The natural born citizens dissatisfied with the US are generally not comparing the US to a developing country or a country with an ongoing war on their soil, which is where most immigrants come from.
Instead, they are comparing it to other developed countries and focused on specific conditions that matter to them, like housing, transportation, environment, violence, etc.
> Yes there are problems in America, but how many of those problems are the result of an apathetic, nihilistic American population and not the foundational systems America is built on?
The criticism of these problems is far from apathetic, and it's an important part of how we remedy them.
The biggest current threat to America is the attack on its democratic foundations happening now, but even that is not coming from apathy, though it's very nihilistic.
To the contrary, plenty do care about it in the sense of being opposed to further immigration from developing countries. "Demographic anxiety" is a term often used to describe this.
Also, both natural born citizens of recent immigrant ancestry and those natural born for many generations care because anti-immigrant sentiment is a canary for a broader xenophobic trends.
Wherever one's opinions fall on immigration policy, when pressed, almost everyone has an opinion.
When I hear people complain online about the US, it is very common for them to have a deep understanding of problems in the US, but very superficial understanding of problems in other developed nations. European countries also have lots of problems with housing, healthcare, the environment, racism, the rise of the far right, etc. There are some problems that are uniquely american, like mass shootings.
Being an informed citizen isn't just understanding the problems in your country. If you wan't to be a part of positive change, you need to understand what's working and what's not working in other comparable countries as well.
Being specific in your comparison matters.
It is indeed facile to make the statement that "things are so much better in Europe". Blanket statements are usually stupid.
It's reasonable, however, to compare the efficacy of public transit of San Francisco to that of Copenhagen, or to compare the a population-wide health indicators of the US to Germany.
I definitely agree that the US healthcare system sucks and should not be emulated. But I think many of its critics think healthcare is a solved problem in countries like Germany and it really isn't. Germans are not completely happy with their healthcare system and there is an effort underway to reform it currently. I think it's a better system than the US system, but it's got plenty of problems:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/14/a-ticking-ti...
> In Germany, which spends more on healthcare than almost any other country in the world, hospitals are a greater concern, with this winter’s wave of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in young children triggering alarm across the country.
> Amid reports of overcrowded casualty departments and parents forced to sleep in hospital corridors or travel hundreds of kilometres for a child’s treatment, the Süddeutsche Zeitung said the country was witnessing “what it means when a system implodes … in scenes which for a long time might have seemed unimaginable”.
> In a petition to parliament titled: “Alert level red – hospitals in danger”, the German Hospital Society (DKG) again highlighted a chronic lack of staff as the main problem, noting that many hospitals had had to temporarily close casualty departments due to a lack of doctors and nurses.
> More than 23,000 posts remain unfilled in Germany’s hospitals after several years of low recruitment and recent mass resignations, particularly in intensive care and operating theatres, by staff citing a workload so extreme that some were unable to take even a short break or go to the toilet.
Additionally, the poor health outcomes in the United States are not necessarily the result of the US health care system. Many of the most important drivers of health care outcomes (exercise, nutrition, obesity, drug abuse, etc) are worse in the US.
My point isn't that the US health system is great, because it isn't great. My point is that people in the US are well informed about their own problems but generally ignorant about the problems outside the country.
The nicest European countries are fragile and can't handle immigration well at all. Just ask Sweden how their next 30 or so years are starting to look. France has entirely failed for decades at integrating their immigration populations, despite their vaunted welfare state. They're very mediocre at functional integration, whereas the US is the greatest by-design melting pot in world history.
Try immigrating into affluent nations like Canada, Australia, Germany, Norway, Finland, etc. They make it far more difficult than it is to come to the US (unless you're a top tier immigrant in terms of skill/wealth). The nicest countries love to use points systems or the equivalent to keep poorer, lower skilled people out.
Canada for example is 2% black and 3% Latin American. Anyone think that's an accident? There are roughly 3/4 of a billion Latin Americans in the Americas and somehow Canada is merely 3% Latin American. The huge Latin American immigration wave the US has seen over the past 40-50 years has been nearly entirely blocked by Canada. It's by design, they're xenophobic like the Europeans are, and they do everything they can to keep poor people out.
