government that I actually agree with.

As for the "Ugly American" stereotype...Hell, yeah, it's there, and for good reason. I travel a lot in my profession, and while I do my best to be a non-ugly American, I've seen plenty of others who are exactly that. (And, for the record, I've given them a piece of my mind, too, because that's just how I am. I'm not at all afraid to tell fellow Americans traveling abroad that they're being an ass and making ALL us Americans look like asses while they're at it.) Plus, I live in a tourist town. We're laid-back folks here, in a teeny mountain town in Colorado. Lots of us are hippies or neo-hippies, and we have a certain air about us. (And it smells a lot like patchouli or pot. Just sayin'. ) So, it's easy for us locals to spot a tourist from Back East or from Texas (and we have a lot of both) because they have...Well, let's just say a certain attitude about them. VERY possibly, the attitude is more one of economics than geography, though; the tourists who come here are generally monied, and monied folks just act differently (and are generally more demanding) than folks who aren't particularly monied. But whatever the case, the attitude just doesn't jive well with ours. However, they DO fuel our local economy, so we grit our teeth...and then talk about them with each other in our Secret Local Language that they don't understand. Or, better yet, we speak to them in Secret Local Language that, to them, doesn't sound rude at all. We're passive-aggressive that way. So hey, it's not just other countries that have a problem with Ugly Americans. Certain Americans have problems with Ugly Americans as well, particularly those of us who live full-time in resort/tourist towns.

That said, we also seem to get lots of tourists from the UK, lately. Most of them, again, with money. And I have to say that many of them are just as bad as the Ugly Americans we get. So much so that we also have a word for Ugly Brits in our Secret Local Language. Can't say I've encountered any Australians here. Perhaps it's because Australians don't ski? Or do you? You tell me, Aussies...

But the thing with stereotypes is that they are just that. For every American who fits the "Ugly/stupid/fat/whatever American" stereotype, there are probably at least ten Americans who don't. Just like with every other stereotype.

So I guess my point is that anyone from any country can be an asshat. Asshattery, sometimes unintentional, is part of being human, and no matter what country you come from, you're still a human being, God help you. And for every stereotype about Americans, there's a stereotype about Australians or Germans or the English or WHATEVER. So my own personal policy is this: Be a nice person and people will usually be nice to you. Be an ass, and people will be an ass right backatcha. Quid pro quo. Way of the world. Sure, there will always be cultural misunderstandings and such, but if you're a nice person in general, in my experience, it doesn't cause massive problems. And my policy also is: I don't hold any individual personally responsible for the dumbassery that the government/economic system of their country creates and/or inflicts upon the world. Dumbassery goes hand-in-hand with governments, and I don't know any individual person who has control over what the government of their country does. So...yeah, that's where I'm at. Works for me.

It's not so much the "America sucks" but the idea of not having that health care system in place scares me. You're poor so you can just go die? Live in pain? Of course we pay in our tax, but if you're poor you pay less into the Medicare system then if you are a high wage earner.http://www.ato.gov.au/youth/content...ntent/40811.htm is just tax, I can't find how much goes to medicare, but it comes out of that anyway. Edit: http://www.ato.gov.au/content/39655.htm This adds a bit more information.

We have private health cover companies-we belong to one. But if we couldn't afford that I would at least know I had Medicare. Not that it's perfect, far from it. Waiting lists are long and we need more Dr's and nurses out here in the country in particular. Guess many of them don't want to 'live out in the sticks'


It's probably to do with how much is costs. I'd love to visit America but sadly I don't have that kind of cash. There are Aussies who ski, but many of them probably go to the Snowy Mts over here. Skiing is something I've never tried, as I've only been able to get to the Snowy Mts once and there wasn't much snow and once in England where the snow was more like sludge. Bit hard to practice when cold winter weather is -2 C which I guess is considered warm by you guys?

