> I am so sick of whining Europeans that I would almost support stalling the U.S. economy just to drive the E.U. into a ditch.
Indeed. Pot, meet kettle.
Someone needs to start 'Occupy Reality'.
You effectively claim that the US does not need the EU and that you could afford to drive the EU 'into a ditch' out of spite, when in fact the economies are now so interlinked that if the one suffers the other suffers right along with it. The current crisis is a nice example of that.
Effectively it is a single giant economy with lots of subtle and not well understood dependencies, wrecking one on purpose will likely wreck the other one as well.
Besides that, you are painting all Europeans with the same brush and that is just as stupid as those that like to paint all of the US with one brush.
America is not 'the evil empire' (and neither is Europe), but on both sides of the Atlantic there is plenty of stuff going on that does not have the interests of the general public at heart. I don't mind those that expose those things, and I don't mind people trying to avoid making past mistakes again. They're braver than me in many respects.
We're moving into uncharted territory with respect to the amount of impact surveillance technology and anti-terrorism measures have on the lives of ordinary citizens. It remains to be seen if the net result of that is beneficial or not (I'm skeptical and I think that it will be a net negative). The United States seems to me to be the party pushing most aggressively to achieve this with the EU following along and sometimes trying to outdo its counterparts.
What bugs me is that there is no - or very little - accountability on this front and the extent to which commercial interests and political interests are entwined. It may take a lot of work to undo the damage that we're doing to ourselves and our societies. To polarize that into a US vs Europe debate is silly at best and 'batshit crazy' at worst. Please don't add fuel to that particular fire.
>you are painting all Europeans with the same brush and that is just as stupid as those that like to paint all of the US with one brush.
Well I did qualify it with 'whining'. Particularly the ones whose sense of entitlement has become so bloated.
My 'E.U. in a ditch' was too much, I have no beef with Europe, just calling out bullshit.
But these fascist claims go unanswered here too often and
I shouldn't have to dispute it point by point.
And nothing seems to make that happen faster than nationalism/patriotism.
Also do you have a link to the pg article?
If it were we wouldn't be having this conversation. But likewise, I don't think it's the greatest country on earth either (nor can I think of any way such a concept would be meaningful really). To me, it is simply a first world county; it has its good points and its bad points. There are a lot of scary things happening in the western world right now and many of them are spearheaded by the US.
>Also do you have a link to the pg article?
1) For admitting, if reluctantly, that America is not fascist.
2) The link
I did not claim we were the greatest country, whatever that means, but I can't fathom the 'America is the worst thing since AIDS' attitude on HN. In the next breath they complain its hard to get here.
Or a better way to come to think about it is to ask yourself how many civil liberties have been gained compared to how many have been lost over the past 10 years. And do you see this trend continuing?
This why you can't judge the world by watching TV. It is really sad to see normally intelligent people go batshit crazy and start spewing nonsense. Europeans should know better than to throw around the word fascist. I am so sick of whining Europeans that I would almost support stalling the U.S. economy just to drive the E.U. into a ditch.