People will say: just look how amazing Norway or Germany are. It's a nice fantasy, because good luck becoming a citizen (maybe for the privileged HN crowd there's a chance).
Japan is amazing? Yeah ok, go try becoming a citizen there. Try integrating, try becoming Japanese (you can't).
So what the hell is the point of saying: xyz is so wonderful - if they're excluding by design and won't let you join?
Gee, Stanford, MIT and Harvard are amazing, every college should be like that.
The US remains moderately accessible, most of its peers are the exact opposite.
The US is 12% black, 18% latin american, 6% Asian. And let me tell you, that 12% black number isn't the product of a liberal immigration policy.
The numbers aren't actually too different, and if you were to switch the two countries' geographies, I'd expect the US latin american numbers to significantly drop, and Canada's to significantly rise.
The Canadian immigration system is actually pretty reasonable. Points for being young, for having useful skills, points for demonstrating mastery of the language, points for having relatives. And a clear process for international students studying in Canada to naturalize.
The US is the one that yanks you around by your britches, with decades-long waiting lists and visa lotteries for people who are already living and working in the country.
[1] Country-of-origin breakdown for recent immigrants to Canada[2] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171597/new-immigrants-c... - 32% India, 8% China, 4.3% Philipines, 3.8% Nigeria. The first European country to make the list is France, at 3.2%, followed by the US, Brazil, Iran, Korea, Pakistan, all at 2-3%.
[2] Similar breakdown for the US - https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested.... - 14% Mexico[3], 13% India, 7% China, 4% Phillipines, 3% Dominican Republic.
[3] Given these numbers, I think its reasonable to hypothesize that if Canada had border proximity, and strong cultural ties to Mexico, I'm sure that it's lat-am immigration numbers might look similar to what the US has.
I agree completely. But that's good and practically necessary for the US, since it is highly reliant on immigrants at all levels of skill for their labor.
Immigration even underpins the basic functioning of the healthcare system, and not just for doctors and nurses. Cleaning hospitals is a critical job for the healthcare system, and janitorial workers are 20% Latino.
However, that doesn't mean there isn't plenty that can be learned from the administration of healthcare systems elsewhere.
Germany, like the US, has a market based health insurance system organized through employers, but unlike the US, carrying insurance is required by law [1].
Furthermore, Germany has universal public coverage for medically necessary care, and controls the price of prescription drugs [2].
That doesn't make Germany's system perfect by a long shot, but it manages to achieve a much lower healthcare spend as a percentage of GDP while maintaining universal coverage for basic healthcare and even offering patients longer average hospital stays than the US does.
1. https://sites.gsu.edu/gsuglobalhealth/2021/02/15/competition...
2. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2...
> Just ask Sweden how their next 30 or so years are starting to look. France has entirely failed for decades at integrating their immigration populations, despite their vaunted welfare state.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. The way you put it, European countries are simultaneously closed to immigration and irrationally racist for being this way, and at the same time they're on doomed trajectories due to immigration. If the latter is true, that would be a non-racist justification for anti-immigration policies, but if they were as anti-immigration as you claim those faltering social conditions due to immigration wouldn't exist in the first place.
Compare immigration to France and Japan. It's clear which of these countries is actually hostile to immigrants.
I don't agree with the characterization that the policies are due to racism though.
Right, it's a clear contradiction. If European countries were "hyper xenophobic and or extremely racist" they would be turning away and deporting those refugees. They're not doing that though, so the characterization of European countries as xenophobic and racist doesn't fit the facts.
I say this all as someone who does not live in the USA and is not an American citizen.
The USA is not perfect and has its own share of social problems (like all countries do) but people decide that the tradeoff is worth it for all the good things the USA offers.
It's not limited to economic opportunity. The US also offers people the opportunity to make the US better through our democratic process.
Countries with extensive social programs for the poor typically aren't the easiest places to immigrate.
That's kind of what "can't afford" means.
Even as a Canadian who immigrated to the U.S. (who unfortunately lives in Canada again now), I didn't realize how good I had it until I had given up my U.S. residence
Also, they're white, and that plays a role--even today there's a surprising number of undocumented Irish immigrants to the United States but nobody's out there asking for reactionary measures to that.