Nah. If you're poor, there's Medicaid, which is government-funded health care offered to those below a certain income level. That level varies according to family size. (i.e., the bigger the family, the higher the income cap.) It generally pays 100%. Granted, it can be hard to find a GP that will accept Medicaid, but at the very least ALL hospitals/urgent care clinics do. In addition, many of the hospitals in the US are owned/funded by the Catholic church. In many cases, if an uninsured or under-insured person can't pay their bill, their costs are covered by the church, regardless of the person's religious beliefs. (This is one of the reasons why I still tithe the Catholic church, even though I'm no longer Catholic. I believe that those of us who are better off, financially, have a moral obligation to help those who are struggling. I just rather object to the government FORCING me to do so, is all.) Also, for the elderly, there's Medicare, which is also government-funded.

So, it isn't all "sink or swim." But, on the other hand, America WAS founded on the notion of "You come here, you work hard, you make it, and the government stays out of your hair instead of bleeding you dry." (At least, that's the ideal; the ideal and the real world don't always jive, of course.) Basically, Americans fought for independence because they were fed up with the English at the time meddling in their affairs. I think that old Yankee attitude plays into the attitude that Americans have toward health care and toward government in general. (Although it apparently doesn't stop our modern government from meddling in the affairs of others. There's irony in there somewhere...) Anyway, like I said, I'd rather pay for health care myself and have complete control over the care that I get and the timing in which I get it than have the government handle things for me and deal with waiting lists and stuff like that. There are, of course, other schools of thought on the issue; I just happen to be very "Stay the hell away from me, Government!" Always have been.



Which is probably vaguely analogous to the system here. If you're below the income cap, there's Medicaid. (Or if you're elderly, there's Medicare.) Beyond that, many employers offer their employees health coverage, the premiums for which are relatively inexpensive and are deducted at relatively low cost from one's paycheck. Most of those policies have a deductible that has to be paid and, once that's paid, the majority of everything else is covered by the insurance policy. The current problem is that policies are becoming very expensive to employers, so fewer companies, particularly small ones, are able to offer coverage to their employees, leaving more people uninsured but above the income cap for Medicaid eligibility. Those are the people who are hurting, not the poor. Also, there are people like me who don't have a standard job and so have to buy far-more-expensive policies. That's why there's a current push for a more "universal" system; I just have my doubts about its feasibility, is all. Basically, instead of laying the burden on employers, where it's always been, the burden will be laid on an already overtaxed government structure instead. Where no infrastructure currently exists to handle the load. I fear utter disaster, personally...which is frankly why I'm very glad I pay entirely for my own coverage.



As a fellow sticks-dweller...Yeah, we have that problem, too. It can be a real issue, locally, to find a GP that will take your particular insurance. IMO, I tend to think that any doctor should be required to accept any insurance that a person and, by corollary, all insurance companies should be obligated to pay any doctor, not just those with whom they have contracted or however it is that the system is set up. To me, that would be a much easier and more practical reform for the US to implement, at the very least as an interim measure. Because often, a person has insurance, but sometimes no local GP will accept it, especially in the "stickier" areas of the country, which my corner of it DEFINITELY is.



For the same reason, I'd love to visit Australia again, but it's just not in the financial cards, at the moment. Specifically, I'd like to see the "sticks" you spoke of; I've only ever been to the big cities...



-2C is like 30F, I think, so...Uh, yeah. That's mild. That's spring, here. Dead of winter is like -20, which is like -30C. And that's at my elevation, not up higher on the mountain, where it can be significantly colder than that. But it's a dry cold so it doesn't feel as cold as the UK's wetter cold. But if you ever get the hankering for some real skiing, c'mon over. I live on Telluride Mountain, basically, but not on the ski slope side of it. I'm not a huge skiier, myself, but I enjoy it occasionally, on local's days when the lift tickets are (relatively) cheap.

I'm not taxed out the wazoo. My parents are very well off and are not taxed out the wazoo. And if not for universal healthcare when I was a penniless student living far from home I would be dead of scarlet fever, or at best alive but enormously in debt.

That doesn't mean I blame *Americans* for their lack of universal healthcare, though. Americans, for the most part, are innocent of their government's conduct.

