# Can America Learn From Other Countries **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2013, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326 "2013-05-25T16:38:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/61 "2013-05-27T06:40:10Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > I went to High School and College in the US. Straight As in American History, Civics and a combined History/Politics/Humanities Gifted program. I have since spent forty years reading, among other subjects, many books on US History and Governance. Congratulations? ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/62 "2013-05-27T11:33:07Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > When did the UK cease to be a part of Western Europe? > **Dissonance** thinks **SecretaryofEvil** described what **Pjen** is doing far more eloquently than he could find the words for; **Pjen** is being passively aggressively jingoistic. **Dissonance** doesn’t think Europeans are inherently superior to Americans or vice versa, much less that there is a racial explanation for this superiority that he doesn’t think exists seeing as how much of America derived from Europe. **Dissonance** would also take it as a kindness to be asked directly rather than in third person as he is not royalty. The UK is geographically part of Europe, but has a different common law tradition. But of course you knew that and were just splitting hairs! ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/63 "2013-05-27T11:34:43Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Congratulations? Just pointing out that I was not as described in the post I was replying to. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/64 "2013-05-27T12:20:20Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Now you just need for profit healthcare, **horrible reality TV** , and millions of soul destroying strip malls. Horrible reality TV was invented in Europe. In the Netherlands, more specifically. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/65 "2013-05-27T12:38:59Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > The problem with a lot of Europeans who like to suggest how American can do things is that they don’t really understand how America works. They think they know all about America but the knowledge they possess is often superficial. They don’t understand how the Federal government works, the relationship between the Feds and state governments, the culture, the cultural differences between regions or our history. There are two other things that can tend to mitigate European (or elsewhere) solutions to problems working well in America. One is that we’re not nearly so ethnically homogenous as most European countries- most of them have both a dominant racial type and (probably more importantly) a dominant nationality. It’s a lot easier to get everyone on board with more socialist/collectivist policies when you’re basically appealing to one ethnic group and people with a shared cultural background and values. It’s a lot harder when you’re doing it in the US with essentially 2 major minority groups (black & hispanic) that are ethnically, culturally and economically distinguished from the white majority. So what works for them often is seen as detrimental to the white majority, and vice-versa. Second, the US has a history of being an early-adopter of many technologies; it was frustrating in graduate school to hear European, African and Middle Eastern students bitching about the US cell phone system and how we were so backward; the fact was that we implemented cell phone service (not necessarily widespread) before most other countries, so at the time, we were wrestling with legacy technology, instead of just implementing state-of-the art like most of them had in the past few years. It’s easy to say “Well the Europeans do it better.” when they’ve piggybacked off of what the US did earlier and harder… ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/66 "2013-05-27T12:53:08Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Just pointing out that I was not as described in the post I was replying to. Okay. The only part of the post that was specifically about you was your misunderstanding of what American Exceptionalism is. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/67 "2013-05-27T15:10:04Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Horrible reality TV was invented in Europe. In the Netherlands, more specifically. No no no! That wasn’t reality-tv, it just looked that way because the Dutch have such terrific actors. Really! We have nothing to do with that, honest. I’m not even Dutch. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/68 "2013-05-27T16:25:20Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The UK is geographically part of Europe, but has a different common law tradition. But of course you knew that and were just splitting hairs! Whereas all Western European countries share one single common law tradition? You know, the one with [QUOTE=Pjen] considerably less harsh sentences and conditions and considerably increased rehabilitation and resocialization. [/quote] I’ll have to send a note to Generalissimo Francisco Franco about this, but crap he’s still dead. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/69 "2013-05-27T18:43:12Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > When I say that the Rule of Law controls the mob, I mean that if the common person takes justice into their own hands, they will be met with the full force of the law for both their assumption of powers reserved to the State and the crimes they committed doing that. The premise of the other thread was that the “Rule of Law” was absent in Britain, that British authorities could not protect an individual from vigilante murder. Those challenging you were skeptical of that claim. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/70 "2013-05-27T18:54:22Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Very aware and very critical. So why single out the U.S., using examples in history, as you did in the previous thread? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/71 "2013-05-27T20:39:05Z")
Let me ask you something else - plenty of American murderers have been released from prison without any particular police protection or identity changes. How many have been killed by angry mobs? ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/72 "2013-05-27T22:27:21Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Let me ask you something else - plenty of American murderers have been released from prison without any particular police protection or identity changes. How many have been killed by angry mobs? Plenty of English murderers have been released with no problem. The important question is how many publicly vilified celebrity killers have been killed in revenge attacks, and what was the legal response. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/73 "2013-05-27T22:28:48Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > So why single out the U.S., using examples in history, as you did in the previous thread? :dubious: Because I was replying to someone posting about the American situation. ---