It's not always racism...but it is mostly ladder-pulling, and economically unrealistic ladder-pulling at that. (Ask a farmer.)
Or is it that they feel those immigrants are unfairly taking something from them? And if so, is that really true or just FUD?
How much of the sentiment boils down to "those illegals are taking our jobs!"? How many people who hold that sentiment would actually want & take the job being filled by one of those immigrants? If their argument is instead that the illegal immigrant labor depresses wages for that set of jobs, how many of those people are willing to pay the extra cost for the products once the company paid fair market wages?
https://www.nytimes.com/article/nyc-migrant-crisis-explained...
What resource and logistical problem? The US isn't a command economy, and it's not a social welfare state that extends its largess to anyone within its borders that has a pulse.
Immigrants, legal or otherwise, have to earn their keep, same as everyone else. And there are no natural shortages of... Anything in the US.
Despite the castigation of Latin American immigrants as un American, Hispanics are quite patriotic and successful, even the ones who's families came here without documents
Trends matter. I think the US is today the best place in the world to be born in.
I have far less certainty for my grandchildren
Will that still be true for people born here fifty years from now? I have my doubts.
The number of opportunities in tech and the speed with which new ones arise can't be compared.
Look at the latest trend - AI. Not only did the initial boost come from openAI (US) its adoption by the biggest tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple etc - all American and all investing Billions.
But that's not even the most 'special' aspect of the US ( I'm sure SAP will jump in big into AI ) It's the hundreds of startups that are either starting or pivoting into the trend.
Now, this doesn't mean that this latest iteration of AI will be world-changing, it could turn out to be a complete bust. But it's this constant churn, the striving to be on the cutting edge, the rise and fall of dreams that makes the US 'special'.
I would never make the claim that the US is excellent in all. :)
Whether the same holds true for China is an interesting question. I've never worked with or visited China but I think there are differences. China certainly seems more 'innovative' when it comes to hardware, both physical infrastructure as well as manufacturing in general. Not so sure about software.
What you describe it is SV tech culture or start up culture in the US, which is focused on few spots. And not even all people there (e. g. Homeless people). This culture might be special but this isn't defitenly US because it is obviously not across this country.
Also I can tell you that in other countries and field of economics there is a certain sense of perfectionism or excellence e. G. In Germany or Japan or even Italy.
I guess why the Americans emphasise they are special because of economic growth is very clear: besides military there aren't many important areas where the US is good. This helps to feel "to be the best Country in the world", which is obviously wrong.
Also food: While other countries can compete on one of their native cuisines or many a few more, the US is pumping out top tier chefs in multiple areas.
Also universities: The massive amount of investment and R&D that comes out of these schools allows them to remain top of the pack.
Nope. You don't get the reason why these songs are played. It's more jazz in a lift, not good music. Let me introduce into techno culture.
"Also food: While other countries can compete on one of their native cuisines or many a few more, the US is pumping out top tier chefs in multiple areas." yThats sad about your lack of knowledge. May I introduce to this https://nerdyfoodies.com/countries-with-the-most-michelin-st... Germany alone has more stars than the whole US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Germany
The US is one of the most attractive places for capital in the world, which encourages a great deal of immigration to the US.
"Apathetic" is not really a word I'd use to describe most Americans I know, especially the working class. "Informed but powerless" is more like it. Nihilism is the likely result of this sort of learned helplessness from a lifetime growing up in an unresponsive democracy. From the get-go, our foundational systems emphasized wealth over democracy. It was a system designed to empower a certain type and class of people, to liberate them from the English Crown's influence, but not really a democracy for all. Through our history, we've consistently encouraged wealth creation and resource exploitation/monopolization over democratic participation, and where democratic advances were made, they happened against strong headwinds and strong oppression from the wealthy. Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners... this has never been a society friendly to the common person.
