# U.S. v European politics **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 25, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631 "2012-01-25T20:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/21 "2012-01-27T06:46:59Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > It seems that the population density in the UK & most of Europe is similar to US urban areas. If you add the qualifier “continental” to “Europe”, you _may_ be right. However, the [population density](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density) of the Nordic countries (except Denmark) is markedly lower than the US national average, and those countries are generally slightly left-leaning by European standards. I’d say that your hypothesis seems to fail. The numbers: USA: 32 /km2 Sweden: 21 Norway: 13 Finland: 16 Iceland: 3.1 ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/22 "2012-01-27T08:09:16Z")
Australia & New Zealand aren’t in Europe. But we have European **values** , I guess you could say. It’s pretty much the USA versus the entire rest of the developed world, you know. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/23 "2012-01-27T08:22:26Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > There is not as much difference as you might think, although we in America are puzzled by your willingness to put up with gun control and attendant massive crime rates. massive crime rates - where? And I never understand the ‘USA vs. Europe’ thing either. A better comparison is USA vs. the rest of the developed/first world - which more properly includes several Asian and Commonwealth countries. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/24 "2012-01-27T08:52:26Z")
In the Netherlands, we generally have more and more powerful loonies on the left side of the political spectrum, while in the US it seems the more widespread and more influential madness is on the right side. My explanation is that both groups are fueled by religion, an ideological belief. They just happen to be (historicaly grown) different beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/25 "2012-01-27T09:17:19Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > massive crime rates - where? It’s just a classic example of what we (in Europe) perceive about US politics – never let the facts get in the way of a good scare tactic. So no guns means massive crime rates, universal healthcare means death lists, gay marriage means we’ll all want to marry our dogs etc etc. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/26 "2012-01-27T09:26:42Z")
It’s pretty bizarre. Maybe it also feeds into justifying why the USA holds 25% of all prisoners in the world. It really is some fucked up shit over there. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/27 "2012-01-27T10:42:05Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > It seems that the population density in the UK & most of Europe is similar to US urban areas > [@Norse](#): > > If you add the qualifier “continental” to “Europe”, you _may_ be right. However, the [population density](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density) of the Nordic countries (except Denmark) is markedly lower than the US national average, and those countries are generally slightly left-leaning by European standards. > > I’d say that your hypothesis seems to fail. > > The numbers: > USA: 32 /km2 > Sweden: 21 > Norway: 13 > Finland: 16 > Iceland: 3.1 Did you miss the words “urban area” in my post? ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/28 "2012-01-27T11:10:51Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Did you miss the words “urban area” in my post? No, I did not. Give me a cite showing that the population density of US urban areas is 10-20 persons/km2 (the average pop. density of the Nordic countries minus Denmark), and I’ll concede to your hypothesis. Until then, I uphold my claim that your hypothesis fails. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/29 "2012-01-27T12:22:42Z")
Basically the rest of the developed world is snickering in embarrassed horror at the US. ---
**Author:** ![polar\_bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/30 "2012-01-27T12:35:48Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > In the Netherlands, we generally have more and more powerful loonies on the left side of the political spectrum, while in the US it seems the more widespread and more influential madness is on the right side. > > My explanation is that both groups are fueled by religion, an ideological belief. They just happen to be (historicaly grown) different beliefs. Well this says more about your personal political views than anything else. But let’s agree that the biggest looney party calls him self ‘very rightwing’ and is the SGP (orthodox christians). For the rest it depends on how you define left/right. Economics, Immigration, Social security etc. Some very different distributions for each of these. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/31 "2012-01-27T23:09:40Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > Basically the rest of the developed world is snickering in embarrassed horror at the US. Is that true or hyperbole? I wouldn’t be surprised, but I have heard that more than once. The attitudes about government, plutocracy and the inherit worth of citizens ‘seem’ to be more humane in other OECD nations than they do here. But again, a person can’t lump all OECD nations together, and I’m sure there are exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/32 "2012-01-28T07:49:01Z")
It’s half and half. The people who watch a movie, believe the invented parts (“in the US, DNA tests take five minutes”) and disbelieve real ones (“in the US there are large amounts of people with no medical insurance”) think you guys are The Guys With The Mostest. Those of us who have less Hollywoodized views… I would have said amazed horror. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/33 "2012-01-28T08:33:35Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Is that true or hyperbole? I wouldn’t be surprised, but I have heard that more than once. The attitudes about government, plutocracy and the inherit worth of citizens ‘seem’ to be more humane in other OECD nations than they do here. But again, a person can’t lump all OECD nations together, and I’m sure there are exceptions. Well, the headlines we get about US politics do look pretty horrific to be truthful. What’s with all the God crap? And the blocking of good bills just because they’re proposed by The Other Party? Politics in the US seems to get in the way of actually getting anything done. And the GOP sound like extremists. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/34 "2012-01-28T09:05:05Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Well, the headlines we get about US politics do look pretty horrific to be truthful. What’s with all the God crap? And the blocking of good bills just because they’re proposed by The Other Party? Politics in the US seems to get in the way of actually getting anything done. And the GOP sound like extremists. I think this is one of the things that people existing only within the context of the US don’t get. In terms of the US, the left/right divide, while blurry, includes a left that’s not so left and a right that’s _very_ right - in the context of the rest of the developed world. If you compare the size of the entire developed world\* (population ~1.3 billion) to that of the US (population ~312 million), then look at the support for the kind of policies espoused by the GOP in that context, you will find that the GOP is not only on the very far right of the bell curve of attitudes, but that the proportion of people who would get behind those attitudes is tiny. Of course there are outliers in the group on individual issues: bellicosity (Israel), gun ownership (Switzerland), death penalty (Japan, Singapore), influenced by the crazy religious (Israel), very low capital gains tax (Hong Kong); but _all_ the other countries in the developed world have some form of state-funded medicine, have stronger regulatory controls on big business, and their governments acknowledge anthropogenic climate change. The proportion of the populations of non-US developed countries that would support _all_ the right-wing positions of the GOP is vanishingly small. Which, incidentally, irritates me when people speak in a blinkered manner purely from within the context of US politics and label the international media as ‘liberal’. No: it is in fact the rest of the developed world that appears ‘liberal’ to you, because you are in fact an extreme outlier. \*Included: EU, USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, NZ, Norway, Switzerland, Israel, Argentina, Singapore, Hong Kong. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/35 "2012-01-28T12:52:47Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Well, the headlines we get about US politics do look pretty horrific to be truthful. What’s with all the God crap? And the blocking of good bills just because they’re proposed by The Other Party? Politics in the US seems to get in the way of actually getting anything done. And the GOP sound like extremists. And those bills mixing, say, SSM with the budget for school cafeterias. Bwuh? I think it’s the only country where bills can mix two or more completely-different issues! Two of my father’s brothers are lawyers. When one of my cousins mentioned that and I confirmed it, they didn’t completely disbelieve us “because well, I know you two are trustworthy”, but they also didn’t completely believe us until they’d verified it. One of them still gets cross-eyed thinking of it. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/36 "2012-01-28T17:21:37Z")
One thing that confuses me about US politics is the power… and weakness of the President. One the one hand, the President seems hampered from pushing through his politic agenda when the Senate? Congress? is in political opposition to him, and yet on the other hand he (and state governors) have the power of veto, unilaterally striking down any legislation they don’t like, which seems almost undemocratic. It’s sort of the other way around in the UK. The Prime Minister can achieve a lot, as he has his position by virtue of being leader of the largest block of MPs in Parliament who will mostly vote in favour of his proposals, but he doesn’t have the power of vetoing any Acts he doesn’t like. In theory, the Queen has that power, but since no Monarch has vetoed an Act of Parliament since 1707, I think we can disregard that to all intents and purposes. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/37 "2012-01-28T18:45:15Z")
puddleglum, your post isn’t wrong exactly, but… > [@puddleglum](#): > > This is a vast oversimplification. For example France banned wearing the Burqa last year. There is no movement for such a ban in America. There might be were we next to N. Africa. > [@](#): > > The tax systems in most european countries is much less progressive than in the US because of sales taxes such as the VAT, yet most of the talk of adding a VAT in the US is on the left. Kind of proves the OP’s point, that our “left” is rightish. > [@](#): > > The corporate taxes are much lower in most of Europe than in the US. That’s one thing. But upper marginal personal income taxes are lower in the US. > [@](#): > > In the US the government spends 50% of health care spending funded by taxation, and doesn’t cover the people who pay into it. > [@](#): > > Social Security is the equivalent of a national pension and is funded by taxation. specifically a payroll tax, which was used to supplement the general fund for twenty years, and now our right wing is freaking out at the need to raise general-fund revenues and pay it back, to the point of trying to (illegally, per the Fourteenth Amendment) default on our debt. So there is some weirdness on our right wing there. I don’t know if Europeans would try that. > [@](#): > > We have PBS a national radio and TV broadcaster which is funded by taxation. largely funded by viewer donations, actually. > [@](#): > > Gas taxes are almost 3 times the number you cited when you factor in state taxes, and that does not include sales tax. Most states have a personal property tax which people have to pay to own a car. And that makes up, “$3.43 basic, plus 20% extra tax, plus a vehicle usage tax - compared to $0.18 on US petrol”? My property tax on my car last time I paid it cost less than a tank of gas–for the whole year. > [@](#): > > There is not as much difference as you might think, although we in America are puzzled by your willingness to put up with gun control and attendant massive crime rates. This has been demolished upthread. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/38 "2012-01-28T18:51:42Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Well, the headlines we get about US politics do look pretty horrific to be truthful. What’s with all the God crap? And the blocking of good bills just because they’re proposed by The Other Party? Politics in the US seems to get in the way of actually getting anything done. And the GOP sound like extremists. This way of doing business came in with Newt Gingrich, who has probably done us a favor by running for President 14 years after his political career ended, so everyone who ever had to work with him can point out what a useless jackass he is. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/39 "2012-01-28T18:58:44Z")
**SanVito** -In regards to Presidential vetoes (and guberntorial FTM)-A 2/3 vote overrides the veto. (It may be, and probably is, 2/3 at the state level as well). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631/40 "2012-01-28T19:06:28Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And those bills mixing, say, SSM with the budget for school cafeterias. Bwuh? I think it’s the only country where bills can mix two or more completely-different issues! > > Two of my father’s brothers are lawyers. When one of my cousins mentioned that and I confirmed it, they didn’t completely disbelieve us “because well, I know you two are trustworthy”, but they also didn’t completely believe us until they’d verified it. One of them still gets cross-eyed thinking of it. Just one more reason I wish we could peel off part of the USA and put it under the mandate of, say, Spain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-v-european-politics/610631.md?page=3)