**Author:** ![Enocavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e480ec/32.png) [@Enocavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enocavy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/74 "2013-05-28T02:41:59Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Is the only knowledge worth having that of a particular nationality. Of course not, America can learn from both the good and bad that occurs in other lands. > [@](#): > > Or is this an American Board for Americans? Nope. It’s a board for America-firsters, Americans ashamed of their country and eager to agree with any foreign criticism, foreign posters with thoughtful questions about the U.S., and foreigners jealous of U.S. influence and having an ax to grind over the course of repetitive denunciations. Incidentally, I doubt Pjen has spent significant time in the United States, based on his laughably simplistic and outmoded stereotypes of Americans. I think he gets all his information from sources like the Guardian and dubious xenophobic websites, which he swallows uncritically. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/75 "2013-05-28T05:19:37Z")
> [@Enocavy](#): > > Of course not, America can learn from both the good and bad that occurs in other lands.Nope. > > It’s a board for America-firsters, Americans ashamed of their country and eager to agree with any foreign criticism, foreign posters with thoughtful questions about the U.S., and foreigners jealous of U.S. influence and having an ax to grind over the course of repetitive denunciations. > > Incidentally, I doubt Pjen has spent significant time in the United States, based on his laughably simplistic and outmoded stereotypes of Americans. I think he gets all his information from sources like the Guardian and dubious xenophobic websites, which he swallows uncritically. I spent my high school and college years in California, and have returned every few years to vacation and visit with friends- recently since retiring, every other year. There last October. Back next month for my 45 year High School reunion. The only simplistic statement I can see that I have made is specifically quoting the more negative side of American exceptionalism. Other than that I have been attacked with straw man arguments for things I have note siad. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/76 "2013-05-28T07:24:14Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Plenty of English murderers have been released with no problem. > > The important question is how many publicly vilified celebrity killers have been killed in revenge attacks, and what was the legal response. So? Show me the numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/77 "2013-05-28T08:20:03Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The only simplistic statement I can see that I have made is specifically quoting the more negative side of American exceptionalism. Other than that I have been attacked with straw man arguments for things I have note siad. Get off the cross, we need it for firewood. When I took you to task for misusing the term ‘concentration camp’ to describe Gitmo and how no European nation would allow such an obvious concentration camp as Gitmo was I 1) making a straw man for something you didn’t say 2) taking a cheap shot as you called it or 3) telling you that you were using the term ‘concentration camp’ entirely incorrectly to describe Gitmo and at the same time being ironically unaware that the concept of a concentration camp was a European invention dating through Spanish use of them in their attempt to suppress rebellion in Cuba, British use of them in the Boer War, and the far more widely known use of them in Nazi Germany first to place political dissidents and racial undesirables, and their later supplementation with extermination camps in order to conduct industrial scale genocide. Seeing as you stopped trying to defend your foolish use of the term concentration camp, I suspect that even you know the answer is 3). So much for the idea no European nation would allow such a horrible thing as a concentration camp to occur. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/78 "2013-05-28T08:53:06Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Get off the cross, we need it for firewood. When I took you to task for misusing the term ‘concentration camp’ to describe Gitmo and how no European nation would allow such an obvious concentration camp as Gitmo was I 1) making a straw man for something you didn’t say 2) taking a cheap shot as you called it or 3) telling you that you were using the term ‘concentration camp’ entirely incorrectly to describe Gitmo and at the same time being ironically unaware that the concept of a concentration camp was a European invention dating through Spanish use of them in their attempt to suppress rebellion in Cuba, British use of them in the Boer War, and the far more widely known use of them in Nazi Germany first to place political dissidents and racial undesirables, and their later supplementation with extermination camps in order to conduct industrial scale genocide. > > Seeing as you stopped trying to defend your foolish use of the term concentration camp, I suspect that even you know the answer is 3). So much for the idea no European nation would allow such a horrible thing as a concentration camp to occur. You are mistaking the term- Gitmo is a concentration camp- it rounds up various people seen as a threat to the state and holds them beyond the rule of law. If ir=t quacks like a duck… As you see, I have not dropped the use of the term. I just ignored your special pleading as not worthy of a reply. No current European nation could get away with such a thing under the ECHR. Unlike the US where the constitution has been bent by political opportunists. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/79 "2013-05-28T08:58:45Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So? Show me the numbers. I don’t know. I do know that there have been very heavy sentences in the UK and the police assiduously investigate any vigilante justice. However: [http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/ca-pedophile-suspect-lured-beaten-by.html#.UaRxaUCko0M](http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/ca-pedophile-suspect-lured-beaten-by.html#.UaRxaUCko0M) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-america-learn-from-other-countries/659326/80 "2013-05-28T18:12:22Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > You are mistaking the term- Gitmo is a concentration camp- it rounds up various people seen as a threat to the state and holds them beyond the rule of law. If ir=t quacks like a duck… > > As you see, I have not dropped the use of the term. I just ignored your special pleading as not worthy of a reply. > > No current European nation could get away with such a thing under the ECHR. Unlike the US where the constitution has been bent by political opportunists. Well, we can add willfully ignorant to the list of your qualities and ‘special pleading’ to the list of actions you make up your opponents doing to you. Let’s take a quick look at the history of concentration camps, shall we? [Spanish reconcentrados is Cuba:](http://academic2.american.edu/~wjc/spanish4.htm) > [@](#): > > The Cuban insurgents were loosely organized into small, roving bands that generally avoided pitched battles. In response to the guerrilla tactics, Spain imposed a controversial and ill-advised policy. It sought to deprive the insurgents of supplies and logistical support from the countryside by ordering Cuban non-combatants into garrison towns. The policy—enacted by the Spanish Governor-General, Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, in February 1896—was known as “reconcentration.” It became a humanitarian and public relations disaster. The reconcentrados , the Cuban non-combatants, were badly cared for and suffered greatly. Tens of thousands of them fell ill and died. The plight of the reconcentrados were thoroughly—and at times extravagantly—reported in American newspapers, many of which took to calling Weyler “the Butcher.” One historian has perceptively written that the mistreatment of the Cubans may have done more to bring about war with Spain “than anything else the Spanish could have done.” [Boer War concentration camps](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Boer_War#Concentration_camps_.281900.E2.80.931902.29): > [@](#): > > The term “concentration camp” was used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during this conflict, and the term grew in prominence during this period. > > The camps had originally been set up by the British army as “refugee camps” to provide refuge for civilian families who had been forced to abandon their homes for whatever reason related to the war. However, when Kitchener succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa on 29 November 1900, the British army introduced new tactics in an attempt to break the guerrilla campaign and the influx of civilians grew dramatically as a result. Kitchener initiated plans to > > flush out guerrillas in a series of systematic drives, organised like a sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly ‘bag’ of killed, captured and wounded, and to sweep the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children… It was the clearance of civilians—uprooting a whole nation—that would come to dominate the last phase of the war.[45] > > As Boer farms were destroyed by the British under their “Scorched Earth” policy—including the systematic destruction of crops and slaughtering of livestock, the burning down of homesteads and farms, and the poisoning of wells and salting of fields—to prevent the Boers from resupplying from a home base many tens of thousands of women and children were forcibly moved into the concentration camps. This was not the first appearance of internment camps. The Spanish had used internment in the Ten Years’ War that led to the Spanish-American War, and the United States had used them to devastate guerrilla forces during the Philippine-American War. But the Boer War concentration camp system was the first time that a whole nation had been systematically targeted, and the first in which some whole regions had been depopulated. > > Eventually, there were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children. Over 26,000 women and children were to perish in these concentration camps.[46] > > The camps were poorly administered from the outset and became increasingly overcrowded when Kitchener’s troops implemented the internment strategy on a vast scale. Conditions were terrible for the health of the internees, mainly due to neglect, poor hygiene and bad sanitation. The supply of all items was unreliable, partly because of the constant disruption of communication lines by the Boers. The food rations were meager and there was a two-tier allocation policy, whereby families of men who were still fighting were routinely given smaller rations than others. The inadequate shelter, poor diet, inadequate hygiene and overcrowding led to malnutrition and endemic contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and dysentery to which the children were particularly vulnerable. An additional problem was the Boers’ use of traditional medicines like a cow-dung poultice for skin diseases and crushed insects for convulsions.[47] Coupled with a shortage of modern medical facilities, many of the internees died. [Nazi Konzentrationslager](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps) > [@](#): > > The first Nazi concentration camps were hastily erected in Germany in February 1933 immediately after Hitler became Chancellor and his NSDAP was given control over the police through Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick and Prussian Acting Interior Minister Hermann Göring.[1] Used to hold and torture political opponents and union organizers, the camps held around 45,000 prisoners by 1933 and were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of that year.[2] > > Only about 3,000 inmates remained in the camps when in 1934–35 Heinrich Himmler’s SS took full control of the police and concentration camps throughout Germany. It was then that Hitler allowed Himmler to start using the camps’ facilities and personnel to purge German society of so-called “racially undesirable elements” such as Jews, criminals, homosexuals, and Romani people. [Nazi Extermination camps](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp): > [@](#): > > The terms extermination camp (Vernichtungslager) and death camp (Todeslager) are interchangeable usages, each referring to camps whose primary function was genocide, not for punishing crime or containing political prisoners, but for the systematic killing of the prisoners delivered there. So tell me, how is calling your use of the term concentration camp to describe Gitmo ‘special pleading,’ and if you have not dropped the use of the term, why did you drop using the term? And if you felt my special pleading was not worthy of a reply, why did you in fact [reply](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16320986&postcount=25) in some bizarre rant about American evils? I think the kindest term for the way you act would be _unreliable narrator_. 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