Nope, and in fact the American Dream is exactly this - it's saying that if you work hard / are lucky / have talents / have connections / have resources (the more you have the higher chances you have), you too can rise above the common person and join the ruling class of
> Slave owners, robber barons, industrialists, tech owners
Of course this is out of reach for most people, and for the vast majority of people, as soon as they climb out of the common class, they immediately look down upon the common people, since they are now above the peasants. This is human nature. Everyone who complains about the rich will do the same thing as the rich as soon as they become rich
> are lucky / have talents / have connections / have resources
The more of these you have, the higher your odds of success. Just hard work on its own, like you see, is not necessarily enough
— Thomas Jefferson
"It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is, in reality, the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society; the stationary is dull; the declining melancholy."
Not that it should come at the expense of exploitation, and Smith would likely agree. He was critical of rent seekers and slavery and was very much interested in the well being of common people.
His observation, I believe, it also applicable at a smaller scale when looking at companies. Growing companies are great to work for with lots of excitement, perks, and new opportunities, even for average or mediocre employees. Stagnant companies are difficult and melancholy, not much advancement, raises are small or non existent. Declining ones are miserable as everyone is fighting for survival.
America was not founded for the common people. It was founded by the exceptional people who risked everything to come to this hostile continent in search of freedom from oppression. Freedom from serfdom. Freedom from debt. Freedom from religious persecution. Freedom to live how they wanted to!
America's population has forgotten its morals and what it means to be American. We are like the fat people in wall-e floating in our bubble, complaining at our minor inconveniences, and not knowing where we're going. We are fucked unless we turn this ship around.
I don't really see this though replace nihilistic with narcissistic and you may be on to something. It's not a belief in nothing, it's a belief in "I."
We are losing the ability to disagree and still keep it civil for one because of identities being so tied to the -ism of the day and no one accepting that they may be wrong about something every once in a while.
The same drive to be independent and "self-made" is becoming a weakness. It's going to an extreme where every man is an island.
We live in a world where a large subset of people have fooled themselves into believing that there's some other place without problems. If where you live has any problems, then it must be an awful place to live - so their thinking goes.
This group, for whatever reason, don't seem to weigh the pros and cons of every other place and see that most places are either hardly any better or MUCH worse.
Italy, Spain, France, and England were great for hundreds of years before the US, and they're still pretty damn good - all things considered. The odds that the US goes from the global leader for two hundred years and turns to a sh*t-hole in our lifetimes is pretty unlikely.
But somehow ~40% of the country convinces themselves this is true based on who the current president is - and, honestly, it seems like not much else.
This reads like a straw man. Just because some place arguably has issues that does not mean that it it just as bad as the one you're living on, or that your life won't improve your life by adopting or emulating the good examples.
Healthcare is a great example. I'm convinced that the average US citizen has absolutely no idea of the critical positive impact on quality of life and well-being that socialized healthcare has on all citizens, directly and indirectly. It goes way deeper than not risking going bankrupt for being in a car accident, or being able to treat your nagging minor health issue without having to tap a credit line. It affects things like being confident that your loved ones will have all the care they need if something bad and unfortunate happens to them, regardless of who you are ir where your career is at the moment.
Just because you adopt a change doesn't mean you'll adopt an outcome.
Proposing sweeping changes is easy - making them work is hard and prone to making things even worse instead.
The US has the worse outcomes for the amount of money its Healthcare industry funnels in.
You don't adopt changes. You adopt or emulate good examples. This means processes, and the goal of processes is to deliver an outcome. It's not change for the sake of change.
Also, when a nation lags behind so much in a fundamental area, just taking a step in the right direction has a major positive impact on the quality of life of those affected by it. As a good example, see Obamacare.
Excepting refugees, AFAICT U.S. immigration policy purposely selects for people who have the ability, aspiration, and often wealth to be able to be able to successfully pass through the process.
So for any other given country, you could just as easily rephrase your question to ask whether that given country's problems are the result of apathy/nihilism/etc. of the majority of people who don't end up emigrating to the U.S.
To me that seems like a fatuous question. If you think the same, then realize it's no less fatuous than the one you asked.
Edit: Hm... maybe "fatuous" is the wrong word. To me it just seems like a very general question about human civilization masquerading as a question about a specific country's population. I think there's a name for this when it comes up in say, a debate, but I can't remember what it is.