I only like America because I can have a relatively high standard of living here. Most Americans take it for granted, but everything is sooooo much cheaper here than almost anywhere else. Real-estate, food, fuel, electricity, taxes, all much lower here than any other place. We Americans tend to take for granted how cheap things are here. We complain about bills, taxes, and the cost of a gallon of gasoline, but what we pay is NOTHING compared to how much things cost in other countries. I've even heard Germany has a radio tax where you have to pay taxes on everything you own that receives a radio frequency! I live quite comfortably on a middle-class income, a standard of living that I know I could not afford if I were to live in Europe for example. My cushy job and standard of living are the only things keeping me here, because I really don't like the majority of Americans. There are exceptions, but for the most part I think most Americans are very ethnocentric and have back-assward views. I can understand the stereotype of the "ugly fat American", because it seems like that's what most people are like in my area. Although my judgement may be clouded because I've never lived anywhere else within America so maybe a lot of Americans in other places are not as bad as they are where I live.

I can't comment on prices of stuff generally in the US, but based on discussions with American friends it seems that food at least is much pricier than it is in the Netherlands, and by extension much much pricier than it is in the UK. The exchange rates aren't favourable for the US dollar at the minute, but nonetheless, I pay 99c for a loaf of brown bread (about $1.20), and 1.19€ for a loaf of white ($1.45); while I've been told that - and I have forgotten the precise numbers - you'd pay at least $2 for a loaf of white in the US and twice that for brown.

I don't know how influenced by area that is, and I tried to compare some other prices from Walmart's online shopping site with what I buy, but I mostly buy fresh food and Walmart don't seem to have prices online for their fresh produce (incidentally they also claim that the cheapest bread they sell is $25, so I'm inclined to take the whole site with a grain of salt); so this is hardly a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the price differences between the various countries. However, if the bread example is indicative, then paying that much more for food - especially when the healthier foods are the more expensive (which seems totally nuts to me, how can microwave food be less expensive than food that's provided through the complex and expensive mechanism of pulling it off trees, chucking it in a lorry and driving it somewhere else?) - would mean that, were I to move to the US, that aspect of my quality of life would be lowered quite significantly.

That's not to say that food isn't more expensive in a few places; and incomes are certainly generally higher in the US than in many places, which offsets the impact of higher prices. I've never got the impression that the US is a cheap place to live, though.

Hmm, I don't know. I remember when I went to NYC, the prices at the Apple Store were basically the same from the online italian one, but converted into dollars. Which means, a MacBook (they still existed back then) was priced at €999, in New York it was priced at $999. Which is a lot of difference.
Starbucks does that as well. All the prices were basically the same, despite the change of value when you change the currency.
For what concerns media, I have to say I didn't encounter a big difference between the price, for examples of DVDs/CDs/videogames. A place where this stuff is very cheap is the UK, you can find recent CDs for €4 while you'd have to pay at least €12 to get the same one in Italy.
So yeah, it depends on the type of items I guess.
But I do agree that food in the US, especially in grocery stores or 7-Elevens is cheaper.

Back on the topic, I'm from Italy and I have always wanted to move to the US since, well, middle school probably.
In the past few years I changed my mind a bit, though. I'm always complaining about Italy and its bigotry, linked to the fact that the Pope lives here and he think he's a politician so he can make statements and expect people to follow him. They do, obviously.
I think it's because, and that's something I've noticed a lot in my country, nobody trusts anybody. The criminality rate is relatively normal, still people never trust anyone besides the Pope and a few politicians. This behavior is, quite frankly, being DUMB.
Because (and I don't care if some Pope-lover here on MTS is reading this) if the Pope freaks out and calls the Police and brings people to court because some secrets have leaked from the Vatican and were allegedly sold to magazines...
What. The. Duck.
Why would there even be secrets?! It's a religion, it's supposed to make you feel good with others and yourself! It should be you and God, there shouldn't be gold-encrusted cathedrals, diamond rings on the Cardinals' fingers, Rolls-Royce to stroll them around.
And most importantly there shouldn't be secrets! It's totally not understandable to me!

