Should the United States be more like Europe?

[shootme]

From what I have observed it seems that Europe is really ahead of the USA in alot of important ways.

Europe has better healthcare, has less violence, more social programs, the people are fitter, and they are better educated.

I think it is very interesting that people that come to the united states from europe can't wait to get back home and and while they are here are appalled by the level of crassness, gluttony, and senseless violence.

Now I know Europe isn't perfect (see: deplorable treatment of Muslims) but it does seem to function better than the USA.

[El-ahrairah]

In a few ways we could improve from the Old World, with public transportation and constitutional monarchy foremost.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

wft would we need with a constitutional monarchy? that's the dumbest thing I have read in the past 30 minutes.

and to answer the OP: See this thread. It pretty much covers it.

[Jaime L]

I'm thinking this thread goes 35 posts, before it goes whereever whores go.

That's why I'm getting in now.

There's a lot I like about Europe. Mostly the women and the currency. If only there were some way to unite North America under some Amero currency. Let's make this happen. Yes we can!

I also like the accents, the castles, the soccer hooligans, Roger Federer, the entire nation of Luxembourg, the drawings of Zakalwe, post-apocalyptic films that take place in Britain made in the last 5 years, Malcolm Macdowell and anyone who calls gasoline "petrol" or puts "u's" randomly into words.

So wait, on topic, I guess yeah, we should try to do more of those things, but isn't Malcolm Macdowell dead?

[IheartTesla]

From what I have observed it seems that Europe is really ahead of the USA in alot of important ways.

No fair comparing a continent with a country. Apples and oranges. Can we at least recruit Canada on our side?

Europe has better healthcare, has less violence, more social programs, the people are fitter, and they are better educated.

Thats true, I've never seen a fat illiterate European. Then again, my living in the US probably has something to do with it.

[Hereward]

Thats true, I've never seen a fat illiterate European.

I'll happily give you a tour of Essex. I'm sure I can round up a few of my relatives.

[Tyria]

Can we at least recruit Canada on our side?

Nope. Sorry. See the various threads on healthcare etc. And Chats thread above me. If you take Canada, we'll have to become more "American" by way of the majority. I'll be taking my UK passport and fucking off back to the homeland, if there ever becomes a North American union.

[Hereward]

We have more fluid social mobility.

No, you really don't. In fact, these days the US has worse social mobility than any other industrialised country.

[denstorebog]

So wait, on topic, I guess yeah, we should try to do more of those things, but isn't Malcolm Macdowell dead?

I *think* I saw him hang himself at the end of Wing Commander IV.

Thats true, I've never seen a fat illiterate European.

Want pics?

[Jaime L]

No, you really don't. In fact, these days the US has worse social mobility than any other industrialised country.

You refute that point and yet no refutation on Malcolm Macdowell being dead. Curiouser and curiouser.

[S John]

America fucking rocks. I really appreciate what Europe's got going on. I think there is a lot that we can learn from them and vise versa. In fact, I think it would be awesome to try living in Europe for a spell.

But I mean, lets be honest here. It was within this century that Europe was possibly the most violent place in the world. World Wars, holocaust... anyone? It's still shitty, but I'll take street warfare over that any day. I believe Europe knows a thing or two about that as well. I'd say that its highly unusual for a foreign tourist in this country to be party to a violent incident in the United States. The vast majority of violence is not random, and I get the feeling that tourists sometimes come in thinking that its worse than it is.

I had a friend and coworker from New Zealand that was terrified of driving in Los Angeles because he thought he would get shot for cutting someone off or flipping the bird. I was like, 'not if you buck 'em first, homey..... now lets go to the drive thru so I can get some big macs and get fatter, becuase I am uneducated and stupid and my country has no redeeming qualities.'

[potsherds]

No fair comparing a continent with a country. Apples and oranges. Can we at least recruit Canada on our side?

Oh, hell no you can't. :thumbsdown:

No, you really don't. In fact, these days the US has worse social mobility than any other industrialised country.

Heh, thanks for linking that. :)

[Guest thebadlady]

I'm thinking this thread goes 35 posts, before it goes whereever whores go.

That's why I'm getting in now.

