There are obviously many great British people and not everyone is like that, but the overall way people treat each other? Yeah nah, not for me.
I'm not saying US doesn't have its problems, but they're of a very different nature.
Even in my own little country of the Netherlands there are differences between regions, so I don't doubt that your experience in North England was better. I heard Scotland is a lot better too.
I live in a state with very strong social security without too paranoid immigration laws, but I still would try to get a job in the US if I had no attachments or commitments.
I also do believe it is far easier to integrate in American society and be accepted than anywhere in Europe.
I feel much more free travelling and living in many other countries besides the US. Everyone seemed on a knifes edge while I was there. Don't get me wrong I loved it - everyone was wonderfully friendly and incredibly welcoming to guests - but there seemed to be this underlying unease and I was forever being told not to do this-or-that-or-else. I suppose I've always thought it was a bit ironic that the 'land of the free' has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world.
Personally, my envy is directed at those in the Nordic and Oceanic countries. They seem to have it pretty good over there.
EDIT: Just checking out some freedom index scores just to see whether my experience differs then that of the mean, but it seems to be about what I expected. The Freedom House report definitely covered it very well I think. Reference material below.
[0]https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/united-st... [1]https://freedomhouse.org/report/countries-world-freedom-2019... [2]https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking [3]https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/human-freedom-index-... [4]https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table
Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested. Rude comments made on the internet, not even involving actionable threats, can get you arrested.
Orwell was British, but "Freedom is slavery" was supposed to be fiction. It was not written as an instruction manual.
You've also gone past guns, now starting to confiscate dull butter knives. More importantly, it's not the nature of the weapon, but the right to use it. You are generally not permitted to defend yourself. This does vary in the USA, with places like Maryland being rather British, but in large areas here we are permitted to fight back.
> Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested.
I assume you're referring to the case of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He was charged with contempt of court for violating a blanket ban on broadcasting of the proceedings of a specific trial. The ban was imposed by the judge as it was "necessary for avoiding a substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in these proceedings".
Does your adherence to freedom trump the right to have a fair trial?
No, interfering with trials will get you arrested.
> a guy got in trouble with the law for making a comedy video with a little dog saluting Hitler.
It wasn't the Nazi salutes that caused the trouble, it was broadcasting the repeated use of the phrase "gas the jews".
He tried to use the "it was just a prank bro" defence in court, and they rejected it because i) to show it to his girlfriend he didn't need to put it on youtube, ii) there's no evidence she even saw it and iii) "gas the Jews" isn't funny.
Also, you can own a gun legally in the UK.
Well, you'd best never have a thought that offends anybody ever in your rapidly-changing culture. Someday that could be you going to prison for your 2019-era wrongthink.
What I'm struggling to understand is why we're trying to compare fining a person for a joke, versus the systematic imprisonment of four times as many people per capita as that in the UK, and exponentially more if you compare the US to the rest of Europe[1]. 46% of the population is in for non-violent crime. Hell, according to cut50, just under 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars, up 500% in 30 years. [2] More flag waving and anthem chanting doesn't change that, as much as that may upset the patriotic sensibilities of so many.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... [2] https://www.cut50.org/
a. We let them out, and this is fine because they are good people. LOL.
b. We let criminals run amok, pillaging our villages as they please.
c. We shoot them, then make their family pay for the cost of the bullet.
d. We send them to a prison colony like Australia.
e. We import better people. Maybe we could raid Japan or Iceland to get nicer people.
What I do know is that they aren't in prison just for being rude on Twitter.
This law is fantastic in my eyes. Contempt of court laws are designed to protect the rule of law, ensure fair trials - and avoid trial by media.
Contempt can be committed by a broad range of people and organisations including the press, jurors, and - as we have learned in recent years - social media users.
He was asked multiple times to stop recording, over the course of the day. He even went as far as filming all the way to the court room. Don't get me wrong, the defendants were scum in this case, but that's for a court to decide. It sets an awful precedent if court trials start to become media frenzies like that of the US. Yaxley-Lennon is a bigot and if they didn't charge him on this law I'm sure he'd get arrested for assaulting someone soon enough, like he'd already done 12 months in prison for previously.