And I know in the US there are a lot of bigots. They're in every country, I agree, but the US is worse. That's why I want to move to Canada. It has all the good stuff the States have, and more. The minorities are respected there, and people are civilized. They don't burn Korans, they don't beat gay teens to death, they don't think they're the greatest country in the world, and so on. They're like the people who live in Northern Europe, Scandinavian countries and the UK, the best people ever in my opinion.

I stand corrected, food is cheaper in the UK, but not by that much! $25 is definitely NOT indicative of the price of a loaf of bread here! According to my wife, a loaf of whole wheat bread is around $2 or higher. She said it used to be possible to get the cheap stuff for $0.99 or $0.89, but it was higher in calories. Fresh produce is much more expensive than unhealthy stuff. Junk food is much cheaper, and if you like potatoes, they're cheap as dirt. It's probably why most lower income people in the US are all so very fat. Morbid obesity is extremely common.

I don't think I'm wrong on energy costs though. Petrol was $3.269/gallon when I filled up this morning (I still remember when it was only $0.789). I have seen an average petrol price of "132p" in the UK. Is that £1.32 per litre? If so, that comes out to about $9.26/gallon if my math is correct. Americans are already furious with gas prices and want the Federal government to step in and do something about it. I can't even imagine how angry people would be with $9.26/gallon! Someone in Sweden also told me his electric rates are about $0.22/kWh. My electric company charges $0.081/kWh.

I have no idea what income taxes are in the UK, but I do know in Denmark, it's 43-63%. My total income taxes, both federal and state combined, is about 23% of my income.

If Wikipedia is correct, VAT should be around 20% in the UK, but here I pay a total of 6.85% sales tax. At the moment, anything we buy online from out of state is completely tax-free (though some politicians wish to change this). We can also buy stuff from overseas without paying any duty on items valued $200 or less. I don't think this is the case anywhere else, because overseas bidders on my eBay junk are always asking me to declare a lower value or as gift.

Cheap real-estate is probably the biggest reason I'd never move out of the US, or even out of my area since home prices vary greatly throughout the country. Here, I can find a 3-car, 5-bedroom, 3-bath 2-story, 3000sq ft suburban home in the low $100k range. As a car guy, I appreciate a 3-car garage. I've window-shopped homes in other countries (i.e. New Zealand), and I couldn't even find a single affordable middle-class house with 3-car attached garage. Although the US is probably the only country where I could actually afford to own extra cars.



Yes, bigots and anti-gay are quite common where I live, and it's unfortunate. When I visited Canada, the people were much friendlier (and more attractive) than where I live despite the population there being 4x greater. I'd always heard the larger the city, the less friendly the people, but that wasn't the case in Canada. Most Canadians were all super friendly. I don't think I could live there because they have very lengthy and extremely cold winters, although maybe the weather is milder in Vancouver BC.
Ugh, I'm with you, I couldn't live in Italy where the pope has so much influence either, but I hate religion. My area in the US is mega-religious, and it's yet another thing I strongly dislike about the US. I'm just glad we technically have a separation of church and state, though many politicians and a good deal of Americans clearly seem like they'd prefer if we didn't.

The thing to remember is that America is a BIG country. And really, each region of it has its own "flavor." The people who are natives of the East coast are VERY different from natives of the West coast, for instance. And on the West coast itself, Southern Californians are much different from folks native to the Pacific Northwest. Even from state to state, even states right next door to each other, there can be HUGE differences in the attitudes of people toward various things. For instance, in Massachusetts, gay marriage is legal and there is very little bigotry against gays, whereas in the Deep South, for instance, it's still a concern. Now where I live, in a very rural area of the Mountain states that run along the beautiful Rocky Mountains, we're VERY laid back and accepting of just about anything. Marijuana is legal in the county of the state that I live in, for instance, whereas in many other places, even within my own state, it isn't. (It's only supposed to be legal for medical uses here, granted, but...Uh, yeah, it's very easily had. ) Many hippies live here (I'm one) and many gay people live here and many VERY conservative Christians live here. And guess what? We all get along with each other just fine. However, we WILL tend to piss off visitors from the densely-populated, citified Northeast because we do things slowly and don't stress about things here. Whereas they're all about stress and getting what they want RIGHT NOW. So, we aggravate them. Intentionally, sometimes.