There's a lot I like about Europe. Mostly the women and the currency. If only there were some way to unite North America under some Amero currency. Let's make this happen. Yes we can!

I also like the accents, the castles, the soccer hooligans, Roger Federer, the entire nation of Luxembourg, the drawings of Zakalwe, post-apocalyptic films that take place in Britain made in the last 5 years, Malcolm Macdowell and anyone who calls gasoline "petrol" or puts "u's" randomly into words.

So wait, on topic, I guess yeah, we should try to do more of those things, but isn't Malcolm Macdowell dead?

this. and i like to use the whores before they get too used. ;)

[Thor85]

Yeah, US needs more nude beaches and ahem... Dutch coffee shops. Hope Obama is taking note.

[Altherion]

It is extremely misleading to speak of Europe as single entity because living in, say, France will give you one experience while living in Moldova will give you something entirely different. I assume you mean the wealthier, Western European countries, although even these are not homogeneous.

I am an American who has lived on the border of Switzerland and France for quite some time (technically, I live in France and work in Switzerland) and I've also visited Paris and London for a few days each. To first order, all of these places are quite similar to the US. By "first order", I mean that all of the infrastructure is essentially identical: you will find the same apartments (though quite a bit smaller and more expensive), the same cars (albeit with manual transmission), the same shopping malls and supermarkets (with different names) and so on and so forth. Except for the language, there is nothing particularly unfamiliar or out of place.

There are some higher order differences, but they're mostly tradeoffs. France has shorter work weeks, but what this means is that most stores close at 7:30PM or earlier so good luck shopping if you need to work at non-standard hours. They have a considerably more extensive social safety net, but the price for that is substantially higher taxes (even visitors are affected because of the Value Added Tax -- a sales tax on most products). Also, the rules on what a company owes its workers after certain periods of time cause companies (or at least one of which I know) to do a certain amount of hiring/firing gymnastics that are completely unnecessary (and probably counterproductive) from the perspective of performance.

I've also worked with a lot of Europeans back in the US and it is not true that they can't wait to get back home, at least not to a greater extent than Americans can't wait to get home from Europe because home, wherever it is, is where family and friends are. The two continents are different, but they're not that different. Also, the regional differences within each are probably greater than the average difference between the two -- Brooklyn (a borough of NY City), New York varies rather greatly from the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois and Geneva, Switzerland is not at all the same as Paris, France.

[Black Dow]

wft would we need with a constitutional monarchy? that's the dumbest thing I have read in the past 30 minutes.

and to answer the OP: See this thread. It pretty much covers it.

The dumbest thing I've read in the last 30 minutes was the original post to this thread. Particularly, the part about 'the deplorable treatment of Muslims'. Could we just be a little more PC? :rolleyes:

[Thor85]

Europe has better healthcare, has less violence, more social programs, the people are fitter, and they are better educated.

All of that can be said about China too, so should US try to be more like China? I just don't see were your thesis is going, but thanks for trying.

[Guest thebadlady]

no, i gotta agree with lany. having a monarchy in the states is the dumbest thing i have read all week, and i have been reading some dumb shit.

[denstorebog]

:lol:

I would love to see how the States would deal with the sudden decision to implement a monarch. Where to begin?

Anyway, as a European, the monarchy is the first thing I'd like to see go. Talk about force of habit.

[The_BlauerDragon]

I think that Europe would do well to become more like the United States.

As for the U.S., I agree that there is an awful lot that we could be doing much better, but I still think that we're leagues ahead of any other nation on earth as a whole (or for those of you that hate your homeland as an external focal point for your own self loathing, should that be "hole"?).

A great many of the problems that the U.S. faces would actually be incredibly simple to fix. For instance, if we disallowed the use of high fructose corn syrup as a substitute for sugar in beverages and food products, obesity (and the myriad of problems that go with it) would probably see a sharp decline. Most other countries in the world do not allow hfcs to be used in such ways, it is my understanding that we only do because it's cheaper than sugar. That's true with a lot of the additives that we allow in our consumables. If we simply take the lobbyists out of our political system and start holding our government accountable for doing the jobs that we've entrusted it to do again, we could make great progress very quickly.

Still, there's no-where else on earth that I would rather live.