You're coming in very righteous, so here's something I find quite entertaining - "Reporter Zachary Siegel held in contempt of court and arrested after recording trial" Oct 2018 - https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-zachar...
I might suggest that condemning British freedom of press looks questionable from a resident of a country that has a precarious situation at the moment with their press: https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/
With regards to your final comment, I agree that confiscating knives is extreme. But frankly, our gun laws have been excellent at stopping gun crime and mass shootings - the issue is that the government has extrapolated this to the nth degree and wants to do this for knives now too. It's a symptom of poverty in primarily the city residential areas, and the government wants to appear to be doing something about it. I don't agree it's the best way, but it's a way. It's selectively enforced, and getting charge will result in maybe some community service or a fine - a stint in prison for repeat offenders or those already with numerous misdemeanours; it's certainly no modern dystopia where people are getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads or getting beaten to death while pinned to the ground.
As I understand it, your situation is more like a general-purpose gag order on the entire trial. Part of ensuring fair trials is making them public. In secrecy, all sorts of bad things happen. Public trials are very much on purpose. Secret trials bring to mind the USSR, North Korea, and similar.
We don't have people getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads either. I think you refer to the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. Evidence shows he was doing nothing of the sort. Instead, he was trying to grab the cop's gun. His fingerprints were inside the vehicle and evidence from his body shows that the gun was fired from very short range. Yeah, we do have criminals, I admit that, and it sucks.
People who have lived in the UK for decades are suddenly getting kicked out or are being denied access to the country they live. Bizarre xenophobia, both from the government and from people, has been dramatically on the rise since the Brexit referendum.
Rather than attack the US as a whole, why not just attack the inane policies. We don't all support everything that goes on here. It's not as if elsewhere in the world there are no places with no problems.
What do you mean when you say "diversity"? Have you been to the mid west? There are "un-diverse" and "diverse" areas of almost every country. People in the US are "optimistic"? "Friendly" and "humble"? The claim that Americans are "humble" when compared internationally is almost laughable (probably even by most americans), and I doubt that "friendliness" is really something you see drastic differences in around the globe. For the the last one there's no need to ask your gut because there are studies made regarding in what countries people feel the most optimistic about the future. As a matter of fact, most of them have pointed out China as the most optimistic country, which may make sense in a perspective of economical relative growth, but it doesn't on its own make me want to buy an apartment in Shanghai.
So, you have never been to Eastern Europe or CIS countries.
If you assume an English speaker traveling around, I would argue it's not a fair comparison to equate the friendliness of a stranger in Russia with the friendliness of a stranger in the United States, for example -- not only because of pure language reasons, but also for simple reasons of historical, educational, and cultural context. Not that finding a rude American is hard, mind you. I'm speaking from experience as an ESL speaker who has been there several times :-)
(But, to answer your question, no, I have unfortunately not been to EE/CIS -- but I have been to China, which I think is a strong contender.)
[1]: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/save/why-poor-pe...
People here are much less trusting and are much more aggressive to others. It is actually LESS visible if you're a foreigner, because people are also concerned with self-image, and don't really perceive you as a threat or a contender for anything.
As an American who doesn't speak Russian, you'll get a much better treatment from stranger on a street than another Russian would.
> I believe that there is a basic level of humanity anywhere in the world, and that this level often has an inverse correlation with material wealth.
Every possible crime statistics contradicts this. Poor countries in general view violence as something more normalised than advanced ones.
And lots of diversity there too, almost any place has somewhere around 2000 to 1500 years of history on the books, you can walk from your current location to another place with wildly different customs and traditions within an hour.
You can say similar things about other parts of the world as well, not just Europe and the US too.
Don't underestimate the rest of the world.
The former exists precisely because people historically didn't mingle much.