So, you really can't say "America is like this." That would be like saying "Europe is like this." Because in America, a single country, there are as many sort of sub-nations as there are in Europe as a whole. I think sometimes people from other places either forget that or never realize it in the first place. It has to do, I think, with the fact that, when the country originally formed in the early 1780s (Which isn't that long ago, by European standards), each colony really wanted to be its own country. They only agreed to become one country because in the end each state was given the authority to run things pretty much as each state saw fit. In reality, the Federal government of the US has comparatively little power. Most of the power is in the each state's individual government. This was deliberately done, and I think it contributes to the sort of "fractured" nature of the US. We're one country, as I said...but sometimes you'd never know it.

As for the taxing, at kiwi_tea, mostly: Well, I suppose the amount of "out the wazoo"ness is dependent upon the size of the country's population. For less-populated places, the bite would be less painful, sure. I fear that for the US, with something like 300,000,000 people, I believe, which I think is the 3rd-highest in the world ATM...Well, I fear the bite will be pretty darn big. If the whole thing really happens. Somehow, I kind of doubt that it will, myself.... At the very least, I think it might depend on the outcome of the 2012 elections.

Oh, and as to the price of a loaf of wheat bread? I just went grocery shopping today at Walmart. The brand of wheat bread that I buy costs $1.09. There was another brand on sale for 99 cents. $2 for a loaf of bread is utterly ridiculous, unless you're buying a fancy organic brand or something. And mind you, I live in a resort town, where prices are generally inflated compared to other areas, so I'm sure in other places bread can be had for less than what I pay.

We also pay a lot less for gas than in European countries. Right now, in my resort town, gas is about $3.79 for a gallon of the stuff, which I believe is 3.something liters. So, some things are definitely cheaper in America than they are in Europe. I distinctly recall paying about $20 (including VAT) for a Pizza Hut pizza in London a number of years back, when a Pizza Hut pizza here, at that time, cost about $8 or so. (Of course, here, we don't have VAT. Just sales tax in some states, which is usually 5% or less of the price of a product.) I also hear tell that cars are a lot less expensive to buy and, depending on where you are, real estate can be pretty cheap as well. So...Yeah.

It's so true that the US is a big place and everything varies widely depending on where you are. I live in Connecticut. The western part of the state closest to New York has a lot of extremely wealthy people and the eastern part where I live is more middle (what's left of them) class and working poor. Connecticut has gay marriage and homophobia is not much of an issue here. There is blatant segregation, for example entire towns that are almost completely white. Then there are the cities - Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford. One thing I like a lot is that I live in a less densely populated area, but I'm 2 hrs from NYC, 2 hours from Boston, 1 hour from Providence.
Taxes are high here and the cost of living varies, but tends to be high. Because of that business has been fleeing for over 30 years. In general, the not so rich people are just trying to survive like everybody else.
One thing I always wonder about is that I constantly see in the media and on the internet, people talking about 'northeasterners' or the 'northeast' or the 'East Coast' like it's the place where all the bad in the US is concentrated. Or the place where they project all their fears, misconceptions and prejudices. When to me it feels like we're just minding our own business.

@iCad: I didn't mean that everyone in the US is a bigot/homophobic/racist, I'm sorry if it sounded like that. What I tried to say is that there are more people like that in the States rather than Canada or Northern Europe.
I'm sure that many towns in America have a friendly population, without prejudices and which can make religion and gay-friendlyness coexist.
But friends told me that, especially in small towns in the great plains and in the South, people's mind are still filled up with discrimination against everyone who looks, acts or preaches differently.
Besides that, most of the people I met in America were very friendly and open to different people... But I was in a big city, so I should go to towns with like, 10K inhabitants. Just then I could probably grow an opinion.