I don't think most people would qualify diversity as "lots of newly arrived immigrants", even those who champion diversity, they'll likely get closer to "people from lots of different life experiences".
I'm not passing judgement on either.
Maybe their ancestors aren't really as pure as they think, but it's still fundamentally different from a country where everyone is an immigrant within the last few generations.
Considering the current political climate in the US, the difference isn't that large...
Still a great place to visit, but I'll take a burner phone next time. Maybe a Huawei device :)
Here in Switzerland, and to a lesser extent in the rest of the western Europe, I will always feel like an immigrant. It is cultural, there is always a divide of those who lived here before and those two came after. Perhaps only my children or their children will be able to fully integrate here.
In the US it is different. There are a lot of hurdles to overcome to get there, including very insensitive TSA employees who have arbitrary powers over you, but when I come out of the airport building — I am an American. A Russian American, yes, but still there are nearly no differences in the attitude compared to everybody else. People are friendly and helpful, no matter if I speak with some strange accent or don’t look like a local. This is amazing, it is something that Americans take for granted, but it is a very big deal.
* A strong distinctive local culture.
* Treating immigrants just like locals.
Immigrants aren't going to learn the local dialect of Schwyzerdütsch unless you give them some kind of incentive, are they?
-Says CareerAddict, “The average scientist in Switzerland receives an annual salary of roughly $95,000 (in Euros, of course), making Switzerland the country with the highest salary for scientists in the world. The best scientists can earn over $100,000 per year, though that is primarily in the private sector.”
-An Investopedia article uses a World Bank report to rank Singapore as the top country for entrepreneurs (source: Best And Worst Countries For Entrepreneurs | Investopedia).
-The UK has scooped the first spot in The 2019 Best Countries for Education, maintaining its rank from last year, according to a study by US News & World Report.
-Japanese researchers have won many Nobel Prizes. Japan’s particularity lay down in the fact that they achieved results in every fields : from bio-technology to robotics.
-The claim that the USA is the best for immigrants is hard to disprove in terms of study's. but, sociopolitical it is quite clear The USA isn't as welcoming as seen. cough trump cough
-"outdoors" another almost impossible metric to prove/disprove, but i know for a fact that NZ (New Zealand) is held as the best place for adventurous activities.
-Finland sits at the top of the list with a 90.68 EPI score.(EPI = Environmental performance index.) https://improb.com/top-cleanest-countries-in-the-world/
-do you know about the flint water crisis? Switzerland has the cleanest water levels in the water, to the point that many places don't even treat their water with chemicals.
-cost of living is what i'll use to debunk the claim that america is "cheap" most expensive is Switzerland at COI= 121.16, USA is 20th at 69.91. below the USA at 99 countries, including at 24th the United Kingdom at 65.28, at 48 is Fiji with 50.93 and plenty more. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.js...
-Papua New Guinea is the most diverse, There are thousands of ethnic groups in the country, each with their own languages and customs.
-supposedly china is the most optimistic, "The survey found that 94% of Chinese youth – defined in most cases as those aged 12-15 – were optimistic about their own country’s future, compared with 64% of their American counterparts. "
-Portugal is the most friendly "Friendly attitude towards expats: 94%, Ease of making local friends: 58%, Expats likely to stay forever: 47%" https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennysouthan/2018/03/21/the-wor...
-i couldn't find any stats or studies about humble, but if you have to boast about how humble you are, you probably aren't.
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Now let's talk about some things America is the leader the way in:
-the US, Lesotho, Swaziland and new guinea are the only countries in the world that doesn't have paid mandate leave for mothers of newborns.
-also the only country to not require companies to have paid vacation.
-there is also no guarantee workers will get paid Sick days.
-The US's education budget is the largest, but the results are shocking poor.
-the US exports the most weapons in the world.
-have the highest incarcerate % in the world.
-highest healthcare costs, by a staggering amount.
-babies death rate is the highest than any other industrialised country.
-the wage gap between the "uber" rich and poorest is the biggest in the world.
no hate, just don't enjoy the spread of false information.
The problem with guns are virtually none existing in the UK.
Also, what about a pistol, carried on your person as you go about your day? Here in the US it is generally possible to do that. (variation by state: concealed carry may need a license, open carry may need a license, some states prohibit using it unless you can't retreat, etc.)
In the US, the 1st Amendment expressly prohibits this kind of authoritarianism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
But regardless, you've conveniently only quoted part of that law text. It's only about electronic communication https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127
and for context the relevant parts read:
With 1a saying
A person is guilty of an offence if he sends by means of a public
electronic communications network a message or other matter that is
grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character
A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing
annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he sends by
means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he
knows to be false
https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventio...
- Better TV.
- Much Better Food.
- Higher paying jobs.
- Bigger cars, bigger roads.
- Second Amendment.
- First Amendment.
- Lower Taxes (income and sales).
- Ability to not talk to the Police and not have that used against you.
- More likely to succeed if you start a business. Shark Tank > Dragons Den UK.
- More likely to get funding if you decide to get an Angel / VC and higher amounts with lower equity.
- More likely to have FFF rounds fund 6 figure seed for startup. Everyone I know in the UK is skint because of zero hours and high taxes and no savings.
- 325m vs 66m in population. Therefore a much higher population to sell a product to locally and regionally. Not the same in the UK. Small business more prevalent in the US also, easier time to sell B2B.
I've spent probably close to 4 years now in the US. Lived and worked in many states. The US outclasses the UK by many margins.
Here's one for you. I'm living in the UK now, it's actually detrimental to bootstrapping a business. Tell me, what does the UK give you that the US doesn't.
Oh that's right, healthcare is the biggest one. Yeah, I'll give you that one. Nothing else though!
- Better TV. Who watches normal TV as opposed to Netflix?
- Much Better Food. Dispute this. US food standards are demonstrably lower than in the EU. You might be able to get bigger portions and a larger variety of junk food but so what.
- Higher paying jobs. In SF maybe, but the cost of living is correspondingly much higher.
- Bigger cars, bigger roads. Why do you need this if you can comfortably get places via modern public transport?
- Second Amendment. Unnecessary in a country where no one has guns
- First Amendment. We have comparable laws
- Lower Taxes (income and sales). I'd rather pay taxes to get healthcare free at point of service and a safety net for people who lose their jobs
- Ability to not talk to the Police and not have that used against you. We have comparable laws
- Netflix, in the UK due to licensing is a poorer subset of content.
- There are much better choices of food options available in the US compared to the UK.
- No, literally everywhere. I know many developers [around the US] who know either just PHP or Node and have $100k positions. Try living outside of London, you'd be lucky just to earn £30k.
- Outside of London a car is a necessity, the Tube does not exist outside of London. Not everyone wants to live where anyway. Try seeing the other parts of the UK for instance. You'll be shocked just how bad the public transport is.
- [Second Amendment] Nope, but how many stabbings have there been so far this year? Oh and gun crime is on the rise. Oh wait we don't have guns. Yeah I forgot.
- [First Amendment] We don't have comparable laws. Just how many times have Police interviewed people at their home for posting things on Twitter that [other] people found offensive. Even though they weren't.
- The safety net for a single man in the UK is a pittance. We don't all have mortgages and kids. Having a poor and highly taxed society means less opportunity for everyone.
- We don't have comparable laws when taking to the Police.
Happy you replied though. Much better than the downvotes for those in the UK and won't be able to understand how life is different elsewhere.
In the latest figures, there were 726 murders between March 2017 and 2018 in the UK[1] for 66M people (1 in 91k).
In the US, 2017, there were just over 17000 murders[2] for 325M people (1 in 19k).
Stabbings and gun crime in the UK is going to have to go up a hecking long way before we get anywhere close to the US.
[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand... [2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
This won’t change as long as people accept it. But if tomorrow tourism & business travel slows down to a crawl because of this you can bet you’ll see changes the next day.