Oh, don't worry. I didn't take what you said that way at all. I just wanted to point out that America is not homogeneous in attitudes toward just about anything. In fact, it's probably the least homogenous country on the planet, with the possible exception of Russia, which also incorporates vast geographical territory that encompasses a wide variety of sub-cultures. So, attitudes vary widely in the States, across regions and across individual states. After all, you're dealing with a continent-sized country, with a population about ten times that of Canada, which is roughly equivalent in geographical size but much more sparsely populated. The single state that I live in (Colorado) is larger in size (at roughly 270,000 square kilometers) and higher in population (at about 5,000,000 people) than many European countries. So, we don't all think the same way. And we're CERTAINLY not all flag-waving "America is awesome!" in attitude. In fact, it's currently much more in vogue here to loudly announce how much America sucks while simultaneously expressing a strong desire to move to Canada.

So, I do think that many people who've never been here or who have only visited the big cities as a tourist have an odd idea of what America is really like, as a whole. I think it's a combination of Hollywood and the news that does it. For instance, you see folks like the Christian mouthpieces on the news, and people who don't know any better think, "Oh, a lot of Americans must think that way. They're all anti-gay bigots." Or whatever. But really, MOST Americans are actually for gay rights. (Although some do have a strange aversion to allowing homosexual couples to call their unions "marriage." I, frankly, have no idea what difference it makes, but apparently it makes a lot of difference to some people.) But the thing is that MOST Americans don't vote on these issues. However, the (smaller number of very vocal) people who ARE anti-gay-rights turn out to the polls in droves when such issues are put to a vote. It frustrates the hell out of me, personally. But it is what it is. Voting can be a time-consuming pain in the ass, and many people unfortunately opt out. Sad, but true.

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't bigotry in the US. Of course there is, be it anti-gay bigotry or anti-immigrant bigotry or white-supremacist bigotry, the latter of which is the most shameful thing of all, in my book. But we're like pretty much ANY other country that way. The thing is, how much of it (and what kind of it) you'll encounter in America varies widely according to where you are in the country. At the moment, the Deep South still struggles the most with such issues, but there are also pockets in the Midwest and there Plains as welll. And, along the border with Mexico, there is also a lot of anti-Mexican feeling. And in the big cities, there are gangs that are made up of various ethnicities and they all hate each other, so there's a lot of racially-motivated violence.

So, we definitely still have our issues, like pretty much every other country, particularly those that have a lot of different ethnicities living together. (Not every country has that, you know.) I just don't believe the prevailing notion out there that America is vastly more bigoted than any other country. I, myself, have been to every continent except Antarctica, and I've seen things in other countries that are way, WAY worse than ANYTHING that happens in America. And I've seen things that are just as bad as they are in America. (As one example: The terrible anti-Pakistani attitudes I saw quite a bit of in the UK during the time in the late 80s/early 90s when I was there often.) And I've been to places where things seem better than they are in America...although whether they really are better is another question; as a visitor, I probably didn't see the warts that I'm sure exist. So, I just encourage keeping an open mind about America. Don't believe everything you read, everything that others say, and CERTAINLY not everything that you see on TV.



It depends on what you mean by "more." In a "hard numbers" sort of way, there are more people who live in America than who live in Canada and Northern Europe COMBINED. (Population of Canada: About 35,000,000. Population of Northern Europe as defined by the UN: About 100,000,000. For a total of about 135,000,000. Population of the US: About 300,000,000.) If only by that alone, there are quite obviously more people in the US who are open-minded about gay rights and such than there are in Canada and Northern Europe combined. Why? Because even if every single person in those areas supports gay rights (And I'm sure not EVERYONE personally does, regardless of what the laws of those countries have to say on the subject), those two areas combined have a total population roughly 1/3 of the total population of the US, and in the US, more than half of the population supports gay rights, according to polls. "More than half" is a larger number than 1/3, yes?



As I said, attitudes vary widely, and you named two areas that, as I said, struggle with these issues. But even in those areas, not EVERYONE thinks the same way. AND it's not as if things aren't changing. For instance, I grew up in rural Indiana, which is in the Midwest, albeit only barely. I was born in 1964. When I was a child, the attitudes were, indeed, very closed-minded. But not so much anymore, I've noticed, when I've visited home, so times are obviously a-changin'. And, of course, areas like the Pacific Northwest, northern California, big stretches of the Rockies, as well as large stretches of New England are all VERY non-discriminatory against gays in particular. San Franscisco in Northern California is, of course, home to a large number of gay folks. So..Yeah, like I said, it's a question to knowing where to be...and where not to be. Which isn't at ALL surprising given that America is geographically huge, very large in population, and, on top of all that, culturally diverse.



I would definitely recommend that. My current hometown has a year-round permanent population of less than 2,500 people. And, like I said, we're very laid back. About just about everything. Especially for white folks. Even the very conservative Christians here are very laid back, compared to some of our brethren. (I say "our" because I'm Christian and many of my views are conservative. But I have no problem with gay people or gay rights. My best friends are a Christian gay couple. ) So yeah, get out of the cities (although some big cities, like the aforementioned SanFran are VERY open-minded, too) and visit some smaller towns. Granted, some of them can be insular, depending on where they are...but some of them are the greatest places on Earth, not because they're in America, particularly, but simply because the people who've accumulated there are fabulous people.

Whoops, my bad.


Bloody Queenslanders. PARASITES, ALL OF YOU. :P


I jest, but some of the worst offenders are in Toowoomba. Can't really speak for country Queensland since I've spent most of my time in cities or suburbs (although I grew up, and currently live, in rural New South Wales) but if you're anything like Bob Katter and the trash who vote for him, I don't want to know you.


EDIT: No, trust me, it was an anti-American protest. The Kitty Hawk had to cancel shore leave because sailors were getting bashed.

The only problem I have in America is where I live (Georgia).. and by that, you hopefully will understand why I hate it so much. Everywhere else seems reasonably fine to me..

one thing to remember is, if you have lost faith in America, you should count yourself lucky that you live in a country where your voice can be heard, and that it is up to you to change what you don't like. There are still countries that censer newspapers, internet, and other media. There are still countries where women are sold as chattel. You can go to any grocery store and buy yourself food, but there are countries where people are forced to subsist on sub-par food, that is not easily accessable. Yes, there are a lot of bad things going on here, just as any other country with a comparable level of technology and first-world services. But there is a lot of good, too. Think Americans are the only group of people that have a negative impression with other countries? Not at all. There will always be some loud-mouthed jerk with a megaphone spewing bile. But because we get to take advantage of the good, it means we also have to tolerate the bad sometimes. Just be grateful that we ( as in, any country with a democratic system) can change.

This. OMG, never. I'd never even cross that country's border out of this fear. And it's horrible. Why do Americans pay taxes if not for this and education?

But what am I saying? My own country that used to be communist and socialist and had all of this free all the time for everyone, even the out-of-country visitors, is going down the same pit America fell through.

America... I used to love the country. It's the culture that gave me Star trek, for Pete's sake!
I don't love it anymore, but I don't hate it either. I believe that the American people is on the verge of a huge social upheaval.
Why? Anything else America is, it is still a great country with great libertarian traditions, and *those* Americans haven't fell off of the face of earth yet, even if the "ugly fat American" stereotype were based in reality. They're still there. These Americans are freedom junkies and they will do something to help their people and their country, I'm sure of it. It's only a matter of time. I only hope that they succeed once they start.

Go, freedom loving America! *does the Uni cheer*

...Isn't the point of a representative democracy is that we, the people, make our own decisions regarding government?

A. The US isn't a Democracy, it's a Democratic Republic.
B. Following Citizens United, it's not really a Democratic Republic any longer either, it's a Plutocratic Republic with pretend democratic elements. It's money that controls the democratic narrative, there's really been no chance that any candidate without extreme investment could possibly take any major elected position in the US for a century or more, at least - and that was before the restrictions were removed.